So called Non actors – why audience loved their films?
Daily few of us attack some actors or filmmakers and reject them in the profession where they are somewhat more real than theoretical people.
Films are not made to showcase one actor’s talent only. They have to have an overall impact. Yes some actors show talent of par excellence and even if they are alone on screen audience can watch them for hours to act but rest others are somehow just fit in the movie. It’s director who has to exploit the talent of actors and has to extract out the best suitable performances from them.
A director feels that here I have a story, which I can show in this particular way through my chosen actors. For some of the directors story is very important and they want to convey that content as a whole packaged deal and they dont bother whether a particular actor is coming out as an outstanding actor or not in that process of film making. To quote an example we can see Dev Anand’s film Avval Number where we see our solid famed actor Aamir Khan playing an average role with an average effort. Dev Anand was not interested in promoting Aamir’s talent as an extraordinary talent. Dev Anand had an idea of a story revolving around regional terrorism with game of cricket in the background. Before any other film maker could even think to make a film on terrorism fastly spreading in the country at that time, Dev Anand made his film. Content was important for Dev Anand and not Aamir Khan’s role. Aamir Khan type actors need a role with substance to show off their talent. Aamir has cultivated a habit to rise beyond his films and here he was not having that chance. Now we have several examples where story is bad, film is bad in totallity but an actor outshines others because of his acting ability. Several Amitabh’s films in 80s and 90s are good example of such phenomenon. No story or poor story is there in such films and yet Amitabh’s acting is the saving grace as usual. Dilip Kumar did some of such films where only his acting is the factor to watch those films. Such films dont leave collective impact of a completely good film. There are films where every single aspect of films comes out in an extra ordinary way. Be it Story, direction, acting, music, camera work or other technical area etc, all areas shine there like in Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam, Awara, Ganga Jamuna, Sangam, Guide, Sholay, Deewar etc. But no creative man can play a sixer like shot each time.
Critics (real as well as authors at PFC) often have been rejecting few actors or film makers on the basis of their own ideas about these actors and film makers. There is no standard criteria to assess. They can put the ability of these actors and film makers on stake as per their own liking. Critics never gave solace to Jeetnedra as an actor. He saw his debut with a film maker like V Shantaram. Now to say that V Shantaram was not knowing how to make films will be a outrageous thing. He had a story to show in terms of Geet Gaya Pathoron ne. He found Jeetendra fit in the role of his main hero. If V Shantaram felt that only Kishori Amonkar could sing- geet gaya pathoron ne- and not Lata or Asha in a way which he likes then it was his vision and this was also his vision to take Jeetendra as a character in his film. As a director he used Jeetendra in a certain way and certainly Shantaram was more interested in his film in totallity and not to make Jeetendra as an oustanding actor. To learn any process whether it is art or sport one needs time and proper chances.
Cynical approach of critics stops them to see things as they are. When they praise an actor/film maker then they dont try to see weaknesses of that particular actor/film maker and if they personally dislike an actor or film maker then they dont try to see any worth in him/her. Reality exists somewhere in the middle of two extremes. Every actor or film maker does good or bad or average work in his film career. If we are watching a film just for the acting or any particular area then we are going to be dancing between two extremes of success and disappointment. When people praise Irfan Khan with lofty words and treat him as an actor of extra ordinary talent then It can be asked that can he do every kind of roles? No doubt he is a very good actor but he also needs a fare assessment and not a high praise at an extreme level. He also has given average and even bad performances in his short film career. Sanjeev Kumar, a brilliant actor, also gave bad performances and did not always give good performances. We may see his bad films where he is also bad. Love and God is a live example to see how one can spoil the role of Majnu – an eternal lover’s role. He was simply misfit in this role. He made Thakur in Sholay a role which any actor would like to play again and again but could he play role of Veeru with same intensity as Dharmendra played, keeping in mind the physical appearance of Sanjeev Kumar? Yes In Satyakam he could have exchanged his role with Dharmendra with ease but what about Trishul? Could Amitabh and Sanjeev Kumar have exchanged their roles? Could SK act with same intensity wearing those skirts which Dharmendra wore in Dharm Veer?
Actors have limitations as well as advantages and what matters is when they get those kind of directors who can synchroniye their stories with their talents. Like Gulzar did with Sanjeev Kumar. or Gulzar did with Jeetendra and Hema Malini. For years Jeetendra and Hema Malini have been bearing non-actor’s tag on their image imposed by so called critics. But did that tag deter film makers to sign these artists in their films? Hema Malini has been most powerful leading lady of hindi cinema and not for a year or two but for several years. Jeetendra has been box office king for years. Either millions of audience all over India are foolish and few critics are intelligent or fact remains that film maker tries to make a collective film where it becomes a watchable and interesting film. Watch Jeetendra in Gulzar’s Khushbu, Kinara and Parichaya. Gulzar even gave Jeetendra his own get up with a moustache and thick glasses – A complete non glamorous look. Three stories are shown beautifully in all the three above mentioned films and Jeetendra did full justice to all his three roles. Gulzar was capable so he extracted out what he thought was needed for his story from Jeetendra.
