Intelligence And Film Folks -Part 2
Hi Folks,
Taking my earlier column a step further on why I say, what I say. Analyzing some case studies. Let’s start with the females
Zeenat Aman: It takes a certain intelligence to go against what is the accepted norm, relaize that it will work and then go enact it. Consider this, she is in LA, this is the late 60’s early 70’s, this is not NOW and she decides that India is where her future lies, not Hollywood. It takes intelligence to acsertain your market. Then, prior to that, for the most part, Sharmila, Nutan, Saira nothwithstanding, it takes a certain emotional intelligence to go aginst the flow of the typical Indian heroine and change into an image which could almost be considered vampish, but hey, she is not a vamp, she has the entire nation dancing to her tunes and that too while someone such as Hema Malini, is doing the traditional “go with the flow” desi Indian heroine thing and doing it well. Neither gave way to the other both held fort, but one created a market, one serviced it.
Using the same analogy in one liners (otherwise I’ll be penning this article till 2007)
Dimple Kapadia – A mother of two kids and did not hide it, but went on to become the glamour queen, again challening an established norm, on her terms.
Nutan - Probably the first, “I am independent and take my own decision” heroine of the industry. Carried that demeanor right thourgh the 70/80’s with Saajan Bina Suhagan
Madhubala – Arguably challenged the norm of “the heroine is a heroine” and established the norm of the “heroine is a hero”. Till date when I see a recreated Madhubala or one of the Kishore Kumar films, the one you root for and clap for is not Dilip or Kishore, but Madhubala and for India’s most beautiful face ever, it is not lust, but a genuine “you go girl” attitude.Again supreme intelligence made her take on these roles and give it the flair it needed. Intelligence to go and understand the real psyche of her self and her character
Rekha – The queen of “change management” and adapting to the environement. When plump was in, she was it, when Zeenat came and lean was mean, Rekha transoformed herself like none before and continues to look better as she ages. To understand that acting is a service industry, took a lot of IQ. To go after the masses, as opposed to complain to the classes, shows an inherent undertanding of the market that pays your bills.
On why I consider these men intelligent:
AB – Reneacted professionalism when it was not fashionable. That was the era when the later you came the higher your rating, that was the era of playing to your strengths, here was a man challenging the system, but doing it his way, his hairstyle was new, his height was new, his face was not filmi, he came on time, the more popular he became, the more punctual he became, he treated this like a 9 to 5, whether it involved playing a tapori or playing a professor, he truly understood and continues to understand the adage “at the end of the day it is a job which needs to be done.” A whole industry has since changed it’s ways, for the most part, because of one man.
Aamir- One of the first to understand “brand preservation and it’s values” One of the frist to understand, who he was, what the industry was all about and how he could work with his strenghts as opposed to aspiring to be someone who he was not.
Balraj Sahni – They say about Bollywood that you cannot shroud yourself with too much intelligence or the aura of it (ask a certain Dilip Tahil why he failed ). Here was a guy, extrememely well educated, his contemporaries were not, extremely articulate, his contemporaries were not, extremely sophisticated, his contemporaries were not and yet he is known for roles such as Kabuliwallah, where he is none of who he really was. Getting into the mind of someone that your are not and enacting it and with such aplomb. No school or strategy can teach that, or could have taught that in the 50’s/60’s.
Dilip and SRK – I put these two in the same category because both changed status quo, from alomost day one, not on day 20 of their arrival. Dilip brought in natural acting, when over the top was the order of the day, SRK made “good is bad” way more sexy than brand “Bad Man” Grover ever could. SRK’s open admission of “yes I want the attention, yes I want fame and yes I love my wife and kids too” was breaking every myth and destroying the hypocracy that exists in the indsutry and he was also walking the talk. Both things requiring an inherent intelligent quotient of understanding a system of which you were not a part of and then bettering it.
Next column to follow will analayse directors and why I consider some hitehrto “perceived intelligent” not so ..aka Sanjeev Kumar ( real name Harihar Jethalal Zariwala )
Sincerely,
Vivek”MBA is Mujhe Bhi Aata hain, but real intelligence is Mujhe Hee Aata hain” Kumar
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Good to see you too go with your convictions. Well-written!
top form vivek! good support to your earlier statements.
wasn’t Nutan famous for slapping her mother publicly once?
if Sanjeev Kumar was her mother, then yes!
Not sure if Nutan did that, but if she did then more power to her. Maybe her mom did something stupid. One should not respect elders because they are so, but respect them for their thoughts. In fact I quite like Amisha for suing her parents and bro, since they messed with her, they deserved it. Clearly I am more a Bhagat Singh kind of a guy as opposed to a Gandhi
Yeah it was a public dispute regarding financial matters I think.
Oh well who knows what goes on behind closed doors. But I agree one gains a certain respect for their age but overall respect is earned on merit
Nutan was crowned Miss India once. Not sure which year.
Rekha is the most inelligent actress that has walked Bollywood. Man, my hots for her as strong as it were back in the 80’s.
Aamir is to Bollywood what Tom Hanks is to Hollywood.
Balraj Sahni was the only one who could have made Dilip Kumar’s professional life miserable, unfortunaltely he did not get right kind of roles. Check out Sarfarosh (old) starring Dilip Kumar, Balraj Sahni, Sanjeev Kumar and our Venus, Vyjanthimala
AB – no words can describe him.
Please dont compare Dilip Kumar to SRK. Ther is too much of contradiction here. Dilip is a tall mountain that SRK can never cross.
Overall good post with personal conviction.
Am not all that familiar with Dilip saab’s work. However, SRK does seem to make intelligent choices – even when he does films for friends, he maintains his 100% strike-rate at the BO – be it due to luck or a flair to spot talent (KJo, Farah).
There can be no doubt abt the intellect of AB – unfortunately, it hasn’t always showed in his selection of movies. I mean, to do movies like Giraftaar, Mard etc and go on to reject a script like Mr. India – reeks of lunacy to me! Of course, I guess this movie wasn’t about intelligence in the secetion of movies, I guess!