The Rangeela director Ramgopal Varma grew up loving James Hadley Chase's thrillers and later took to Stephen King. An avid reader a few years ago, Varma no longer finds time to go back to his books. But he has fond memories of his all-time favourites -- Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, Mario Puzo's Godfather and Neitzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. "What I like about these books is their novelty of ideas," he says. And Howard Roark from Fountainhead, is Varma's favourite literary hero."I've gone through all that he goes through and yet, I have never looked at life the way he does. And even though he doesn't achieve anything at the end of the book, he remains a hero," says Varma.
Fountainhead inspired Varma to become a rebel of sorts. "I think subliminally it affected me somewhere, which is why I like to break the rules of cinematography and do it in a style which others may think is wrong," he says.
From Godfather he learnt lessons of characterisation andstructure. "It helped me to stop looking at a violent film just in terms of physical action, and instead probe the motivations and compulsions of characters -- something I used in Satya," he says. About Thus Spake Zarathustra, he says he hasn't entirely understood the book yet. "I've tried to absorb it for the last 15 years and manage to get the essence of about two paragraphs each year," he laughs.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
