Filmmaker Ramgopal Varma's latest outing 'Rann' is an attempt to expose the true colours of the media, but the maverick director says he did not make the film to deliver any message to the society.
"Through the characters and drama quotients, I am telling a story. And there could be a message underlined in the context of that story. But the primary intention of making this film is to tell a story and not to deliver any message," Varma told PTI in an interview.
Giving the example of his other films, he said even the 1998 hit 'Satya', portrayed crime and violence.
"But that does not mean that the intention of the film was to give that message of violence," he told PTI in an interview.
According to him, the Amitabh Bachchan starrer, which takes a hard look at the highly competitive world of television news reporting in India, is not preachy either.
"To tell people what they already know is preachy, but 'Rann' tells something which they don't know so it won't be coming in that category," Varma said.
Set against the political backdrop of Delhi, 'Rann' releasing January 29, has an ensemble cast of Amitabh Bachchan along with Riteish Deshmukh, Gul Panag, Suchitra Krishnamoorthy and Neetu Chandra. Describing the theme of the film in one-line, RGV, as he is known as in the industry, said: "If the media exposes everything, 'Rann' exposes the media".
When asked what made him take a break from horror and underworld films and chose a theme that is rarely projected on the celluloid, he said he wanted to expose the inside story of the media, which has a huge influence on our lives.
"Media is such an integral part of our life. From the moment you wake up in the morning, it keeps telling you what's happening around the world and how you should think about it. I thought a story on what goes on behind the scenes would be an interesting one to make," the producer-director said.
'Rann' is probably the first of its kind where it takes a hard look at the inner workings of the objectives of the people who run the media channels, he added.
On his research work to understand the functioning of the media, Verma said he was 100 per cent inspired on real life functioning of television news media while writing the script.
"In the course of my stay in the industry for the last 20 years, I have met a lot of journalists. But the biggest research I did was to watch news channels," he said.
The director said that research was needed primarily on the psychological aspects of media men.
"We needed to analyse the psychological aspects of the man who is in a position to tell news in a certain dramatic way to millions of people. We needed to know what kind of a man he is what is his objective behind telling the news in a certain way," Varma said.
Did his relation with the Big B suffered after 'Ramgopal Varma Ki Aaag' bombed at the box-office in 2007?
"We both did the film together so he knows how the film was made. He can't have anything against me because he knows the process, how it went about. After that, he has also done two films with me," Varma said.
The director also rejected reports that it is his way of teaching media a lesson after being at the receiving end of it often.
"I am not trying to generalise the media, as it is a system. One can only criticise some of the them, and not everyone," he said.
RGV, who has made films across multiple genres, is best known for 'Rangeela', 'Satya', 'Company', 'Bhoot' and Sarkar'. PTI
