Cinematographer Anil Mehta did not agree with Aamir Khan on the climax of Lagaan

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Cinematographer Anil Mehta recently re-watched the shooting of the climax cricket match of ‘Lagaan’. On the first day of shooting, which lasted 30 days, Mehta went to Aamir Khan and told him that his suggestions would not work for the scene. During the shoot, he kept reminding director Ashutosh Gowarikar’s team that they were shooting a film and not covering any sporting event.

Speaking to Film Companion, Mehta recalled Aamir’s suggestion, “He said, ‘Now we have the booklet. We will keep bringing the batsman in one by one and you will keep shooting. We will know when they hit a six. Or you will hit a four!” Mehta followed Aamir’s suggestion on the first day of shooting, but later he went to Aamir and told him, “It won’t work like this. I can’t do this coverage.”

The National Award-winning cinematographer said, if I am shooting a drama, it should look like that. When Bhuvan (Aamir’s character) is batting, I wanted to be close to him. Emotions need to be displayed on screen. Each character’s emotions were different. When Kachra (Aditya Lakhia) is batting, I shot him with a zoom lens because it was so disturbing that he was handicapped and he was not able to find the right posture to lift his bat. Similarly, each batsman and bowler had to express emotions on their face as per the character.

Mehta said that shooting the climax of ‘Lagaan’ was ‘tedious’. “We shot for 30 days. Doing the same scene again and again becomes monotonous and tiring.” Additionally, Gowariker promised Mehta a booklet containing details of how “important” cricket matches would be shot in the film. But that booklet “was never written until a day or two before the scenes were shot”.

Mehta said, before the film team went on the floor with the climax scene, they sat in the hotel room for a few days. The entire group was sitting in the hotel. We took a break of two days to write the scene and discuss the ball-by-ball details of this match (climax match). I was not happy with Aamir’s suggestion of an eight camera setup. This is not sports coverage. It’s still a drama, okay? We had that conversation in the room at the beginning. In the end, the scene was shot with just two cameras. We kept convincing ourselves that we were not doing sports coverage. We are doing a scene in a movie.

‘Lagaan’, released on 15 June 2001, was a big hit. It is still considered an important milestone in the history of Hindi cinema. However, the film missed out on winning an Oscar after receiving a nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

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