Filmmakers today not giving attention to content: Yash Chopra

New Delhi, May 30 (UNI) The Hindi films today may be technically superior than those in the 60s and the 70s but in the drive to become 'chic' and 'polished', Indian cinema has, somewhere, lost out on the basic content that is the essential ingredient of any film, veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra says.

''There's been so much progress in the Hindi film industry over the last few decades on the digital and technical side. Too many people are talking about looks, costumes and make-up; everything must be flawless. But I think we have lost something. We are not giving so much importance to content as we did before,''Yash Chopra said in an interview to the CNN, to be aired this week.

Talking in the interview to CNN's 'The Scene' programme, to be aired throughout this week at 1930 hours, the filmmaker said, ''Today, we are bothered more by the form and less by the content.

But the thing that makes a good picture is still the story. I know very good young filmmakers -- very competent, very ambitious - but they have to give more thought to the content than the film.'' ''I feel the greatest need today is for ideas. Someone called it complete intellectual bankruptcy.

Now people are coming with new ideas but for such a big country we don't have good writers, we don't have scripts. The greatest need for our film industry is stories, scripts and actors. Only then can we make good films,''Chopra added.

At the same time, he also bemoaned the fall in standards of film music today.

''If you ask me on the music side I think we have lost the soul.

There is no soul in music now. (Earlier) people used to write meaningful lyrics from the heart,''he said.

Chopra, considered the most charismatic and powerful director of the Mumbai film industry with a series of hit films to his credit in the recent years, talked about his career as a filmmaker, his fond memories of Mumbai as well as his favourite films.

It was 60 years ago, when he was in college that Yash Chopra decided to be a filmmaker. His brother, B. R. Chopra taught him filmmaking and gave him a chance in 1958. The legend was given his first directorial opportunity with 'Dhool Ka Phool' in 1959.

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