There are two reasons for writing this. One is awkshwayrd’s comment on the SADAK 2 thread, in response to my comment about Mahesh Bhatt: @brangan: There is a masterclass from you buried in the comments here. I’d never heard of any of these movies (MANZILEIN AUR BHI HAIN? AWAARGI? SAATHI?) and I’m a 80’s kid with a very Bollywood-y (or Bombay cinema as you would like it) family.
The second is this tweet that came in response to my Kamal Haasan-Lokesh Kanagaraj piece:
Regarding awkshwayrd’s comment, I know he/she is a film lover and a regular on this blog. And all of us have gaps in our knowledge. But when you combine the two comments, I get the sense of a history being slowly erased (much like what is happening in other fields in India today).
This is not coming from a place of “I know best”. Not at all. Also, I know better than to extrapolate the odd tweet to an entire “generation”.
But I am curious about what this could mean for Indian film journalism in the future, if (a) “hearsay” becomes fact (again, not about you, awkshwayrd) and (b) if younger readers/viewers or even critics and film journalists are just not interested in older stuff, and dismiss it with contempt.
Some of this is inevitable: the cycle of life, the passage of time, etc. I addressed some of this in my Lata Mangeshkar piece.
But what if “Mahesh Bhatt was a copycat in some of his films” becomes the dominant narrative among those who have not seen the earlier films he made, simply because this fact is repeated over and over and nobody is doing the actual research — and thus, an entire body of work gets undervalued?
When I say “actual research”, I mean the actual work of watching the film or talking to people of the time — as opposed to simply Googling things up, which will only give you earlier versions of the “truth” from those who did exactly what you did.
It’s the same with Tamil cinema. Every time I read something about, say Rudraiah’s AVAL APPADITHAN, you get the sense that it blew open the minds of the Tamil film industry — when, in reality, it bombed and was celebrated only by a few cinephiles (mostly filmmakers of the time).
So when this “fact” keeps getting repeated, will it become “truth”?
Just a few idle musings from an old man on a Thursday morning!
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
September 17, 2020
BR: I felt this strongly growing up in a household where we listened to a lot of Rafi beauties from the 60s. After RDB died, a whole industry was born celebrating his legend and it burgeoned to the point that it wiped out the contributions of his predecessors for a while. It even got dubious ‘critical’ legs when, in their foreword to ‘RD Burman” The Man, The Music”, Balaji Vittal and Aniruddha Bhatacharjee chose to vent against the 60s music that ‘preceded’ RD, making him over as the Beatles to the stifling Sinatra of the oldies. And because they inevitably mentioned SD Burman numerous times, this further fueled the myth that if at all you had to listen to one pre-RD composer, it was SD and baaki all bakwas. As you know, I have pushed back against this characterisation many times in this blog space.
Then, from nowhere, it seemed like younger millennials (a group I no longer belong to, having turned 35) and zoomers suddenly began to discover the older composers and there was a phase when everybody was covering or raving about Lag Ja Gale. Wonder what the next cycle will be.
This happens everywhere, not just in India. Robert Altman was once regarded as one of the greats but because he was much older than Scorsese or FFC and died in 2006, his name hardly comes up anymore. That happened to Sidney Lumet too.
Why, I witnessed this whole phenomenon in the reaction to a new work by a living and thriving musical artist (somewhat like the Kamal example). For whatever reason, MSM decided to manufacture a wokesteria narrative around Fiona Apple’s album released this year – Fetch The Bolt Cutters – and crowned it as the album she had been wanting to make all along (and could only make it now because she was working DIY, free from the clutches of bleddy sexists). NOW I was a Fiona Apple fan from BEFORE Idler Wheel released in 2011 and loved When The Pawn and Extraordinary Machine. My natural reaction to FTBC was that while it was a good album, the songs were not as filled out as in past albums and sometimes tended to overstay their welcome. But long time Apple fans (who had stood by her back when self same media seemed to feel threatened by her outspoken nature and often characterised her as crazy in subtle or unsubtle ways) now could not voice this honest impression without getting called sexist. Sign of the times!
I wrote about it here:
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Skram
September 17, 2020
Most of us are introduced to things(art) either as a recommendation or with some sort of judgment attached to that work. To brush that all off and consume a piece of art and form your own honest opinion requires a lot of effort. These days I always read your reviews only after having seen the movie (even for non-spoiler reviews).
The following quote from Sheldon Cooper (from The Big Bang Theory, Sitcom), ‘Once your mind is pre-blown, it cannot be re-blown’,
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Rahul
September 17, 2020
I did want to talk about his films on that board but then chickened out because of a combination of laziness and thinking that nobody would be interested. Anyhow, he made a lot of films about his Daddy issues and his relationships and things like that. He is one of the most personal film makers in Hindi Cinema. I concede that at some point his films stopped being interesting – maybe he lost interest in them as well
I remember his movies like Kabzaa, Daddy , Janam , Naam , Saaransh etc. for old salim javed style writing , the kind that is rarely used now.- and the space he gave to supporting\character actors .
I still have to watch few of his movies like Sathi, Thikana etc. though i know of them. Looked up Thikana and found a rather interesting line about it >
“DAWN has called the film “one of [Bhatt’s] most searching studies of flexible middle-class morality””
To your point, I think cinephiles will always seek these films out., specially now that they are so easily accessible.
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Anu Warrier
September 17, 2020
Yes, and this is the classic bible of any would-be authoritarian regime – erase history, rewrite it, and speak – no, shout! – the lies out as loudly as you can, as many times as you can. Amplify it enough, and soon enough, that lie will become the truth. We see it everywhere.
That view is about politics, but where films are concerned too, this is true. Pick on someone or something, say something controversial/clever-mix-of-truth-and-fiction and then wait for the wheels to churn. Soon, the almost lie will be amplified until no one knows what the truth originally was. So Kamal is now irrelevant? And just like that, we have erased a whole era, his massive contributions to cinema, and his legacy. Pouf! He’s not the only one this is happening to, either.
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Aman Basha
September 17, 2020
@Anu Warrier: What the hell does politics have to do with it? You’re seriously on a weird tangent.
This rumination itself is slightly unfounded, except for cinephiles no one among general movie watchers tends to have the interest to follow older work. Leave Kamal, how many fans of Rajni know of his work pre Baasha and Annamalai? Or even the more uncoventional work he did at the start of his career?
The tweet itself calls Kamal a ‘legend’, and that has become a part of his narrative. Anyone will call Kamal a great actor though they may not have watched any of his films, just like Rajni is called a superstar up north. Of course for us these days, most of the 80s and 90s references wouldn’t be understandable unless we have seen some of those films. BR sir’s interview itself says so that the new phase in his career is post Big Boss, where he reconnected with the audience. FYI, the highest rated Indian films on IMDB are Nayagan and Anbe Sivam. When the restored print of Hey Ram came on Prime, I cajoled my friend into watching it and he came out a fan.
About Mahesh Bhatt, he has definitely done some great work but the controversies and Vishesh Films’s soft porn content have overshadowed his reputation as a film maker. Even then, it’ll always be cinephiles who’d show interest in watching older films, which are now easily accessible in good prints online
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Madan
September 17, 2020
“This rumination itself is slightly unfounded, ” – Having seen the proliferation of this RD great and baaki all bakwas narrative which I mentioned upthread, I don’t think it’s unfounded at all. BR has also mentioned the erasure of MSV’s work (because of IR) and that is on similar lines to the work of the pre-RD greats getting eclipsed. And the point isn’t that you HAVE to like MSV/Mahesh Bhatt/O P Nayyar. I am only moderately interested in the work of the first two of those examples myself. The problem is when preferences are conflated into a ‘narrative’ masquerading as possessing some illusory objectivity.
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brangan
September 17, 2020
Aman Basha: This rumination itself is slightly unfounded, except for cinephiles no one among general movie watchers tends to have the interest to follow older work.
Fair enough, and I agree with you here. My issue is that these “non”-cinephiles often end up creating a narrative, which over time becomes the “truth”.
I’m saying that before you make sweeping claims (in whatever field), at least do some research. And as Anu said, we see this very often in politics, too.
That tweet reminded me that people so often opine on stuff they either have no clue about or have no interest in. The “act of opining” becomes the reason they opine, not because they actually want to say something worthwhile or knowledgeable.
And that triggered me, hence this small post.
PS: I completely defend the tweeter’s right to that tweet. It’s the circumstances that I am talking about.
We are in the most significant data era of human civilisation, where “opinions” are everywhere. And a lot of these casual “opinions” are slowly becoming fact, simply because they get repeated again and again.
But I guess that’s how it is.
