As part of the annual lectures held at BIFFes, renowned Bollywood cinematographer Anil Mehta spoke on the 'Evolution of realism in Indian cinematography'. The talk was the second in the V.K. Murthy Memorial Lecture series.
The session started with a tribute to two world-renowned cinematographers who died in recent times — Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zsigmond.
Mehta said, “Cinematography is accepted a skill, but still is very underrated.” In the course of his talk, he discussed the works of Satyajit Ray's cinematographer Subrata Mitra, Ingmar Bergman's films and the landmark cinema of Guru Dutt, whose cinematographer was V.K. Murthy, who was the inspiration for Mehta.
Mehta touched upon the Western and Oriental visual aesthetic, and the differences between them. He spoke of how everything ranging from Renaissance paintings to our own folk performance traditions have influenced cinematography. Later while interacting with the audience, he elaborated on his style of working, citing examples from his work in Lagaan , Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam , Khamoshi and Highway .
He summed up his approach his work saying, “You go with the spirit of the piece and hope you get it right. You go by gut feeling, and that's how I work.”
He stressed several times, in response to questions, that digital is the way forward. It is here to stay and there are no two ways about it.
He also spoke unequivocally about how filmmaking is an organic and integrated process where storytelling isn’t essentially limited to the text. It's the coming together of all elements, he stressed.