It’s amazing for me the sheer number of people the way they remember the impact that “Shiva” had on them. Recently I was travelling from Hyderabad to Vizag and after a few minutes into the flight the passenger next to me asked me who I was as he felt that I looked familiar. When I told him I am a filmmaker he exclaimed, “Of course you are Ramgopal Varma.”
For the rest of the journey he told me in detail his memories of how he and his friends went triple-riding on a bike to watch Shiva and how they were fined when caught by a cop and after watching the film what they did and spoke and what his 2 friends were doing now. The amazing thing for me was that he has not seen any of my other films including Satya, Company, Rangeela etc. Some of them he just heard about and he told me he didn’t see as he got busy in life and he lost interest in watching films in general. But yet he remembered the minutest of details surrounding his watching of “Shiva”.
Anyway the point is that his memories of Shiva are so strong that it carried forward his respect for me for 20 years. Similarly I so very often keep hearing from people, even on this blog people talking of their memories of Shiva.
Ironically my memory of Shiva is very different primarily because that was not a film I have done with great enthusiasm as my heart was more in “Raat”. Only because Nagarjuna’s brother Venkat asked me if I can come up with a hero-‘centric’ story I just hurriedly put together some college experiences of mine and wrote a first one-line story in about 30 minutes. I literally copied scenes and characters from films like Kaalicharan, Arjun and a host of other films of that time. All in all Shiva for me was more of an entry point into the industry and to establish a certain position of strength.
Shiva was a price I wanted to pay so that investors will tolerate Raat and Nishabd like films for me. An industry guy commented to someone after the release of Shiva “Now that bastard Ramu can eat on this film for the next 10years as because of this films brilliance people will bear with him no matter what crap he makes for the next 10years.”
Having said all this I was like a possessed guy in terms of sheer intensity on location in Shiva. I wanted to do everything myself. There was an action director called Raju Master who pretty much was the top guy at that time. When I didn’t like what he was doing I took over and started doing the action myself. If you see Shiva you will see mostly only stomach punches and hooks to the jaws and the reason for that is because I know only these two moves which I learnt in my days of boxing and dabbling in martial arts.
Everybody on sets used to be amazed at my seeming clarity in what I was doing considering my absolute lack of experience.
When I was speaking about a certain equipment called the steadicam, which I read about in American Cinematographer magazine, to a certain camera assistant and told him that it is available only in Hollywood he told me that there is one in Chennai since 4 years but nobody uses it. I was shocked to hear this and when I discussed with my cameraman Gopal Reddy he was very reluctant to use it as he claimed that “you can’t control focus and also can’t centre the frame”. I argued with him that it’s not important in a chase to maintain these both and insisted that we use it.
So I became the first feature film director ever to use the steadicam in India and don’t forget that it was available to all for 4 years before that. People have an instantaneous resistance to any new technology and always wait for someone else to try it. The effect of the steadicam in the chase sequences was so much that within a year of Shiva’s release 7 steadicams were imported because of the demand.
I was very skeptical about the cycle chain breaking scene because in reality it’s impossible for anyone to actually break a cycle chain. When I tried to do it I realized that I will probably break my hand if I pulled hard enough and not the chain.
But I could not resist from using that scene because I was super sure of the impact that it will have on people and I took the chance on the basis that none of the people among the audience would have ever tried to break a cycle chain in their lives, so they would not know if it can be actually broken.
My con worked and how? For 20 years since then I keep hearing people claiming how they started using the cycle chain as a weapon after watching “Shiva” and I know that is just in their imagination as I know that firstly you can’t break it with your hand and secondly it is a very impractical weapon. If you swing a cycle chain at somebody there are more chances that it will hit you while swinging back. It took us a good 15 minutes to wrap a real cycle chain around Nagarijuna’s knuckles for the close-ups because of the stiffness it has and of course a dummy was used for the long shots.
Nevertheless I get quite thrilled when somebody talks about their memories of “Shiva” in general and the cycle chain in particular as I know that the joke is on them. I laugh within myself but also take a pride that that the cycle chain is still hitting.