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Madan
September 17, 2020
I remember in one of the Indian Idol episodes, a contestant sang the beautiful, underrated LP beauty Main Tere Ishq Mein and the judges were like, “Why did you sing this?” They edited her rendition but what she did sing of it was great. So the implication behind the question was why to sing a not-so-popular song. This is how canons get formed and an invisible consensus telling you not to bother with XYZ stuff gets formed. Anu Malik did a program for Zee TV on R D Burman soon after he died. This was in the early days of Zee TV itself, so seemingly all of Hindi-speaking India watched. That’s it, those songs got canonized right away. Some of them were indeed among RD’s best but others not necessarily so. But Anu paaji ne keh diya toh khalas. As a result of such canons, it would be many years before I would discover the rich depth of his soundtrack for Ghar. And I only knew of Kinara because a compilation tape had Jaane Kya Sochkar. Such whole swathes of RD’s work were overshadowed because Anu focused only a narrow mid-70s Rajesh Khanna phase of RD’s vast oeuvre. I don’t even blame Anu Malik because he was just honestly choosing and discussing songs he liked (or maybe songs Zee TV told him to). But once a music director from his position of authority tells the public what he likes, it’s as good as “this is what you ought to like”.
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Udayraj P J
September 17, 2020
The expression from the critic loyal and honesty to their Episteem is important and inevitable. A particular generation may fail to see it or work to understand the context. But one can never imagine the importance of this archival in Digital and on Paper for a time which has not come in yet given that some aspects of aesthetic interest for humans are cyclic in time. All we can do is not worry too much and do our jobs like the sculptor who made the dancing queen in Mohenjadaro
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Rahini David
September 17, 2020
Well say a similar post was written in mid 80s about mudhal mariyathai in anandha vikadan, what would you have done?
Flipped the page and gone on to the jokes section or something more relatable. No way you would have put ink to paper to let the writer know that only post-pathinaru-vayathinilea mattered. But ink and paper cost money, tweeting doesn’t. So people don’t have to expressly say “I am not interested” when something doesn’t interest them.
That Kamal piece was delightful for me as only the pre 2000 strikes a chord with me.
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MANK
September 17, 2020
Come on boss, we’re not that old 🙂
Look this is the nature of the beast, people are forgotten, new narratives develop; there are many in the west who believe that cinema history started with Quentin Tarantino, or worse Christopher Nolan, or keep on ranting that Nolan is equal to or greater than Kubrick, even though they may have watched may be none or one movie of Kubrick.
Mahesh Bhatt was a very interesting filmmaker in the 80’s. Even a film like Kabzaa, which may be the most crass reworking of On the Waterfront , has something really interesting about it.But after that he lost interest, and worse, he started repeatedly peddling his dirty laundry through his films, whether its about his illegitimacy or his affair with Parveen Babi.
But there are also great advantage of , what you call, the most significant data era of human civilisation . So many film genres\movements like Film Noir and Western has been re discovered today. so has a lot of actors and filmmakers.
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krishikari
September 17, 2020
I had a similar shock on seeing that comment about Mahesh Bhatt. Love him or hate him, he was important. Because of him, we witnessed Smita Patil burning up the screen.
When I say “actual research”, I mean the actual work of watching the film or talking to people of the time — as opposed to simply Googling things up, which will only give you earlier versions of the “truth” from those who did exactly what you did.
This so much needed to be said. Everyone just googles out instant opinions. I recently had a discussion about bio-pics, it’s almost criminal how they just change something to make a narrative more dramatic and that filmed version eventually becomes the only known “truth” about that person’s life.
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KS
September 17, 2020
Though this “erasure” of history is not as bad as it sounds right now, it might get worse in future. And this is mainly due to youtube and OTT movie watching, as opposed to on TV.
At least for the millennial generation, most of movie consumption came from TV. I was forced to watch whatever movie was on during lunch/dinner time. This resulted in a kind of randomization and exposure to various styles from various periods, of varying quality. To answer @AmanBasha, I think this could have helped our generation get familiar with early Rajini and Kamal movies, and judge them for ourselves.
But now, the amount of choice is debilitating, and results in paralysis when it comes to deciding which movie to watch. I spend more time reading up reviews and looking up ratings. Here is where the history rewriting or erasure can play a larger role. Critics and other media influencers end up with way too much power to set a narrative and guide us towards what they want us to watch.
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Rahul
September 17, 2020
“Having seen the proliferation of this RD great and baaki all bakwas ”
Remember reading about a discussion about Steve Waugh and Mark Waugh .
https://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/cricketing-rifts-9-ian-chappells-nasty-duels-with-greig-waugh-across-a-generation-12381
Tony Greig, (about Steve)“This bloke has to be the best all-rounder in the Southern Hemisphere.”
Ian Chappel – ” Mark is the better batsman and fielder, and at least as good a bowler. So he is not even the best all rounder in his own family.”
Same thing about RDB. If we just take an objective criteria like number of hit songs , far from being the greatest ever, he is not the greatest composer in his own family.
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Sri Prabhuram
September 17, 2020
A big example of that was The Lion King and how it was supposedly copied from Kimba the White Lion. This sparked a lot bad rumors going on until finally one person managed to watch the entire media collection of Kimba and found that the “shots” used for comparison were taken from the 1997 film Jungle Emperor Leo. (Three years after the release of The Lion King!) That’s why I tend to ignore these kind of things unless if I watch it myself and the evidence is so blatent.
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KayKay
September 17, 2020
The twitter comment sounds remarkably bone-headed to me. I mean, when was the last Kamal movie? Barely 2 years ago? And the man’s been averaging a movie a year (at least) for nigh on decades and they’ve come with the requisite pre-release publicity hype as befits it’s star. I understand if you belong to a certain age and aren’t familiar with the “Classic Kamal Era” films, but to claim this group only know him as the Big Boss host is ridiculous. I can accept that for the millennial demographic , Bhagyaraj is “that Pattimandram host” or Prabhu “that chubby supporting actor in Theri”, their heydays long over, but to make that claim about Kamal is some serious Head-In-Sand filmic myopia. I mean, what the fuck do these people watch?
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KayKay
September 17, 2020
If history is being erased or re-written as feared, then I’m doubly glad to be of my generation. To have sat in front of the telly with my parents watching Apporva Raagangal, Moondru Mudichu, Nizhal Nijamagiradhu, Avargal, then enjoying Moondram Pirai and Sakala Kala Vallavan on screen, experiencing Nayagan, Punnagai Mannan, Sathya, Apoorva Sahotharargal during the VHS boom and from Thevar Magan and Indian onwards, back to the big screen, to have witnessed the evolution of one of the most talented thespians of Indian cinema and a tremendous and varied body of work is indeed a boon.
(Yeah, my Fan Boy mode is on and dialled up to a 10, whadyya plan on doing about it?)
“So Kamal is now irrelevant? And just like that, we have erased a whole era, his massive contributions to cinema, and his legacy”
Nope..Kamal is far from irrelevant but the piss-ants propagating such puffery sure are.
Big Boss…my ass!
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Madan
September 17, 2020
” If we just take an objective criteria like number of hit songs , far from being the greatest ever, he is not the greatest composer in his own family.” – I haven’t totalled that to know if SD indeed exceeds RD there because as per wiki RD did three times as many films and at least up to mid 80s, every film delivered at least one or two hits. RD was somewhere in between a Raja-like frenetic pace and SD’s leisurely one film at a time for two months approach – reasonably fast but not maddeningly so.
But by a less objective criteria, SD had a longer uninterrupted reign at the top. He was less influential than RD and never got to THE top slot (taken by SJ throughout the 60s) but he always remained among the top three-four composers right till his very last soundtrack and his work resonated a certain quality all the way through Sharmilee-Abhimaan-Chupke Chupke coming up to Mili, which could not be said of RD’s decline phase. In fairness to RD, he had health problems then and the industry was down in the dumps. But that also serves to highlight how there is a plethora of pre RD work out there well worth a Hindi music fan’s time.
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Srinivas R
September 17, 2020
“That tweet reminded me that people so often opine on stuff they either have no clue about or have no interest in. The “act of opining” becomes the reason they opine, not because they actually want to say something worthwhile or knowledgeable.”
The crux of the issue and the reason for unending noise on social media.
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Aman Basha
September 17, 2020
@KayKay: V2 was an absolute disaster, of course he wouldn’t have lost any money since it seems to be shot in the RKFI office entirely. UV was also a flop, like that romcom he did with Trisha, Vishwaroopam I think didn’t make much of a buzz other than the controversies. Thoongavanam was also a flop because of the clash with Vedhalam. Papanasam was a big hit but he didn’t follow it with any other success since 6 years.
The most popular he’s been in recent times was with Big Boss unfortunately. If not for Big Boss and how he cleverly used it to increase his popularity and furthered his political ambitions as well, I don’t think we would have seen any of his recent film announcements even greenlighted. Forget Kamal, even brand Rajni has suffered in recent times. It’s Thalapathy and Thala at the top now.
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Anu Warrier
September 17, 2020
@Anu Warrier: What the hell does politics have to do with it? You’re seriously on a weird tangent.
Did you just read that first paragraph and decide to rant at me? 🙂 Read the second – this ‘erasure of history’ if you will, is not just restricted to the arts. I was referring to what BR was ruminating about – that if something is said often enough and loudly enough, that becomes the truth. No one bothers to check, let alone double-check.
