BOLLYWOOD veteran Yash Chopra, this year’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year, said Friday (October 9) there is one reason his career has lasted 50 years – he surrounds himself with youth.
“For all these years I have been making what you call romantic movies,” the 77-year-old said on the sidelines of the Pusan International Film Festival, which was due later Friday to honour him for his contribution to Asian cinema.
“Today movies are more youth-centric, for good or bad. Movies, music, food – it is all youth. And that is life. You can’t stop that. So that is what I keep all around me and I stay young all the time,” Chopra said.
Both as a director and through his production house Yash Raj Films, he has been instrumental not only in the remarkable rise of India cinema but in the careers of some of its biggest stars, among them Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
Chopra started his directing career in 1959 with Dhool Ka Phool ("Blossom of Dust") and his films Deewar ("The Wall") from 1975 and Silsila ("The Affair") from 1981 remain among India’s most-loved to this day.
He says he has no plans for retirement.
“You never reach the end of the road,” said Chopra, who last month announced he would start work on a new film, starring Aamir Khan, in December.
“I’d like to die with my boots on,” he continued. “I want to make more good beautiful romantic movies.”
Chopra has directed 21 movies – a relatively small number considering the Bollywood movie-making machine churns out more than 1,000 per year. He said it was the subject matter of his films that had kept his output in check.
“In India there are certain subjects that are taboo,” he said. “You have to make clean, wholesome romances for the family. There can’t be many subjects on this so that’s why I have made only about 20 films in my life. But I feel at home making films about human relations.”
The veteran filmmaker was just as adamant about what it is that makes a good romantic movie – it has to come from the heart.