Directors of 50s and 60s were not having thousands of DVDs at their homes as present day’s film makers have. They were not exposed to world cinema in a way as present day’s film makers are. But film makers of old era learnt and made films which were fulfilling the demands of that era. They created wonderful films. Mathematics reveal that to create from 0 to 1, one needs infinite effort and needs paramount efforts. If Satyajit Ray could develop his unique way of using diffused light on his own then it was the sheer brilliance. If one sees Tarantino’s style of showing stories in different order and he tries to opt this technique in his film then it is not brilliance. What Kurosawa did in Rashômon and Hrishikesh Mukherjee did in his first film Musafir, were brilliant efforts. They were innovative. When Raj Kapoor visualized first time a dream sequence in Awara then it was a new idea and later we saw immitations only. If same innovative Raj Kapoor signs an actor Rajendra Kumar (who is given non actor tag by critics) for his first coloured film then he knows as a big film maker that this actor can be used in such and such way to present my story.
ManMohan Desai was there with a clear motive to create a thoroughly entertaining film where common man could enjoy 3 hours by forgetting tensions of daily life. He was not making cult films. His motive was very clear and he had his own way of story showing. It cant be said that Amitabh did not do good acting in his films. Prakash Mehra was bit more good in terms of story and script and several of his films are termed today as classic and thoroughly loved by audience but at their times they were termed by critics as craps .
Again coming back to the Director’s own vision about a story showing, recall Hare Krishna Hare Ram, now known as a cult movie, had Jeenat Aman. Zeenat never enjoyed reputation of a good actress in whole her active film career. But at the time of making of HRHK, could people imagine any other actress playing role of Jasmeet the way Dev showed her in the film? Zeenat was a best fit in that role of a girl influenced by hippy life. Now Zeenat’s rold in Don is termed as classic but those day’s film magazines and views of critics may suggest opposite views about her and her role. She and Parveen Bobby suffered with the images of being westernized actresses who did not know how to act and speak dialogues in proper hindi.
Directors are not searching extra ordinary actors to show their stories but they search actors who can be moulded in a way so that stories are shown in a better way. No doubt in every field certain people excel and actors also follow this trait when they perform better than any other thing in a film. But that is not a dreamy desire for a director.
Very few actors are capable to do any kind of roles and rest of the actors really depend on their directors. KK, Irfaan and John Abraham are popular actors on PFC with high expectations from them but are they capable to play any kind of roles? John depends thoroughly on his directors. KK and Irfaan can do good in a film which is otherwise bad but can anyone imagine any one of them playing role of Prince Salim in Mughal-e-Azam? KK can play the role of Munna, Aamir played in Rangeela, with equal ease? Can one put Irfan in place of Shahrukh Khan in DDLJ? Though opposite also can be true that can SRK play role of Maqbool? Yes one can replace SRK with Aamir or Salman in DDLJ. Certain roles demand certain kind of actors and Bombay makes around 200 hindi films a year and only actors praised by few critics cant play all the roles in all the films. Actors have to be seen and assessed on the basis of their roles given in films.
Not many will accept Madan Lal, Roger Binny, Balwinder Sandhu as great cricketers if they are comapred individually with good bowlers, batsmen and fielders but they have been part of great team of Indian cricket and they contributed brilliantly in winning world Cup for India. That team was a collective team and performed in that way only. Films are also collective efforts like that team where everybody has to play its role. OK sometimes in some matches one shines better than others but ideally it is collective effort. What Kapil Dev did in 1983 world cup against Zimbabwe was individual show but over all tournament was a collective effort of our team and that’s why 1983 will always be remembered as all time favourite where every single member contributed in a graceful manner. Sholay is in hindi cinema what 1983 world cup is in Indian cricket. In Sholay every actor contributed in an important manner.
Directors sometimes dont collect good team and that is why people have to say, film is good only in patches, only this actor was good but film is below average.
Keeping everything in mind people can show little respect toward old actors and film makers and can analyse their work properly without insulting them. Without them we would not have been able to reach where we are at present in terms of film making. Some of them might have made films which introduced wonderful actors in film industry, some of them might have helped in creating good cinema based on wonderful stories, some of them might have helped in brining new technology to the films. How we can outrightly reject them?
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
RK
That was a good observation. Different directors portray actors differently.