If you read something that even tenuously reflects what you may have thought, then that niggling thought solidifies into ‘fact’. It’s insidious. And with the constant barrage of a particular ‘news’, that becomes fact even if evidence proves otherwise.
We were constantly told that “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” Unfortunately, as BR said in his comment, today, opinions are fast becoming *facts.
So – no. Tangential perhaps, but certainly not weird.
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KS
September 17, 2020
@AmanBasha:
Totally! Kamal movies have been subpar for more than a decade now. Lets see the list over the last couple of decades:
2010-2020
1) Viswaroopam 2: Looked like a lazy collage of the parts of Viswaroopam 1 that were edited out in the final cut. Made no impact whatsoever.
2) ThoongaVanam: Generic, forgettable and didn’t need someone of Kamal’s stature.
3) Uttama Villain: Boohoo-he-has-cancer. An insufferably indulgent self-homage vanity project. The movie-within-the-movie (supposedly a comedy) was so cringe and unfunny.
4) Papanasam: Great, but still a faithful remake of a very popular movie (which these days, we could stream with subtitles anyway).
4) Viswaroopam (1): Decent, but didn’t project the energy and thrill of a spy movie.
5) Manmadhan Ambu: A confused movie where the comedy was watered down with ineffective sentiments. Also the (live) sound design was atrocious and distracting.
2000-2010:
1) Unnaipol Oruvan: Again, a faithful remake, but lacking the charge of the original. After all, our amaidhi-poonga Tamil Nadu wasn’t a great setting for the theme of the movie, since the Mumbai train attacks provided the punch for the original.
2) Dasavataram: An absolute farce, with totally unnecessary characters just to bring the count to 10.
3) Vettaiyadu Vilayadu: My favorite Kamal movie in recent(?) times, and probably his most iconic success of the last two decades. Ironically, the one he seemed least interested in.
4) MumbaiExpress: Decimated by Chandramukhi, languished in its intimidating shadows and disappeared with a whimper.
5) Vasool Raja MBBS: A cracker of a comedy, arguably funnier than the original. The last enjoyable Kamal comedy (miss you, Crazy Mohan).
6) Virumaandi: Fine, but lacked punch. The publicity was more about its name controversy.
7) Anbe Sivam: Too on-the-nose and sermonising about communism and atheism.
8) Panchatantram: Another Crazy cracker!
9) Pammal K sambandam: Okay, but not in the same league as other Kamal-Crazy comedies.
10) Aalavandhan: Too indulgent and showy. Not entertaining enough.
11) Hey Ram: Overly long and rambling.
So if you actually look at all the Kamal movies over the past two decades, it seems like apart from the couple of Crazy comedies, Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu, and maybe Papanasam or Dasavataram, none of his movies really made much of an impact on people. Most of them flopped and disappeared from collective memory.
As Kamal fans, we may look out for his movies, but for a post-2000 kid who grew up to watch movies on streaming platforms instead of KTV, its possible that their impression of Kamal is less influenced by his larger body of work, and more by his relatively subpar products of the last two decades. Someone of his talent and stature could have collaborated with the finest of artists to produce masterpieces for the ages, but he’s chosen to stay in his chamber, do everything solely according to his whims, and be a jack-of-all-trades in his films instead of working with others. No wonder he’s just the Bigg Boss guy to some today.
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H. Prasanna
September 17, 2020
@BR I understand where you are coming from and there is a lot of reinforcement for the unverified dominant narrative with the ubiquity of social media. But, doesn’t the dominant narrative, especially in these cases, ebb and flow? For example, with Mahesh Bhatt, there is the anti-nepotism wave coupled with the actual quality of Sadak 2. So, naturally the dominant narrative now is one of him being a copycat (it is partly factual to interpret part of his work as inspired). But, if he writes/produces a better movie or a filmmaker who learnt from him chooses to remake/pay homage with a superior work, probably the wave will shift?
I mean a narrative hardly becomes dominant because it is the truth or factual. I believe we can draw, largely from politics, that alignment to sentiments of the masses helps these narratives dominate. Especially narratives gain traction that reason with emotional logic, not reality, or even scientifically proven truths.
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Aman Basha
September 17, 2020
@KS: I’d disagree with most, accept some more and endorse some less of what you’ve typed. I agree with V2, UV, TV and MA (of which I’ve seen only Neela Vaanam), those were very sub par and disappointing movies and also Aalavandhan, which was just so effing weird that I just stopped watching it after a point.
Yes, Vishwaroopam lacked the energy of a spy thriller in the second half, yet the first half, the Afghan portions and the whole masala twist is still awesome. To extrapolate to a general audience, its IMDB rating is 8.2 with almost 40K votes.
Anbe Sivam as you had has too much on the face sermons about God and Marx and still is very strong, today it is over rated as a cult classic and does have a huge fandom. Its IMDB rating is 8.7, one of the highest for an Indian film, with 15K votes.
I haven’t seen Virumaandi but it seems to be a highly acclaimed film winning at an International Film Festival and was also a hit. Its IMDB rating has too less votes to judge, but it’s 8.3. Haven’t seen Vasool Raja or Mumbai Express either, so you seem to be right given the IMDB ratings are in the same level.
Dasavatharam I agree with too, but IMDB seems to disagree with us. It was also a huge hit, close to Sivaji The Boss. I loved Panchatantram, which was absolutely hilarious.
The biggest difference I have with your list is Hey Ram: That film is by any measure one of the greatest films made in India, with all our finest talents together. It may have been a flop, but that doesn’t matter at all to me. It has a strong rating of 7.9 in IMDB with 11K, but I disagree with that too. If there’s only one film that you can remember Kamal and the extent of his talents, it is this. As an actor, director, writer, producer, he was a master of all trades when it came to this.
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shaviswa
September 17, 2020
Agree 100% with @KS
Kamal has not delivered anything of note in a pretty long time now. No wonder he is seen to be the Big Boss host. 😀
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(Original) venkatesh
September 17, 2020
I am in hibernation and have been for a while (though i read all the articles).
But BR you triggered something in me today and that’s this :
That tweet reminded me that people so often opine on stuff they either have no clue about or have no interest in.
This , this precisely and a 100 times this. It is the death of expertise and experts.
Everyone and their dog is on FB or Twitter or Instagram or whatever the newest piece of junky dopamine enhancing social media shit that’s been vomited out by The Tech Overlords and seems to have no fucking shame in talking about stuff they have no clue about. There is no shame, no circumspection, no homework, no research. This is not just the Duning Kruger effect , this is something more at work here.
And this is true in almost every field. Some fields have an inherently higher entry requirement. Failing those, you can now see this every fucking where. I search for corners of the internet that have sane, intelligent, calm and illuminating discourse and they are vanishingly small. Its idiocracy writ large and come to life.
I for one vote for elitism. Bring back the experts.
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MANK
September 17, 2020
Mumbai Express is truly the lost gem from Kamal’s Last two decades. An extremely funny existential comedy with a superb IR score and a truly subtle, effortless performance from Kamal. It’s really his most relaxed performance in the post Nayagan phase
BTW Virumaandi was a superhit
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Shankar
September 17, 2020
Baddy, I’ve felt this a lot too and in some respects, it is inevitable. For example, in cricket, leave aside big events like the 83 world cup win or the 85 B&H WCC win, which many may have heard of, but will never know the thrill it produced in us, since we lived through it. There are a number of smaller (or significant depending on how you look at it!) events – Javed’s last ball six, Srikkanth’s swashbuckling Adelaide hundred (before Sehwag/Jayasuriya made him irrelevant), Kapil hitting a pigeon in Australia and being refused a break by Border, Sadanand’s amazing wicketkeeping, Gavaskar’s thrilling 29th century etc.
If you ask the younger generation, the response would be along the lines of “Gavaskar is the TV commentator” and so forth. The point I’m trying to make is even though I can remember a lot of specific details from the 80s, I can’t keep up with everything that’s happened since the 90s…and the only reason for that is this data generation, as you referred to, we are living in – liberalization, internet, cell phones, TV channels…there is way too much distraction now. So unless, I’m a hardcore cricket fan that wants to absorb all that history, the exploits of that generation is forgotten, and they are remembered for more recent activities. Also the game has changed….what used to be extraordinary before is now the norm. The fact that Kohli is already being spoken about as perhaps greater than Tendulkar (astonishing as it is) is an indicator of that! Sachin just retired 7 years ago!! That’s just the way it is.
So too with the films….we remember a lot of those performances because we lived that milieu, those times…almost feel that pre and post-90s as two distinct eras, because the changes have been dramatic. Back then, we didn’t have the distractions, so we absorbed everything. Now with all the cacophony, attention spans have decreased…also the game has changed. The whole economics and scale of films have changed and so older works are perhaps no longer interesting to the casual younger generation. So, unless it is a cinephile, discovering older works is a hard job….something that people have to invest time in…and nobody seems to have that today.
