What do second films of Bollywood filmmakers say

With Queen, filmmaker Vikas Bahl ushered in a new kind of storytelling and even created a fresh standard vis-à-vis women-centric films in Hindi cinema. With such credentials, it was only natural to have sky-high expectations from the filmmaker’s follow-up, Shaandaar, but if the writer-director created something new with his debut, he ended up upholding a rather strange Bollywood tradition. Many popular Hindi filmmakers whose debuts are either commercial or critical successes more often than not end up making a hash of their second film. Bahl joined a long list of filmmakers such as Sujoy Ghosh, Kabeer Kaushik, Vikramaditya Motwane, Abhinav Kashyap, Abbas Tyrewala, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Siddharth Anand and Nikhil Advani to name a few, whose second film was a such a marked departure that many wondered if it was the same filmmaker who made the two films.

There is a great romance surrounding a debut film and many a times it’s said that as a filmmaker ends up giving a bit of his/her soul, debut films are a true reflection of the person who makes it. But if scratched a little it’s quite often the second film that truly reveals a filmmaker’s prowess and especially if the debut was a success. Irrespective of the fact that however personal a first film could be, on most instances it still displays traits of being somewhat formulaic. Debutant filmmakers tend to follow a template with the intention of breaking or rejigging it to the extent that it appears “same-same but different”, and if successful, this immediately makes them stand apart. Take for instance a Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, a Maine Pyar Kiya, a Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and you would see that the narrative follows a story as old as the hills, but a new delivery mechanism and fresh approach of trying to tell the same story made all the difference. Similarly many first films in popular Hindi cinema try to see the same scenery in a new light rather than make something totally new as in the case of Jhankaar Beats, Haasil, Udaan, Khosla Ka Ghosla and Kal Ho Na Ho. The unbridled success of debut films, many of them that are made under both visible and invisible constraints and pressures that often force a compromise of vision, brings a sense of freedom that allows these filmmakers to get away with just about anything under the sun.

Also read: Shaandaar is so bad, it is a spit in the face of Bollywood

But more than a carte blanche the film post a successful debut allows the filmmaker to make the film he/she always wanted to make. In the context of Hindi cinema, this is best illustrated by Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Hum Aapke Hai Kaun, Mohabbatein, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. There is more of Mansoor Khan in JJWS when compared to QSQT and Sooraj Barjatya finds himself more comfortable in the world of HAHK as opposed to the universe he created in Maine Pyar Kiya. The case becomes more acute when one looks at the works of Sujoy Ghosh (Jhankaar Beats and Home Delivery), Dibakar Banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!), Kabeer Kaushik (Sehar and Chamku), Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday and No Smoking)*, Tigmanshu Dhulia (Haasil and Charas), Siddharth Anand (Salaam-Namaste and Ta-Ra-Rum-Pum), Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya) and Abbas Tyrewala (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and Jhoota Hi Sahi). There are some more instances where the first film wasn’t a huge success but its acceptability in one form or the other allowed the second to display the filmmaker’s preferences when it came to storytelling – Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Khamoshi: The Musical and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) and Vishal Bhardwaj (Makdee and Maqbool).

Mani Ratnam once told someone this writer knew that the difference between the first and the second film was simply that during the former everyone thinks that the filmmaker knows nothing and with the second the filmmaker believes that only he knows everything. The success of debut films gets them a carte blanche but sometimes the spotlight, the ballooned budgets and most importantly the liberty to do anything largely works against the filmmaker as seen in Lootera, Vikramaditya Motwane’s follow-up to Udaan, or Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades, which benefited from the platform that Gowariker found himself post-Lagaan.

This all-round freedom thanks to a fantastic debut is a nasty double-edged sword that has hurt some filmmakers like Abhinav Kashyap. The first image of Besharam that Kashyap decided to show the world that had held its breath for what the man who made Dabangg had to offer next was Ranbir Kapoor, one of the most popular Hindi film stars, in a mustard field, a la Shah Rukh Khan from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge but urinating while humming one of Bollywood’s most identifiable themes, bared what Kashyap really thought of Bollywood. Years ago when back-to-back big productions like Raging Bull and King of Comedy made Martin Scorsese complacent, the legendary filmmaker decided to direct the small-budget After Hours that would be shot during nights on the streets of New York as an exercise to not just push himself but also get his hands dirty again, when it came to filmmaking, how he once knew. The lack of a comfort zone that prompts artists to come up with their best possible output is the first casualty of success and sometimes filmmakers must remember to push the limits and not their luck.

*As Paanch, which would have ideally been Kashyap’s debut film was never released, Black Friday is considered to the filmmaker’s debut.