Take “main meri patni aur woh” although a food film with good acting, the film failed because Rajpal Yadav was not the hero material while a KANK does good even though with a pathetic story and treatment. Star power?
-Punds
oops
It should have been good and not food film.
-Punds
Full2Faltu:
star power exist in reality. no denial about that. Few other factors may also affect fate of film. RajPal Yaadv was seen in so many films and he was appreciated also in roles in films like mujshe se shadi karoge, Vaqt etc but to carry a full film on shoulder one needs something extra. Very few actors can do that thing that can do lot of films and still do justice to full film as a solo hero.
Before Raj Pal Yadav Asrani did few efforts to make films with himlself playing role of heroe.g Chala Murari Hero banne and Ham nahin sudherenge. But to play a good role is different than a wish to become hero of a full feature film. Asrani is ireplacable in Sholay but to compete as solo hero with AB, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, in their peak days is not cake walk. Same is case with Raj Pal Yadav. Can he comepete as solo hero with SRK; Salman, Aamir, Sunny, Sanjay Datt, Saif, or even Manoj Bajpai, and Irfan?
Full2Faltu:
Re. KANK, several factors are associated. Big Banner. big star cast, big marketing. Few may not like Karan Johar or SRK but Karan’s banner is big. he has a certain reputation. His KWK was a hit TV programme. SRK has reputation and expectation. Abhishek has some market, Preeti has some market, Rani is seen as talented good actress. Nobody was knowing what role AB was going to play so he was also a factor to pull audience in cinema hall. Music is there. KJ was sitting on reputation of two big films KKHH and KKKG. People had curiosity and above all, youngesters are facing this problem where they are not decided whether they are happy with present partner and want to wait till things get right. I will not go on treatment on comment section but idea of story was very very contemporary and Indians associate themselves with the film while watching so subject might have appealed them. Relationships will always be a subject in our films. Its all time favourite. We are hardly ready for films alien to our lives.Story might have flaws, but idea to make film on such subject ws good. This shows Karan knows market. people may like or dislike his films but he proved his talent of identifying the damand in the market. He did not claim to make a great classic film. He is not there to bring revolution in hindi cinema. He is making films for entertainment. If we remove a bias against him and again consider KANK then will feel that subject of tension in marriage touches us. we can associate with the subject.and that can be a factor of success behind the film. Though Basu Bhattacharya made Avishakar on such subject. Gulzar made izazat but they got praise and less success becasue they did not make films on lavish scale and marketing was nill.
RK
I see you point here but when I saw KANK,we were waiting for the movie to end. That is without any bias. I watch a movie and not the actors. I did like Karan’s KKHH. but KANK was not entertaining. Even with the story on extra marital affair, it has to be entertaining. Izzazat was good. Avishkar I haven’t seen so cannot comment.
Well Star power wins.
“Main meri patni aur woh” does touches us too. Many people can identify with arranged marriage and the ajustment that comes with it.
But the film lacked marketing power.
-Punds
Full2Faltu,
Not especially related to KANK or any specific film. We like or dislike things and this liking and disliking is not something permanent and it changes with time. It may be out of topic also but may be touching the topic to some extent.
I do feel and have realized it so many times that films, music and books come to that category where audience/reader’s mood/mental/physical condition and surrounding matter a lot. If one has time and 5 films then perhaps he will pick up first film of that genere which he likes most. But if one has time and film is only 1 and he knows that he has to watch this film only then its quite possible that he may go through the film with different kind of “seeing” and can perhaps digs something which he would have never done if he had options to chose.
I read in memmoirs of a very big hindi author that long time ago during one of his train journey, he listend song “Bindiya Chamkegee Churhi khankegi” of Rajesh Khanna-Mumtaz and his mental conditions were under some kind of special isues and he wept after listening this ordinary song. In journey we dont always read books which we know will enhance our knowledge but often we read some light and popular literature because surrounding matters. I recall I had a book which I could not read for years, I started it and after 4-5 pages I left it. And then once I decided to read it and it opened so many things before me which I never read in any other book before. Sometimes acceptance of product for that time when we are using it, reveals more before us.
I recall watching few old ladies in a village seeing a film where Nirupa Roy was shown to suffer from the hands of her daughter in law. Naturally old ladies could correlate with the pain Nirupa Roy’s character was living on screen. Here acting ability or film is good or not does not matter. We like a film in 1999 and when we watch it again in 2006 we just hate it and we hate the idea that we liked this film. and opposite also happen. we dont like a film in first screening and when we watch it under different circumstances we like it. This happens with any form or art. What do you think?
hemamalini is a non-acting character. She has no acting sense tilldate. She only wears nice bell-bottom pant-shirts in films like trishul and Joshila. She has only beauty not acting.
A complete observation about actors and films. Perfect post even after 3 years…