PS: I know there is a whole lot of stereotyping in the above comment, and I don’t mean that in a negative way to the current generation, but more of a general comment on how it is difficult to keep up…for an “old man” like me! 🙂
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awkshwayrd
September 18, 2020
@brangan As MANK said, I’m not sure this is exactly a ‘now’ phenomenon. William Shakespeare was of course not the only playwright of his era. There were obviously more critically acclaimed playwrights during that time, but all of their names are now lost, along with their plays. Will’s work only survived fortuitously because it was more popular. I guess the point is that a combination of Sturgeon’s Law, Mandela Effect, fickleness of collective opinion, burden of legacy, nature of time, yada yada, basically ensure that critical appraisal is never set in stone.
The AVClub website often does write-ups of older movies as part of their listicles, and I always end up learning how many classic Hollywood movies continued to inspire Hindi cinema well into the 90s. Most of those movies, many blockbusters, are all effectively lost to memory now.
Evaluating movies definitively by collective critical consensus feels futile though. Is It’s a Wonderful Life actually good or it just the halo? Isn’t Sholay more enjoyable than The Magnificent Seven? My nostalgia filter tells me that Space City Sigma on DD was of comparable quality to Star Trek but since all prints are now lost I can’t go back and confirm. At least I can still watch teen Karan Johar ham it up in Indradhaush on Youtube. The Long Tail not-great-but-good stuff gets easily forgotten. My 2 favorite 80s thrillers are Khoj and Khamosh and almost no one remembers either (OK perhaps Khamosh, Khoj had the misfortune of starring Kimi Katkar!).
For all we know in 50 years time people might remember Survavansham as the critical darling of 00s (why else would it repeat daily on SetMax?) and the ’10s as the era when MCU movies were the only notable movies playing in cinemas. And Avengers Endgame will be a bona-fide classic. Or it might be remembered similar to a Roland Emmerich movie, which is to say not at all. Everything goes the same way as Shelley’s Ozymandias at some point.
A word on M. Bhatt. For anyone around during the 90s Bhatt was a constant fixture of course, Bollywood’s frank dispenser of opinions apart from being a ‘hit’ film-maker. This created an enduring image of him as loud and obnoxious – because we were all naive and didn’t realize the future leader of a certain ‘Republic’ was waiting in the wings, taking notes and muttering, “I’ll show them loud and obnoxious!”
To borrow an analogy you made, if Bhatt had only made Arth and Saaransh he would still be envied by other film-makers. However he also made a bunch of well loved 90s hits (inspirations aside), and if nothing else, might be remembered as Alia Bhatt’s father (think Ron and Bryce-Dallas Howard. Yes this is a joke. Maybe. She’s a director now, and was in Jurassic World, how much more acclaim do you want. And Ron directed Solo, the worst Star Wars film). He really shouldn’t have come back for Sadak 2 though, it spoils the record books, Zakhm was the right finisher. On the other hand, Hrishikesh Mukherjee also came back and made a terrible movie and everyone has erased it from public memory.
I feel like you can forgive the Twitter teenager their youthful indiscretion. I do wonder though if he also thinks of Bachchan Sr. as “famous for being the host of KBC but that’s a show only my grand parents watch. Also a model in all kinds of ads”.
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KayKay
September 18, 2020
Aman Basha: Your comments are the triple shot espresso to my Kamal intoxication, a sadly sobering realization that there’s a whole generation that’s gonna be ignorant of the man’s vast body of work.
It’s like the conversation I had with a friend of mine, who like me, is a De Niro/Pacino devotee, who remarked that were he to wax lyrical about these 2 thespians to his son, he’d get a perplexed look, and maybe some comment about De Niro like “Oh that dude in the Fokker movies?” and maybe draw a complete blank on Pacino.
Annoyance (and a scathing remark like “Well you should have strangled that little shit at birth then”) gave way to the realization that De Niro has been in a ton of unmemorable crap for well on 2 decades and Pacino, being far less prolific would need to be identified to the present generation as “You saw the latest Tarantino movie? Once Upon A time In Hollywood? You know that elderly guy Marvin Schwarz Brad and Leo talked to at the restaurant? That’s him”
Unless they grow up to be cinephiles, and let’s face it, not many will, that’s a monumental bounty of standard defining films (Godfather, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Scarface, Goodfellas, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heat etc etc etc) that’s gonna be lost to this generation.
Jesus Wept….
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vandana lakshmi
September 18, 2020
@KS Totally agree with you. As i was going thru your list of Kamal’s movies in the last 15-20 years, except for the comedy movies Panchathanthram, kadhala kadhala, mumbai express, pammal none of his movies made an impact.
All the other movies mentioned in the list are Vishwaroopam, dasavatharam, UV, Manmadhan ambu etc were all below average movies and most of it is Kamal the offscreen person portraying himself on screen. Most of the characters in his movies utters the same dialogues as his interview, political speeches and Big boss. There is absolutely no difference between his on and off screen personality. He is more like MGR, never about the character in a movie, He appears as himself. The characters are designed in such way that he keeps repeating the same dialogues about his ideology like communism, atheism, rationalism blah blah blah.
watch BR’s interview with Kamal or any other interview and watch any of his movies in the last decade or more, there is absolutely no difference. don’t know why Kamal is called a versatile actor. 🙂
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Voldemort
September 18, 2020
The comment about Kamal Hassan being known as the Bigg Boss host for the present generation is taking it too far.
Ask any youngster what their favorite comedy is, Panchathantiram will be on top of the list. Panchathantiram and Vasool Raja are considered a cult classic among this generation and looked at as gold standard in comedy. After Vadivelu memes, they are the internet’s favorite.
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KayKay
September 18, 2020
Shankar, the 2nd last paragraph of your post perfectly encapsulates what I think as well.
It’s not just the sheer volume and the ease in which information can be accessed, also the similar ease in which consumption of it can be parsed out. You can pause, stop, come back to it, NOT come back to it, delete it off your playlist etc.
I grew watching films either in the cinema or on TV, ads in the latter the only “breaks” in your viewing.
Today, my 80 year old mother has at least 7 unwatched or partially watched movies in her Netflix Queue!
It’s the same with music. As a teenager, Springsteen and U2 were my absolute favorites. I wore out 2 cassettes of BORN IN THE USA and JOSHUA TREE each. You heard 5 tracks on Side A, flipped the cassette to Side B and continued. So while you got BORN IN THE USA, I’M ON FIRE, WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME, STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU if you only listened to 1 side, you needed to flip that sucker to get to the other gems like DANCING IN THE DARK, GLORY DAYS, ONE TREE HILL, MOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED etc.
The last 4 U2 albums and last 5 Springsteen ones I sampled on Spotify, track skipping within a minute if it wasn’t doing anything for me.
Information today: Prolific in it’s availability and profligate in how it’s frequently consumed.
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Madan
September 18, 2020
Hmm, I am going to take a different tack from what KayKay /Shankar said. I think the data gathering apparatus available now actually makes old popular art whether it’s music or movies survive LONGER than before. It was precisely the lack of this before that made the audience move on to the new, new, new relentlessly.
Take my own case. I only knew about old Hindi songs because my father was playing them all the time at home. None of my school friends were interested in those songs and generally listened to whatever was the new hit soundtrack out. And album sales itself was a big source of revenue then as Vasanth said in his interview. In Tamil, I too used to move on to the next, next, next and it was such an exciting time with Rahman conjuring a different kind of magic once a year, like an event. It was only when I was 14 or so that I began to seek out Raja’s 80s classics, you know trying to catch up with the old stuff.
What has changed is what Rahini said. Earlier this sort of disdainful opinion of a has been superstar would come up in a conversation with friends or acquaintances. Now you can sit it in a tweet taunting a critic and you own little ‘kootam ‘ will also join in the sniggers. It’s a flattening of hierarchies in opinions. It has its demerits but remember that in India when you did have these hierarchies, the quality of critical opinion produced about cinema and music was not great and often, it was terrible. Whether it was Khalid reviewing movies or Raju Bharathan talking about music.
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KayKay
September 18, 2020
Vandana Lakshmi, I’ll slightly paraphrase Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi as a response to your post:
Amazing. (almost)Every word of what you just said was wrong.
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KayKay
September 18, 2020
Madan, the accessibility of older works of art has never been easier and for those with a penchant to seek them out, it’s an absolute boon. Am just saying those for whom it isn’t a mad passion, it’s also never been easier to adopt a sample and discard approach. Based purely on your writings, I peg you for both an audio and cinephile. Even without the digital availability and accessibility of the older stuff, I see you hitting dusty record shops or ordering the Criterion Collection of classic movies online for what you want. For the rest, it’s the kid given free rein in a confectionary. The floor gets littered with mounds of half-eaten Mars, Cadbury’s and Kit Kats in a short span of time.
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KayKay
September 18, 2020
KS, I BROADLY agree with your overall point. It’s a sad but most likely true fact that for millennials, Kamal’s rather low hit-to-miss ratio these last 2 decades has resulted in him not being the Go-To Star he is for many of us.
