Vidhu Vinod Chopra on ‘12th Fail,’ why he cast Vikrant Massey, and Ingmar Bergman’s three commandments
The HinduRomantic idealism is what defines Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Chopra swears by Swedish great Ingmar Bergman’s three commandments on filmmaking: “Thou shalt be entertaining, thou shalt obey thy artistic consciousness at all times, and thou shalt make each film as if it is thy last. This film is about our lives; yours and mine,” says Chopra as we strike up a conversation on the moving account of Manoj Kumar Sharma, a real-life officer of the Indian Police Service, who cracked the country’s most difficult exam, overcoming unimaginable odds without letting them dent the pride in his honesty. “This story not only needed to be told, but also had to be expressed in a pure way to not look or sound filmy,” says Chopra, explaining his motivation to helm a film, eight years after his last directorial Broken Horses in 2015. I could have made more instalments of the Munnabhai series, but instead I gave four years to 12th Fail.” He goes on to underline that he hasn’t sold the film to any OTT platform yet.