Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Cinematographer Anil Mehta recently revisited the shoot of ‘Lagaan’s’ climax cricket match. On the first day of the 30-day-long shoot, Mehta walked up to Aamir Khan and told him that his suggestions wouldn’t work for the scene. During the shoot, he kept reminding director Ashutosh Gowariker’s team, that they were shooting for a movie and not covering a sports event.
advertisement
Speaking to Film Companion, Mehta recalled Aamir’s suggestion, “He said, ‘Now that we have the booklet. We can keep bringing the batsman one by one and you keep shooting. We would know when they hit a six or a four!'” Mehta followed Aamir’s suggestion on the first day of the shoot, but later he went up to Aamir, and told him, “This is not how it is going to work. I can’t do this coverage.”
The National Award-winning cinematographer added, “If I am shooting a drama, it must look like that. When Bhuvan (Aamir’s character) is batting, I wanted to be up and close to him. When Kachra (Aaditya Lakhia) is batting, the emotions need to translate onto the screen. The emotions of each character were different. I shot Kachra with a zoom lens because it was so unsettling given that he was differently-abled, and he couldn’t find the right posture to lift his bat. So, every batsman and bowler had to be shot according to the character.”
Watch the climax scene of ‘Lagaan’ here:
In ‘Lagaan’s‘ climax scene, a bunch of Indian villagers are pitched against a team of Englishmen to save their taxes.
Mehta said it was “exhausting” to shoot the climax of ‘Lagaan’. “We shot for 30 days. Doing the same scene over and over again gets monotonous and tedious.” Also, Gowariker had promised a booklet to Mehta which would contain details about how the “crucial” cricket matches would be shot in the film. But that booklet was “never written till a day or two before” the scenes were shot.
Before the film’s team went on floor with the climax scene, they sat in the hotel room for a couple of days. “The whole crew was sitting in the hotel. We took a break of two days to write the scene and discuss ball by ball account of this match (climax match),” said Mehta, while adding that he put his foot down and disagreed with the suggestion of an eight-camera setup for the climax match.
“It’s not sports coverage. It’s still a drama, right? That conversation we had early in the room. Finally, the scene was shot with just two cameras. We kept reinforcing on ourselves that we are not doing sports coverage. We are doing a scene in a film,” Mehta concluded.
Released on June 15, 2001, ‘Lagaan’ was a major hit. It is still regarded as an important milestone in the history of Hindi cinema. However, the film missed out on winning an Oscar after scoring a nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Must Watch
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