Also no arguments regarding Uttama Villain and V2, the former dull in it’s execution and the latter a shameless cash-grab forcing viewers to fork out money for 2 movies when the post interval portion could have just been added to the 1st movie with some judicious edits for 1 complete narrative. Agree also on his comedies, Tenali, PKS, 5Thanthiram and Vasool Raaja all being crackerjack entertainers. And VV rocked (hell I own the ORIGINAL DVD)
Where we’ll need to diverge…..
Anbe Sivam: Tch!Tch! Kamal has always been slotting his own pet beliefs, ideologies and theories in his films for awhile now, so to use that to throw this otherwise frequently entertaining, poignant and even funny Buddy/Road Movie under the bus for that is something I’m not onboard with. It reminded me of the classic Steve Martin/John Candy comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles in many places. And Kamal delivers a touching and quite nuanced performance here, which kinda got swept aside in the by now all too familiar “Oh, he’s up to yet another prosthetic gimmicry” cry. And his character in this movie suffered a horrific accident which left him disfigured. He could have played him post-accident with a minor cut over his eyebrow and disheveled hair, but would you have bought it?
And to go on a tangent here, this “He covers himself in latex, accents and mannerisms” has been yet another stick to beat Kamal over the head with. You play to your strengths as a performer. Some punch dialogue, finger-swish and slo-mo strut to the camera with aplomb, some revel in their chameleonic ability to inhabit different characters. They’re both shtick. You’re free to like it or dislike it, but to rake the performer over the coals for exercising a fairly unique skill set in his profession seems puzzling at best, nit-picky at worst.
Which brings me to Dasavatharam, the fav whipping boy for Kamal’s “Latex Love”. Why did he need to play 10 roles? Because he bloody well CAN! I concede at least 2 of the 10 characters to be superfluous to the narrative and the make up effects are quite sub-par, but it’s a rollicking 3 hours of entertainment and plays perfectly to his strengths as a Screen Chameleon and an undisputed master of Tamil accents. Maybe it’s the cynicism that’s seeped into our generation, but I recall watching Sivaji’s 9-role opus Navrathri with my parents who both had differing views on it’s entertainment value but virtually none that went along the lines of “Oh, why does he need to play all 9 roles?” As a friend of mine said: If you can accept Vijay playing ONE role in 10 films, cut Kamal a little slack for playing TEN roles in one film.
And if I was Kamal I’d go “ok, so you hate me under layers of make up, don’t want me affecting accents or mannerisms. I did NONE of that shit, played it straight as a harried policeman in a perfectly decent cop thriller, but you lot still gave the middle finger to Thoonga Vanam. Just what the fuck do you want me to do?”
And in another era, when subtitled Malayalam movies weren’t suddenly accessible and some of them widely seen and embraced, Papanasam would have been hailed as a Kamal tour-de-force.
And agree with you MANK…Mumbai Xpress, a criminally ignored Kamal gem, bull-dozed aside by a ludicrous Manichitratazhu remake which is only known today for some funny Vadivelu bits.
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Aman Basha
September 18, 2020
“don’t know why Kamal is called a versatile actor”
Michael Madana Kamarajan. Catch my point?
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Anu Warrier
September 18, 2020
Let me join the ranks of Kamal-fans. I adore him in the films I grew up with; in his later outings I may not have liked the film but remained in awe of what the man could imagine. As far as I am concerned – and this is a totally subjective opinion – the man has forgotten more about acting than most ‘actors’ will ever learn in their lifetime.
@MANK – you and I and my father – all liked Mumbai Express. 🙂
@Double Kay – I found Anbe Sivam poignant as hell. And I thought this was one film where Kamal did not hog the screen; Maddy had a chance to shine too.
Dasavataram – I think he went overboard with a couple of the characters, but I’m in awe of his vision.
Information today: Prolific in it’s availability and profligate in how it’s frequently consumed.
You never said a truer word!
Michael Madana Kamarajan. Catch my point?
@Aman – Definitely! 🙂 An all-time favourite of mine.
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Rahul
September 19, 2020
“If you can accept Vijay playing ONE role in 10 films, cut Kamal a little slack for playing TEN roles in one film.”
LMAO
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Aman Basha
September 19, 2020
@Anu Warrier: I depended on subtitles and my little knowledge of Tamil to watch the film and still found it hella enjoyable.
And also, yes I misread your earlier comment as people creating a narrative of Kamal being irrelavent because of politics. I see that you meant the two examples seperately, apologies.
Also, can we actually try and make a list of all of Kamal’s best performances and films, maybe even compare them with the likes of Al Pacino and De Niro just to gauge whether he has lived up to his potential and has a worthy legacy by even international standards?
For starters, here’s Kamal’s favorites from a list he curated for Independence Day (https://www.hindustantimes.com/interactives/kamal-hassan-70-movies/):
Aval Oru Thodal Kathai* (1974)
Apoorva Raagangal* (1975)
Maro Charitra* (1978)
Red Rose* (1978)
Sommokadidi Sokokadidi* (1978)
Moondram Pirai* (1980)
Amavasya Chandrudu* (1981)
Sagara Sangamam* (1983)
Swati Mutyam* (1986)
Nayakan* (1987)
Pushpak* (1987)
Aporva Sagotharargal* (1989)
Thevar Magan* (1992)
Mahanadi* (1994)
Hey Ram* (2000)
Anbe Sivam* (2003)
Virumaandi* (2004)
Dasavathaaram* (2008)
Vishwaroopam* (2013)
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Madan
September 19, 2020
” Even without the digital availability and accessibility of the older stuff, I see you hitting dusty record shops or ordering the Criterion Collection of classic movies online for what you want. ” – Yes, to some extent. Though I see myself remaining more of a book lover in such a situation. I think the ease of accessibility that the internet brought was important to me in the case of movies and music. Without which being a cinephile or a musophile would be a very expensive hobby (I should know, I have 200 CDs nevertheless and mostly with an average price of 400-500).
But is it only cinephiles who seek out old pop culture products? Not so sure of that. Here is exhibit A.
Rakkamma video uploaded 5 years back having 45 lakh views:
And Vaseegara having somewhat fewer views in spite of being a song most millennials and some zoomers would have grown up on:
And it doesn’t stop there. You could at least say the hype factor around Rakkamma elevated its number of views.
But the video of Aana Re Aana Re has 20k views with some comments lauding it as ‘Pancham magic’. To put it in context, the song appeared on Gurudev, a film Vinod Mehra was directing before he died and the film was eventually completed and released only three years after his death.
Do I remember this song from back in the day? Yes. But it barely made a dent in the middle of Baazigar, Deewana, Khalnayak or Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. It was, if anything, regarded with sadness by old timers as evidence of RD’s decline.
I cannot find an ‘authentic’ source for 1993’s Binaca top 10 listing but as per the below link, no song from Gurudev made it there (not surprisingly).
http://man-sarovar.blogspot.com/2010/11/binaca-geet-mala-1993-finals.html
So how does a so-so soundtrack from back in the day not only get archived but find viewers today? I think the ease of access allows casual listeners /viewers too to go down the internet rabbit hole and explore. This was more difficult for them as well and hence, they were content to focus on the new.
That dude who reduced Kamal to Big Boss was basically talking the way some of us did about Amitabh Bachchan in the mid-late 90s. When you were looking forward to the latest Shah Rukh and Aamir movies, it was easy to ignore parents and uncles and aunties talking about Deewar etc and just mock Mrityudatta or Sooryavansham instead. It is difficult for us diehard Kamal fans today to accept that people, especially younger people who didn’t have to invest in Kamal’s story back in the 80s or 90s, see him as an unfashionable has-been (with the ‘bonus’ of being verbosity appa in a way that at least AB never was). But this is the normal sentiment that comes up as pop culture churns and changes.
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therag
September 19, 2020
I wonder how much longer this schtick of “Kamal has earned the right to do whatever he pleases” will go around. Only in Tamil Cinema is this possible because the last time Kamal did something he didn’t want to do was in 2006 (Vettaiyaadu). His last great film was probably Mumbai Express, following which he’s had a spotty record at best. He’s been delivering mostly sub-par films (by his standards) for more than a decade, with pretty poor box office results. So guess what, he did get to do what he wanted, it’s another matter that the audience didn’t really dig. And we’ve all seen how he is (not so slowly) leeching off of his reputation to launch his political career.
Regarding the subject of this post by BR, there is just simply too much entertainment out there today. Older people grew up in a time when cinema/TV much more dominant as an entertainment option. People today don’t care enough about “Aval Appadithaan” or “Mahesh Bhat” to go watch his films, read the consensus of the time and come up with a measured assessment of his career. This is just another example of the Pareto distribution being applied to film history.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone born in the 2000s or later didn’t know that a company called Nokia existed. Someone born in the 2010s most probably does not know that Nokia was once the dominant force in the phone market, or that IBM and Motorola were forces in the CPU market at some point. Nokia was a pioneer in Communications research (they still hold a lot of patents that other makers use). The phone market (unlike the Tamil Film Industry) is not forgiving and wiped Nokia off the face of the Earth in less than 5 years when they couldn’t keep up with the Apple and Android ecosystems. When someone starts a discussion about dumb/smart phones without a reference to Nokia, Palm, Motorola, Sony Ericcson has all that history been erased? No, there are still corners of the internet where people know and care about that history. Books and documentaries have been published about them.
