Your movie was outstanding: Steven Spielberg to SS Rajamouli on ‘RRR’

PTI, Feb 10, 2023, 8:48 PM IST

Steven Spielberg (image credit: Flickr)

Steven Spielberg finally saw SS Rajamouli’s ”RRR” and came out impressed with the Indian director’s ”visual style”.

The Hollywood legend called the Telugu film ”outstanding” during a conversation with Rajamouli over ”The Fabelmans”, Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated semi-autobiographical drama.

Produced by Amblin Entertainment & Reliance Entertainment, ”The Fabelmans”, which is nominated for seven Oscars, released in Indian theatres on Friday.

”Well I have to tell you, I thought your movie was outstanding. I hadn’t seen it when we met, but I saw it last week and it was just amazing. I couldn’t believe my eyes. For me, it was like eye candy,” the filmmaker told an elated Rajamouli.

He praised the cast of ”RRR” that include Ram Charan, Jr NTR, Alia Bhatt as well as Alison Doody, who also featured in Spielberg’s 1989 movie ”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”.

”… a beautiful visual style and I just thought it was extraordinary to look at and experience. So congratulations for ‘RRR’,” Spielberg, 76, said about the blockbuster movie, which is nominated in the Best Song category at the Oscars for its track ”Naatu Naatu”.

”RRR” is a pre-Independence fictional story focusing on two real-life Indian revolutionaries in the 1920s — Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem.

Rajamouli, 49, said he was willing to stand up and ”do a dance” after the Hollywood veteran’s praise for his film.

The Indian director, a self-confessed Spielberg fan, had a number of questions about ”The Fablemans” and the Hollywood auteur’s filmography that boasts of global hits like the ”Jurassic Park” series, ”Jaws”, ”E.T.”, ”Schindler’s List”, ”Saving Private Ryan”, ”Munich”, ”Lincoln” and ”West Side Story” to name just a few.

Rajamouli said he was surprised to know that the film was inspired by not just the filmmaker’s life but also included details from his parents and siblings’ lives.

He asked whether the director felt scared to tell such a personal story.

Spielberg said he always felt safe in telling the stories of others but he wanted to take responsibility by going back to his life with ”The Fablemans”.

”I’ve always felt so safe in telling the stories of others, and I’ve always found my place behind someone else’s story, steering the story and communicating the story, but not taking responsibility for the content of the story because the content was authored by novelists, historians or other people’s stories…

”I’ve always been a pretty good captain of a ship I did not build, but all of a sudden, I’m now the captain of a ship where I was not only on the crew building from scratch, along with my sisters and my mother and father, but suddenly I have a larger responsibility to tell the truth about some of the things that happened to me in my formative growing up years,” Spielberg said.

The filmmaker said his only concern while telling ”The Fabelmans” story was to ensure that it did not hurt anyone or ”embarrass” his family.

The movie features an ensemble cast of Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Judd Hirsch.