Bicycle Thief is a triumphant discovery of the fundamentals of cinema, and De Sica has openly acknowledged his debt to Chaplin.
Particularly in the final stages I always find that I’m rushed. It’s dangerous when you’re rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.
The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.
If the theme is simple, you can include a hundred details that create the illusion of actuality better.
When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I’m familiar with. I don’t write stories about the nineteenth century.
I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.
When I’m shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot – new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can’t do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical.
My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.
There’s always some room for improvisation.
Well the Bombay film wasn’t always like how it is now. It did have a local industry. There were realistic films made on local scenes. But it gradually changed over the years.
Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.
I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music.
I mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time.
I wouldn’t mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they’re not on a fixed salary.
You cannot go beyond a certain limit in your expenditure if you want to bring back money from your local market, which is very small after Pakistan.
I’ve made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.
The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.
Ever since Two Daughters I’ve been composing my own music.
There is a ban on Indian films in Pakistan, so that’s half of our market gone.
Sometimes a director is making three films. Perhaps he is shooting a film in Madras and a film in Bombay and he can’t leave Madras as some shooting has to be done, so he directs by telephone. The shooting takes place. On schedule.