It might mean that you’re now caught in your social media bubble and have some work to do extricating yourself out of it.
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An Jo
September 20, 2020
If there’s one thing that defines Mahesh Bhat from the ’80s, it is that he was that one director who permeated the ’80s with low to medium budget movies, at the most, but most importantly, as someone who had a gift for story-telling, but was always confused about what his cinema was meant to be considered by audience, critics, box-office pundits, etc., etc., His directorial pendulum swung between a) films he made for himself – few and far between – and b) the ones he presented to the audience. The former, of course, turned to be memorable both for certain audiences and of course the critics; the latter were, well, very much like consumer products. The astonishing part there were that they were middle-class, had some interesting premise and story-material, some good to some fine actors, but he still managed to mess it up somehow.
In the former, of course are stories from his life from the likes of ‘Saaransh’ [his and Anupam’s pinnacle], ‘Arth’ [Smita won by miles], Janam, ‘Kaash’, ‘Zakhm’, and ‘Daddy’. [Though ‘Kaash’ turned out to be a fizzle when compared to ‘Arth’ to his audiences; one of the examples of the compromises he had to make to make the film family-friendly.]
The latter consisted of interesting films like ‘Thikana’, ‘Aawargi’, ‘Kabzaa’ and mediocre films like ‘Saathi’,’Tadipar.’ I quite liked ‘Thikana’ for its times. ‘Kabza’ holds its own due to Dutt [of course, I am here ignoring the fact that the source material is ‘On the Waterfront.’]. His greatest achievement in this period, after ‘Saaransh’. though, remains ‘Naam.’ And his biggest hits include ‘Aashiqui’ and ‘Sadak’. In all the mediocre movies that I mentioned, it is interesting to note that, though most of them were plagiarized [it is difficult to keep count; a good game would be scenes or films?]. For me, what remains interesting is even-though the films remained mediocre, he was a quintessential Bombay film-maker. In spite of not-so-great photography, he would always choose and show the ‘ideal’ shots for a scene’s backdrop in his films – whether capturing the Flora Fountain, the local, the GPO, or Churchgate. He was never one to go bonkers on international vistas. Another important thing was his regular roster of character actors: Avtar Gill, Mushtaq Khan, Aakash Khurana, Paresh Rawal, Suhas Bhalekar, Mahesh Anand, sometimes, Nilu Phule. [And of course, who can forget his villains’ fighting ‘side-kick’, the ‘chikna’ Gavin Packard.
The ‘90s, of course, were the worst. It was here that instead of taking his job of a wedding-planner seriously, he just showed up as an electrician trying to light up the ‘director’s’ chair. He should be credited with the art of ‘outsourcing’ direction – especially to Aamir for ‘HARPK’ and ‘DHKMN’. Except for ‘Zakhm’, which, again, was based on his parents and their inter-religious marriage, and those two Aamir movies, nothing was even worth considering mentioning by name.
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Madan
September 20, 2020
“I wonder how much longer this schtick of “Kamal has earned the right to do whatever he pleases” will go around. Only in Tamil Cinema is this possible” – Let’s not be too harsh, in Hindi cinema, nincompoops who haven’t earned jack still get to do what they please. That said, agree with the gist of your argument that Kamal fans are kinda regarding his recent output through rose tinted glasses. Younger viewers don’t HAVE to keep waiting on Kamal to deliver vintage form again because they are simply not invested in his journey in the same way. Heck, I haven’t watched any of his last four-five films. I simply checked out. And it doesn’t have to be that one has to hop onto a Thalapathy or Thala bandwagon instead. I just got more interested in the work of some of the new filmmakers and what Kamal has done lately doesn’t interest me as much as that.
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Heisenberg
September 21, 2020
I think its a part and parcel of life. You’re most likely to be remembered by the deeds you do in later days than at the peak of career, irrespective of the field you’re in. But history tends to be kinder to people who peaked and exited quicker than people with dismal end.
For today’s generation kid a yesteryear star like Mohan will be known as the guy who gave phenomenal hits in 1980s, but T Rajendar as the guy who makes weird sounds in every stage.
Even for me it was hard to believe when I once heard from older person that actor Vijayan (father in 7G movie), was a big star in his heydays and had movie releases like every month (may be a bit exaggeration?).
The sad thing is for all the greatness of Rajinikanth as an actor, star and unparalleled boxoffice pull for more than 4 decades, he is now widely mocked for his political utterances. In the unlikely event that he continues on this suicidal path without continuous movie presence, this may be the thing he might be remembered for by the general public.
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Heisenberg
September 21, 2020
Even for Ilaiyaraja – Over 4000 songs and ask a today’s youngster about his favorite Ilaiyaraaja song, there’s a high probability that the answer will be “Thendral vandhu theendum bodhu”.. Of course that’s a great song but how does that one song trump all the other songs and suddenly become everybody’s favorite?
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Madan
September 21, 2020
“there’s a high probability that the answer will be “Thendral vandhu theendum bodhu”.. Of course that’s a great song but how does that one song trump all the other songs and suddenly become everybody’s favorite?” – I had sort of brought this up when BR did this interview with Sid Sriram where the latter broke down three Raja songs, the three being Yethetho, Thenpandi Cheemaiyile and Kanne Kalaimaane. All great songs but that’s just one side of Raja. And not one of them bringing out his subversive side. And I don’t mind if somebody likes the less subversive, more staid side of Raja (the Konjam Sangeetham/Atho Mega Oorvalam side if you will) but it then becomes a narrative about how there is so much specificity in his music, how it’s so symmetrical, so melodic etc. No, barring the specificity, they only apply to particular songs of his range which, needless to say, is vast. When somebody zeroes in on songs like those (or Thendral Vandhu), it says more about what they look for and expect in ‘old’ music and them trying to forcefit Raja’s repertoire into what they like best out of what he does. It speaks volumes that even a seasoned operator in the music biz like Sid Sriram falls into these cliches (though not surprising as we heard them all the time from Srinivas too from the judge’s chair in Super Singer).
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TambiDude
September 21, 2020
““Thendral vandhu theendum bodhu”
This is a far better version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9-LtHla-_4
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KayKay
September 21, 2020
“For today’s generation kid a yesteryear star like Mohan will be known as the guy who gave phenomenal hits in 1980s, but T Rajendar as the guy who makes weird sounds in every stage.”
Heisenberg, if Kamal who has been giving on average at least 1 movie a year for the past decade (never mind their popularity or quality which has been amply debated here and elsewhere) is now “that Game Show Host” I expect nothing but blank stares from the same demographic if “Mike Mohan” is mentioned, whose hey days were over in the early ’90s and who’s all but out of the industry.
TR of course deserves all the scorn he gets, having singlehandedly re-invented himself as an internet meme. And output wise the guy’s last movie which he directed and acted in (although with TR films words like direction and acting have very loose definitions) was what? Veerasamy which IMDB tells me came out in 2007! 13 years ago. And his recent appearance in that Vijay Sethupathi movie I can’t recall was pure stunt casting.
“Even for me it was hard to believe when I once heard from older person that actor Vijayan (father in 7G movie), was a big star in his heydays and had movie releases like every month (may be a bit exaggeration?)”
Ho Ho….now you’re talking about tiny little blips on the cinematic landscape when you mention guys like Vijayan, who I think had about THREE memorable roles. Mahendran’s Uthiripookkal, Bharathi Raja’s Niram Maratha Pookkal and Thurai’s Pasi and was then relegated to supporting roles (fact that he spoke Tamil with a strong Mallu accent didn’t help). Didn’t have a prolific filmography and sadly passed away in 2007. You can also toss another actor in this group who was Vijayan’ contemporary: Sudhakar.
Those with slightly longer innings like Murali and Pandian are also no longer with us although their heydays were well behind them when they passed away.
Prolific hit makers right up to the late ’90s, Karthik and Prabhu are most likely only known today as the fathers of Gautham Karthik and Vikram Prabhu respectively.
Thank God for Baahubali and Kattappa else Sathyaraj may also have been relegated to some hazy memory of “wasn’t he the father of so and so in that movie?”
And try telling millennials that there was a time when Bhagyaraj movies out grossed Kamal and Rajini’s and you’d get told off for spewing a load of BS.
Sob…I’m gonna find myself a corner and just cry….
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Madan
September 21, 2020
“And try telling millennials that there was a time when Bhagyaraj movies out grossed Kamal and Rajini’s and you’d get told off for spewing a load of BS.” – Or the Mike Mohan juggernaut. Somebody who acted moderately well at best (but rarely overacted, in his favour), who didn’t fight, wasn’t particularly attractive (though women would be better qualified to opine on that) somehow delivered hit after hit and was a far more reliable vehicle than Kamal or Rajni in that time. I think millennials could possibly imagine Bhagyaraj films running well by considering the success of Sivakarthikeyan or Santhanam but the Mike Mohan idiom is gone for good. Appiram Murali. And Ramki. Just since the 90s, Tamil cinema has changed so much.
