Why Imtiaz Ali Wants To Change All His Scripts, Including Jab Harry Met Sejal

Bhutan: Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali, whose latest film Jab Harry Met Sejal, did an average business at the box office, said he wants to change all his scripts after their release. At the Mountain Echoes Literary Festival in Bhutan, the filmmaker while discussing scripts, films and literature, told NDTV that he wants to change all his scripts after they have released and that also includes Jab Harry Met Sejal. Given that his last release was panned by the critics for a poor script, perhaps Imtiaz Ali realises that the scripts require effort and make or break a film, no matter who the star is.

Talking about the film, Imtiaz Ali said, "I'm happy with the script for now because it takes a little time for me to start disliking my scripts and Jab Harry Met Sejal is freshly released so I don't have that much time to contemplate upon it. Of course, there will be things that I wouldn't like later but for this script, the challenge was, it was very thin. It was not plot-oriented at all."

When asked what he was doing at a literary festival, Imtiaz Ali said, "I am glad to receive an invitation from any literary fest, and especially this one, the Mountain Echoes because it brings me to Bhutan and to people that are very free thinking. I also feel that literature is not only books, for instance, at some point of time while Shakespeare was doing his plays, he didn't realise it's going to be a part of literature and such an important part. I feel that any medium of mass communication, including a film script, including a film actually, is literature. We should not be narrow-minded about it and I feel great about the prospect of contributing to literature and being a literature student."

Commenting on the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood scripts, Imtiaz Ali said, "What I hate is the fact that sometimes, I feel that scripts try to decipher what the mood of the audience is before getting written. What I like about, in Hindi film industry's scripts is the fact that they still do not belong to a narrow sub-set. If you know what I mean, sometimes, I feel that in Hollywood they have made categories so strongly and people are like writing scripts for either one of those categories."

With all the interactions perhaps Imtiaz Ali's next script will be something in which the actor will not want to change anything after its release.