Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Four planets of his ten occupy water signs and only one in fire, with three in earth and two in air. Water takes on whatever is nearest it and holds no edge of its own, and there is almost nothing in the chart that simply asserts. Bhansali directs, and the two films the record names are both enormous, ornate, and built on longing that does not get what it wants.

The Sun and the Moon both sit in Pisces, under three degrees apart, with Jupiter in the sign as well. Pisces dissolves the line between what is and what is imagined, which for a director working at that scale is the whole method: sets built past the point of realism, in service of a feeling rather than a place. Having the public and private halves together in that sign means there is no part of him standing outside it.

Venus makes easy contact with Jupiter eight hundredths of a degree off exact, the smallest separation anywhere in it: taste and scale in complete agreement, which is as close to a chart explanation of visual excess as this set offers. Against that, Saturn sits square Neptune at two thirds of a degree, structure against the image, and four of the ten planets were running backwards at his birth. For a director whose films are famous for how long they take and how much they cost, structure arguing with the image is the production office in one aspect.

Jupiter shut its lap in Pisces on 29 March 2022, at fifty nine, seven weeks after Saturn finished its own lap. That is the planet of reach returning to the sign where no edge holds, so the question is how much was taken on rather than how far it went. Five circuits come before it, and a body of work this consistent in register is unusual for a director that far into a career. Mars was one of four planets running backwards at his birth, which for somebody whose films are famous for how long they take to make is the detail worth keeping.