Nayakan 1987, a powerful story about the rise of Varadarajan Mudaliar an underworld don in Mumbai’s seamy streets was the movie that earned him accolades and was deservedly cited in Time Magazine’s 100 greatest films of all time but perhaps Ratnam’s greatest influence in Hindi cinema was Bombay 1995, Made in Tamil dubbed in Hindi, and written in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai riots of 1993, it was a controversial film which showed mainstream Bollywood there was an audience for contemporary issue and that not everyone wanted to admire lehngas and do bhangras. The movie was enormously controversial in its treatment of Hindu-Mulim riots. While some felt it was too simplistic others thought Ratnam was taking sides. But for Ratnam the movie was a powerful indictment of violence and the result of hours of interviews of journalists survivors and policemen that he had conducted himself Ratnam’s personal and political has not always got him rewards at the box-office in Iruvar Twins 1997, another barely veiled biopic this time of South Indian politician M. G. Ramachandran and M. Karunanidhi, Ratnam painted a spectacular story weaving politics cinema and caste and caster war. In Roja 1992, he made a searing statement on patriotism catching the first stirring of liberalized India’s growing self-assertion which eventually found an expression I the election of the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party to lead a coalition at the Center for six years.
Ratnam’s nineteen-film-strong career which began in 1983, with the unusual Kannada Language romance Pallavi Anu Pallavi starring Munbai actor Anil Kapoor has launched talents which have stood Hindi cinema in good stead. He discovered A. R. Rehman in 1991, when he was just a composer of advertising jingles. He allowed free reign to cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran’s creativity with the master colourist then working with practically every well-known director in Bollywood, from Sanjay Leela Bhansali to Rakesh Roshan to Farham Akhtar. Ratnam works with a devoted team of technicians who understand his iaconic demands and producer most of his directorial ventures through the company he co-founded with his late brother G. Srinivasan. Given his international critical credibility he has always been encouraged to make a crossover film, but these are labels he doesn’t particularly care for. All want is to make a film he says Film Making for him is a collaborative process. For Guru for instance he worked with three writers Anurag Kashyap and then Vijay Krishna and sujata his long time assistant and with the star Abhishek Bachchan background work is an important part of the film making process. As he says Research for any film is done so that you as a film maker are confident about your knowledge regarding the subject the period and the geography ’After that it is just your story.