If you promise not to laugh I am posting here some location pictures from “Shiva” which my mother dug up from an old closet.
For the rest of the journey he told me in detail his memories of how he and his friends went triple-riding on a bike to watch Shiva and how they were fined when caught by a cop and after watching the film what they did and spoke and what his 2 friends were doing now. The amazing thing for me was that he has not seen any of my other films including Satya, Company, Rangeela etc. Some of them he just heard about and he told me he didn’t see as he got busy in life and he lost interest in watching films in general. But yet he remembered the minutest of details surrounding his watching of “Shiva”.
Anyway the point is that his memories of Shiva are so strong that it carried forward his respect for me for 20 years. Similarly I so very often keep hearing from people, even on this blog people talking of their memories of Shiva.
Ironically my memory of Shiva is very different primarily because that was not a film I have done with great enthusiasm as my heart was more in “Raat”. Only because Nagarjuna’s brother Venkat asked me if I can come up with a hero-‘centric’ story I just hurriedly put together some college experiences of mine and wrote a first one-line story in about 30 minutes. I literally copied scenes and characters from films like Kaalicharan, Arjun and a host of other films of that time. All in all Shiva for me was more of an entry point into the industry and to establish a certain position of strength.
Shiva was a price I wanted to pay so that investors will tolerate Raat and Nishabd like films for me. An industry guy commented to someone after the release of Shiva “Now that bastard Ramu can eat on this film for the next 10years as because of this films brilliance people will bear with him no matter what crap he makes for the next 10years.”
Having said all this I was like a possessed guy in terms of sheer intensity on location in Shiva. I wanted to do everything myself. There was an action director called Raju Master who pretty much was the top guy at that time. When I didn’t like what he was doing I took over and started doing the action myself. If you see Shiva you will see mostly only stomach punches and hooks to the jaws and the reason for that is because I know only these two moves which I learnt in my days of boxing and dabbling in martial arts.
Everybody on sets used to be amazed at my seeming clarity in what I was doing considering my absolute lack of experience.
When I was speaking about a certain equipment called the steadicam, which I read about in American Cinematographer magazine, to a certain camera assistant and told him that it is available only in Hollywood he told me that there is one in Chennai since 4 years but nobody uses it. I was shocked to hear this and when I discussed with my cameraman Gopal Reddy he was very reluctant to use it as he claimed that “you can’t control focus and also can’t centre the frame”. I argued with him that it’s not important in a chase to maintain these both and insisted that we use it.
So I became the first feature film director ever to use the steadicam in India and don’t forget that it was available to all for 4 years before that. People have an instantaneous resistance to any new technology and always wait for someone else to try it. The effect of the steadicam in the chase sequences was so much that within a year of Shiva’s release 7 steadicams were imported because of the demand.
I was very skeptical about the cycle chain breaking scene because in reality it’s impossible for anyone to actually break a cycle chain. When I tried to do it I realized that I will probably break my hand if I pulled hard enough and not the chain.
But I could not resist from using that scene because I was super sure of the impact that it will have on people and I took the chance on the basis that none of the people among the audience would have ever tried to break a cycle chain in their lives, so they would not know if it can be actually broken.
My con worked and how? For 20 years since then I keep hearing people claiming how they started using the cycle chain as a weapon after watching “Shiva” and I know that is just in their imagination as I know that firstly you can’t break it with your hand and secondly it is a very impractical weapon. If you swing a cycle chain at somebody there are more chances that it will hit you while swinging back. It took us a good 15 minutes to wrap a real cycle chain around Nagarijuna’s knuckles for the close-ups because of the stiffness it has and of course a dummy was used for the long shots.
Nevertheless I get quite thrilled when somebody talks about their memories of “Shiva” in general and the cycle chain in particular as I know that the joke is on them. I laugh within myself but also take a pride that that the cycle chain is still hitting.
If you promise not to laugh I am posting here some location pictures from “Shiva” which my mother dug up from an old closet.
