Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Amitabh Bachchan - Revisiting his life...



When writing something about a person to whom you like a lot, its difficult to put the negative side of the person. That's what happen when you write review on people like Amitabh Bachhan, Aamir Khan, SRK, Rani and all other famous personalities. Our emotional attachment does not let us show the dark side of the personality. I am doing my best to sit on the fence and try to revisit his film carrier.

My statistical analysis could be wrong as I don't know the dates when the movie as released weather it got an award or not. So please forgive me for that. This is what I feel/heard/read about him.



The son of the noted Hindi poet, Harivanshrai Bachchan (famous poem Madhushala), he was born in Allahabad. He was working as a freight broker for a shipping firm in Calcutta. But latter moved to Mumbai (Bollywood) to find his carrier in film industry. His voice at that time was only asset for him but still was rejected by all India radio, also he did a role of dumb person in "Reshma and Sera". His liability was his extra ordinary height. None of the lead heroines wanted to work with him. He struggle for months. Mean while worked in few films and due to kind of role, was never got noticed.

Well then "Zanzeer" happened. Some people also say that he was about to leave Mumbai and suddenly he got this offer (I don't know, how far this is correct), and that changes the life of Amitabh and many more. Prakash Mehra brought the best out of him. From the same movie all time villain Pran changed the mind of viewers by proving that he is not as bad as we think about him (I mean he was capable enough to do a character roles).

In his early films like the Anand (1970) and Namak Haram (1973) he worked with that time Supar Star Rajesh Khann. But he left his impression on the viewers.

With his height and lean looks, Amitabh became symbol of the new kind of action hero. Whereas his predecessors such as Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra played romantic roles, Amitabh introduced the trend of the 'angry young man' to Indian cinema (however this was a difficult task at that time. The hero was supposed to be very kind hearted, a larger than life character).

In 1975 he worked in Deewaar, which gave a new look to Hindi cinema, he played the role of a mafia don opposite his law-abiding, policeman brother (Shashi Kapoor). It was a brilliant performance with Amitabh and he walked away with all the sympathy for his character rather than with his law-abiding brother.

The father son clash was extremely well performed by Amitabh in movie like Tishul ( Amitabh, Rakhee, Sanjeev Kumar), and Shakti (Amitabh, Dilip Kumar - Tragedy King, Rakhee and Smita Patil.) The title in Minerva talkies of mumbai was "Shakti" - Clash of the Titans. In Shakti as son of a strict police officer (Dilip Kumar), Amitabh takes the life to the dark side (high crime and smuggling)



Though he played the angry young man to perfection, Amitabh almost flagged in all types of roles, let it be romantic roles like Yash Chopra (Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Silsila (1981)) or the family dram of Manmohan Desai. (Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish (1977), Suhaag (1979), Naseeb (1981) to name a few) or as a commedian in Namak Halal, Don, Satte pe Satte. He was excellent in all kind of roles be it action, drama, song and dance or comedy and slowly his films started to be rated as one man variety show.The drunken scene in Amar Akbar Anthony or the act in the Mere Angane Mein song from Lawaaris (1981), are not they Items?? (now days items are only done by half naked model cum actresses cum dancer cum .. )

In 1984 when he was well established as a "Supar Star", due to close association with Congress he tried to get into politics but soon he realized that it was not his domain and he immediately got out of that place promising to himself that he is never going to come again in politics.

When in 1990 he won the National Award for the role in Agnipath it was just like "Shakti" or "Deewar" being revisited. He decided to take a break from Hindi cinema as an actor after "Khuda Gawah", and, started a new company "ABCL". However company dint do well and he lost lot of money in that.

Again some years later Amitabh returned to commercial Hindi cinema, but in the beginning he dint had the impact what he had in his first phase. The reason for that are many but what I guess is the time was changed and there was a different trend being set by the new comers. And Amitabh should have studied that and then would have signed the films. He should have been a little choosy about the character. I don't know exact reason for choosing any XYZ movie but some how I feel that Amitabh was never very choosy about the movies (may be he felt that he can perform any kind of roles). I have seen him earlier also doing some kind of junk roles in movies like Azooba, Jadugar, Natarwrlal etc.

But that does not matter, he continues to have an extraordinary public presence in India. He took KBC "Koun Banega Carorpati" to new height and made it one of the most popular program in India. It has touch the popularity of "Ramayana" and "Mahabharat". He was also being chosen as the superstar of the Millennium and being selected as the first film personality from India to be immortalized at Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum, London! (recently Aishwaerya Rai became the second Indian file personality).

He performed extremely well in some of the movies of his second phase and they are Aks (may not be hit, but he tries to do something different), Mohabbetien (Yash Raj banner), Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gam (Karan Johar), Baghban (Ravi Chopra, a familiy drama), Dev (Govind Nihlani), Khakee (Raj Kumar Santoshi) etc.

Even in the age of 60+ he is one of the busiest actor in Bollywood and still there are script writer who write the roles of their character by keeping him in mind.

What I want to say here is that may be Amitabh has given lot many flops but as an actor he is being god gifted. And if director is capable enough to take out what he has then the outcome will be a blockbuster. My only suggestion to Sri. Amitabh is that analyze the role before you select a movie.

All the best, I hope this new year gets you a lot of success and few movies (which are good).

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