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tejas
September 21, 2020
Is “R D Burman was bad in his late years” an accepted truth? Or is that more of a reflection of the music of that decade, and RD gets the stick with everyone else?
I just checked his filmography and except for 1990 and 91, there was at least one film every year I could go back and listen to at least 1-2 good songs even now.
Here’s a quick list if you’re lazy –
1994 – 1942 A Love Story
1993 – Libaas, Gardish
1992 – Drohi
1991 and 1990 – blank
1989 – Parinda
1988 – blank
1987 – Ijaazat (masterpiece of an album)
1986 – Samundar
1985 – Saagar, Arjun,
1984 – Sunny, Andar Baahar
1983 – Pukar, Masoom, Betaab
1982 – Shakti, Sanam teri kasam, Yeh Vaada Raha, Satte pe Satta, Bemisal
I will stop there because prior to 1982 we definitely get into the peak era.
I understand that RD’s posthumous “fame” has often overshadowed the work by his contemporaries like LP, Kalyanji Anandji, even Rajesh Roshan and Bappi Lahiri. But “RD bad in later years” is not that much of a truth. Even in his peak years, there were always couple of bad films for one big film. The big films were so big that you could miss those minor bumps. In the 80s, for some stretch of time the definition of big films changed. The new directors went for a very different sound – Ghai with LP, the disco and Jeetu era with Bappi Da. RD’s collaborators started making either fewer (Gulzar) or terrible (Dev Anand) and his quantity of good work suffered – as compared to the 70s which was peach of a time.
A lot of RD’s post-death fame is due to – here I go again – the advent of remixes. Chura Liya, O Haseena Zulfowali etc were soon remixed after RD’s death and his legacy became more cult’ish than his contemporaries.
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tejas
September 21, 2020
There was a 2010 film called “No One Killed Jessica”. It’s not on any streaming platform in India. It’s music is not on Youtube except maybe one or two songs. The music company who owns the rights is Saregama and the album is not on their catalogue either.
That is erasure of film, not just its history.
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Madan
September 22, 2020
“There was a 2010 film called “No One Killed Jessica”. It’s not on any streaming platform in India. ” – It’s on Netflix. I had only recently watched the film so when I read your comment, I checked the three platforms that I do subscribe to – Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon – and found it on Netflix.
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KayKay
September 22, 2020
“That is erasure of film, not just its history.”
tejas, as Madan mentioned, it’s on Netflix. It’s also on YouTube. And had it not been available on these 2 platforms I would have told you it’s….errr…..ahem…..”available”
Keeping it cryptic because I believe the only time anyone should be advocating for piracy is to get people to watch the 1st Pirates Of The Caribbean film or the Black Sails tv series 🙂
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Madan
September 22, 2020
“Is “R D Burman was bad in his late years” an accepted truth? ” – There is no truth in music critique anyway, so whether it is an accepted truth or not depends on your own point of view.
But let’s look at some of the soundtracks you mentioned. Sanam Teri Kasam got him a Filmfare award but it was a long way off his best. Likewise in the case of Sagar. I am not going to get into how O Maria is copied because RD copied a lot even during his peak days. But Sagar Kinare and Chehra Hai Ya were really tired numbers. These were still roughly at the beginning of the decline. By the late 80s, RD had fewer films and they produced fewer memorable numbers in turn. As for Libaas, the film was never released in India. So the benefit of hindsight available today to just go back and check those songs on YouTube didn’t exist then. If a film wasn’t released at all, the songs simply sank without a trace.
I will add here that the albums you or others describe as masterpieces themselves involve a generous evaluation of comparing it with his other so-so work of the 80s or that of his peers. Does 1942 actually compare to Ghar, Aandhi or Parichay? I don’t believe a single Pancham fan would be able to claim that. Now you can say that is an unfair standard but it is the standard applied to other composers. Even after Ilayaraja pulled out all stops on Neethane En Pon Vasantham, involving wonderful musicians from Hungary and recording the music at London, plenty of fans still carped about the album on various grounds and voiced their disappointment overall with the endeavour. Imagine complaining about Karthik’s vocals when you had to put up with nasal Sanu on the 1942 songs. Likewise, Rahman’s new albums have been judged harshly, including by myself, by comparing them with his earlier masterpieces. So I don’t see why I should adjust standards for RD’s 80s albums.
IMO the last RD album that compared at least somewhat to his 70s albums was Satte Pe Satta (also the only one along with, perhaps, Bade Dilwale that could be ranked among the best albums of the decade). Bemisal was ok, had Khafa Hoon which was a great melancholy number but Ek Roz again was thakela. As the aforesaid RD biography described it, the song had long interludes/prelude to cover up the lack of spark in the vocal melody. Similar deal with Harjaee. Kabhi Palkon Pe Aansoo was over-orchestrated into boredom while the more sparkling Tere Liye Palkon had tired vocals from Lata. More than tired, I would say her treatment was too classical, too heavy to suit the then young and attractive Tinu Munim. There was just generally something tired and heavy about a lot of RD’s work in the 80s which particularly stuck out when compared to his rollicking work from the 70s, even as late as Gol Maal.
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brangan
September 22, 2020
tejas: Is “R D Burman was bad in his late years” an accepted truth? Or is that more of a reflection of the music of that decade, and RD gets the stick with everyone else?
There are two separate topics here. One, the music of the 80s was certainly not blanket-ly “bad”. My opinion is that this is a “truth” spread by some film journos who could not digest the fact that synths and drum machines were taking over.
Even in the much-maligned Bappi Lahiri oeuvre, there are fun songs like this Michael Jackson-inspired one:
But even if this type of sound does nothing for you (and even if you narrowly define “good music” as “music with melodious tunes”), the eighties saw the ghazal boom in movie soundtracks. Jagjit and Chitra Singh made the transition from niche album-makers to mainstream.
Anyway, will write more about this later.
But coming to RD, it wasn’t the music so much as the fact that he wasn’t getting the hits. All the films were flopping. So his profile certainly dimmed (like his contemporary MSV’s) in the 1980s.
Art is so subjective that beyond a point, one is basically talking “opinion” rather than “fact”, but I do feel you can make a case that RD hadn’t “lost it” in the 1980s.
Apart from the albums you mention, there are a number of one-off songs, like this sweet, sweet number from HUM NAUJAWAN:
This is an RD-Asha “genre” from the 80s I love. It’s a very light pop-music sound, and you find it in numbers like ‘Tu rootha to’ (JAWANI) and ‘Mausam pyar ka’ (SITAMGAR). And this sound is used in a more classical-ised manner in songs like ‘Roz roz aankhon tale’ (JEEVA) and ‘Jeene de yeh duniya’ (LAVA) — though in the latter, I hate Manmohan Singh’s voice.
Film industry sources say that the steady rejection from top filmmakers (Subhash Ghai was supposed to make a film or two with his music) made him depressed. One never knows the “truth” of these things. Plus the utter lack of hit films. I mean, YEH VAADA RAHA is a gorgeous album, and the film was a bomb of the first order.
But yes, about RD in the 80s overall, I am not saying he was at his “peak” or anything. But he was nowhere close to a has-been, either. In the 90s, though, he was through, sadly (and perhaps inevitably, for someone who started off in the mid-60s).
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Madan
September 22, 2020
“But yes, about RD in the 80s overall, I am not saying he was at his “peak” or anything.” – If we talk about 80s the entire decade, yes. But I believe the timeline is off here with tejas’ comment, because I mentioned Gurudev, not Satte Pe Satta. By Gurudev, RD had come further along the road of decline from where he was even as of 84/85.
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brangan
September 22, 2020
Another thing, tejas. If you like a composer and are curious about the part of their work you don’t know much about, you may want to do what I do. I basically Wiki up the filmography and listen to all the songs. And you’ll discover some really nice music this way.
There is a whole world of music beyond that which has been institutionalised and canonised by the “establishment” — YouTube is your friend 🙂
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tejas
September 22, 2020
Madan, Kay Kay – oh thanks! I think I mixed up the unavailability of the soundtrack and the movie. Now tell me what to do with this awesome conspiracy theory I came up with on why the film was “erased” from the reach (and no – it can’t be showing it up anywhere). 😛
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TambiDude
September 22, 2020
Today when I look back at 80s, overwhelming majority of few good songs of that decade was composed by RDB.
and this is one of my fav:
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TambiDude
September 22, 2020
Dekho yeh kaun aaya: This one is much better in audio quality.
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Madan
September 22, 2020
TambiDude: My picks for that decade would be Khaiyyam and Jagjit Singh. With the caveat that RD was still reasonably productive in the first half of the 80s. From 84/85 is where his output took a nosedive.
