Ritesh Batra's film to be Robert Redford's last one before retirement

Ritesh Batra withRobert RedfordPICKerry BrownNetflixOn Friday Robert Redford one of the most loved Hollywood actors of our time announced that he was going to retire While the news saw his fans slip into despondency the one who was possibly most affected was Mumbai filmmaker Ritesh Batra ldquoThe burden on me suddenly went uprdquo he says over the phone from Colorado where he has just wrapped up an eightweek schedule with Redford for Our Souls At NightAccording to the interview the Hollywood star gave last week Ritesh Batrarsquos film where he is cast alongside Jane Fonda will be his last besides a ldquolighter piecerdquo called Old Man With A Gun ldquoI was just surprisedrdquo says Batra over the phone from Colorado ldquoA film with Redford is special to start with The fact that it would be one of his last only made the experience all the more poignantrdquoBatra who considers Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid 1969 The Sting 1973 and All The Presidentrsquos Men 1974 his favourite Redford films first met the actordirector back in 2008 mdash even before he had made a movie himself His script was selected at the Sundance screenwriterrsquos lab mentored by Redford A key characteristic of Redford Batra recalls from his rigorous oneschedule shoot is ldquohis ability to get to the truth of a moment Into several weeks of a tiring shoot Redford Jane Fonda and I would spend five hours at a stretch discussing how we could seek and derive deeper meaning from a scene Most others would be happy to shoot which is hard enough and move onrdquoItrsquos been over three years since Batrarsquos first film The Lunchbox was widely feted globally starting with a Rail drsquoOr prize at Cannes From that iconic film clearly the cast seemed to have moved on to bigger better things Nawazuddin Siddiqui returned to Cannes this year with Anurag Kashyaprsquos Raman Raghav 20 Irrfan walked in with Tom Hanks in Inferno a few weeks ago Nimrat Kaur landed a part in the hit HBO series Homeland The person who quietly slipped out of the public gaze thereafter ironically was Batra the debutant director This for a good reason as one can tell talking to the Bandra boy and Sydenham College grad while hersquos been through ldquoa whirlwind of thingsrdquo directing Fonda and Redford mdash who made a hit pair in Barefoot In The Park 1967 The pairs gets together on screen ldquofor the first time since Electric Horse in 1979rdquoRobert RedfordPicsGetty ImagesThe other Batra film to look forward to is the adaptation of Julian Barnesrsquos Bookerwinning literary fiction The Sense Of An Ending Currently in postproduction it releases early next year About what seemed like a lsquounfilmablersquo book Batra admits ldquoIt is a difficult book to adapt yes Julian Barnes was hugely trusting though He asked me to go ahead and betray him I do believe films and books should be cousins of each other not siblingsrdquo The Sense Of An Ending stars Jim Broadbent Gangs Of New York Moulin Rouge and Charlotte Rampling The Verdict Vanishing Point in the lead roles Given that and Redfordrsquos last hurrah based on a Kent Haruf novel releasing late next year clearly puts Batra in the league of the rare Indian filmmakers to have genuinely crossed over to Hollywood mdash maybe since Shekhar Kapur and Mira Nair What does he make of that ldquoI havenrsquot thought about that I am only happy to tell stories that resonate with merdquo says Batra characteristically understated