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tejas
September 24, 2020
@Madan – the songs of Gurudev were nothing to write home about. But the song that got more airplay was “Jaipur se nikli gaadi”. The film didn’t stay in the theaters for very long, and the song probably might have come on Philips Top Ten or Superhit Muqabla for a week or so if my memory serves me right.
btw, “Seeli Hawa” from Libaas was a decently popular song even then because it was played a lot on the radio. They may have been more views of the song now because how big a brand Gulzar became, but at least I remembered it from having heard it – wait for it – in Madurai for the very first time. It wasn’t on radio, someone just sang it in front of me casually and the song stuck.
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Madan
September 24, 2020
“and the song probably might have come on Philips Top Ten or Superhit Muqabla for a week or so if my memory serves me right.” – If it played on Philips Top Ten, that would have to be after the film’s run and after RD’s death. RD died in early 94 and soon after, the music of 1942 became a blockbuster. My guess is it lifted the popularity of Gurudev a bit too.
“but at least I remembered it from having heard it – wait for it – in Madurai for the very first time.” – If it was on Radio Ceylon, that may be because Ameen Sayani was entrusted with the radio publicity of the songs.
https://hi-in.facebook.com/153811239582/posts/yesterday-was-the-25th-death-anniversary-of-music-director-rd-burman-in-his-memo/10156942606869583/
I almost think sometimes that if RD hadn’t enjoyed the goodwill of Ameen saab, it would have hurt his prospects overall because the industry screwed him for a long time. We talk about nepotism today but at that time, in spite of RD being SD’s son, he had to wait a long time as even the success of Teesri Manzil did not persuade Shammi Kapoor to switch camp from SJ for his next several films (Evening in Paris, Prince, Laatsaab, Brahmachari etc). And then, he had to wait till Sanam Teri Kasam to get a Filmfare and that’s just insane. Maybe in that light, the retrospective hyping of RD is not such a bad thing because I can’t think of another composer who was not given his due in the industry in spite of delivering blockbuster success time and time again (unlike say MM or Jaidev).
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TambiDude
September 24, 2020
“I almost think sometimes that if RD hadn’t enjoyed the goodwill of Ameen saab, it would have hurt his prospects overall because the industry screwed him for a long time.”
That is bit odd since Ameen Sayani’s Binaca Geet Mala was very harsh on R D Burman in 70s and boosted Kalyanji Anandji and Laxmi Pyare songs. RDBurman gave just one topper in his career.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaca_Geetmala#Lists_of_top_songs_per_year
Highly overrated program. I had written about in in this blog some 10 yrs ago. There was no transparency in the annual rating system, which justifiably gave credence to conspiracy theories of favoritism.
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Madan
September 24, 2020
“That is bit odd since Ameen Sayani’s Binaca Geet Mala was very harsh on R D Burman in 70s and boosted Kalyanji Anandji and Laxmi Pyare songs. RDBurman gave just one topper in his career.” – I didn’t notice this. Wow, very odd indeed. Almost like songs like Chala Jaata Hoon, O Mere Dil Ke Chain, Chingari, Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai weren’t hits at all.
In fairness to Ameen Sayani, it is entirely possible that the songs that topped the radio charts back in the day happened to be the silly ‘novelty’ songs and the ones we talk about are the ones that were memorable. I have heard broadcasts of the program Casey’s Coast to Coast hits which ran through the 70s and couldn’t recognise most of the songs, sometimes not even the bands. Even when I knew the bands (like Grand Funk Railroad), they weren’t the ones associated with the 70s experience today. On a similar note, guess which song knocked Penny Lane off the top of the charts back in the 60s? Engelbert Humperdinck’s cover of Please Release Me! Which is a decent enough song but boring and staid.
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Jayram
September 24, 2020
A 1985 RD classical number featuring Asha and Yesudas.
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Madan
September 24, 2020
I think looking up the entire top binaca hits list gives a more nuanced picture:
1972 has not one but three RD songs in the top 10:
http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Binaca_Geet_Mala_1972:_greatest_hits
Same deal in ’73, just that Meri Bheegi Bheegi Si is at no.4 and not no.1:
http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Binaca_Geet_Mala_1973:_greatest_hits
Now even if I don’t see the deal about Yaari Mera Naam today, I have to agree with Binaca, unfortunately, that Hum Tum Ik Kamre was a bigger hit than Meri Bheegi Bheegi Si even if the latter is a far superior song. Somewhat like how Yenkitta Modhadhey was probably the biggest hit from Rajathi Raja and Ae Aatha from Payanangal Mudivathile.
In ’74 too, RD lost out by just one spot as Jai Jai Shiv Shankar reached no.2.
http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Binaca_Geet_Mala_1974:_greatest_hits
The overall point being any song in the top 20-30 of Binaca Geet Mala surely got a lot of time on the radio through the year.
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kaizokukeshav
September 25, 2020
Respect is a little overrated. Some time back I read that there have been several incidents of many “reel” based films that were not preserved properly and were in danger of getting lost with time, even some Mani Ratnam movies too. I think it is the ability to store the movie, and the technology to hear and see it itself is vulnerable after certain period. What’s the big deal about the creators ? They are legends in their time, but every year new legendary artists keeps coming. Only the idea will survive. Neither the artist nor the art might survive with time, they are here only to provide moments of joy.
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TambiDude
September 25, 2020
“I think looking up the entire top binaca hits list gives a more nuanced picture:”
Not sure. yearly hits were supposed to be straight forwards. Just sum up the points of weekly hit parade. No 1 song of the week will get 18 points and no 18 will get 1. Yearly ranking should have been a sum of weekly hits. Except that it wasn’t. A mysterious category called “shrotsangon kee rai” (recommendation of fan club) was another metric included in the final ranking. All surprises , without exception, where because of that reason.
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Madan
September 25, 2020
“yearly hits were supposed to be straight forwards. Just sum up the points of weekly hit parade.” – Sure, my point is different. I am saying even if RD’s songs came in at no.2 or 4 or 5 in the Binaca listing for the year, that means they would have been played over and over anyway on the radio. So the film industry could not use lack of binaca no.1s to deny Filmfare awards to him. They did so anyway. Till ’73, Shankar Jaikishan’s cheating at Filmfares was still going on but even after that, they continued to snub RDB for whatever reason. It’s the most bizarre thing, somewhat like Aamir realizing that Filmfare would only give the award to Shah Rukh who was prepared to chatofy the organizers to the max degree and snubbing them by not attending the award shows. I guess RD too must have refused to lobby them for awards/didn’t care.
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Aman Basha
September 25, 2020
@Madan: As the SRK fan here, let me say, “aap chronology samajhiye”. The first time Aamir felt snubbed at Filmfare was actually when Anil Kapoor won for Beta instead for JJWS, he later criticized the decision and so Khalid Mohamed had an axe to grind with him. When Khalid interviewed RGV after Rangeela, he deliberately misquoted RGV as saying that the waiter acted better than Aamir in the hotel scene. That was why Aamir and RGV had a fallout, later when Aamir realized, he stopped attending. Another incident was when Filmfare published the whole plot of Lagaan before it released.
Plus, Filmfare has a lot to do with the jury members. FYI, Vimal Elaichi Filmfare 2020’s jury consisted of Urmilla, Vidya Balan, Niranjan Iyengar (writer of KHNH, KANK, MNIK, ADHM), Nikhil Advani (director of KHNH) and its chairperson was Karan Johar. Gully Boy wins 13 Awards, Ananya wins Best Debut, Alia wins Best Actress, Kalank wins Best Choreography and Manish Malhotra wins a Special Mention. Have to say, quite a blatant conflict of interest.
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brangan
September 25, 2020
tejas: Recalled this beauty when the SPB news broke:
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Madan
September 25, 2020
Aman Basha: It’s a long time ago but I am sure Aamir’s feud with Filmfare was not Rangeela specific. In general, he concluded it was a waste of time and stopped attending because he felt even if his performances happened to be the most appreciated in a year, they were not going to give him the award as he would not cozy up to them. At that time, as SRK danced and emceed at the Filmfare, it increased the perception that they favoured him. This is less a reflection on SRK and more on the awards that they were not seen to be impartial at all. Aamir was just one instance. Giving the Best Actress to Madhuri Dixit for DTPH, Kajol for K3G and Kareena for 3 Idiots were all hotly debated. And after that, people simply stopped debating and stopped watching the shows altogether. At least, I don’t know anybody in my age group who even discusses about the awards anymore.
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Anu Warrier
September 26, 2020
Madan, Aamir’s boycott of Filmfare Awards started right after the DDLJ/Rangeela debacle. He went on record to state so as well. Not anything against SRK but about his total disinterest in getting an award. The only award, apart from the National Awards, that he has accepted in the intervening years is the Gollapudi Srinivas Award.
Funnily enough, Filmfare tried desperately to woo him back by giving him the Best Actor award for Raja Hindustan (of all films!) the very next year; and then for Lagaan, Rang De Basanti, and * Dangal*, apart from a clutch of Best Film awards. The man didn’t show up even once to collect them. 🙂 I honestly thought it served FF right.
Once upon a time, the FF awards were relatively respected; now, they are a joke.
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