Look at the history and Innovate YOU IDIOTS!

Here comes an article from me after a long time, I was under extreme dilemma to decide on a topic to write about and I had zeroed in on a few topics namely , "Brilliance of Stanley Kubrik", "Kieslowksi fucks you through his lens" , "Martin Scorcese declares war".

Somehow, I realized that there is nothing mendacious about these film makers and I decided for once that tribute's can wait. This write up will precisely deal with our very own Tamil Cinema and its history of Innovation. I am not going to pin point the year and the dates , Chronologically provide succinct data about Tamil films that have been successful till date, I have not seen much of Tamil Cinema to do that too. But, I am going to illustrate the need to innovate, and how innovation has reaped rewards in the past.

I can't help but talk about the pusillanimous directors and actors we have today....though I would refrain from talking about their doleful state of affairs WRT to films.

Lets start from our very own MGR and Shivaji, Frankly I don't know about Tamil Cinema before these 2 icons, and I think its not really appealing to talk about cinema before 1940's. MGR carved a niche for himself through his songs and he was very good at stunts too. The songs were hugely popular with people because he could practically deceive people that it was literally god's words. People were absolutely convinced that the man makes sense (Of course he did) and he could bring in a sense of Personal bond with his fans. This paved the way for his meteoric rise.

Now,If you askme, I would call this an innovation, He convinced people that... he is a GEM of a guy, he can Fight, he is strong, he can decimate any opposition, he is man of values and WHAT NOT. TN was swept under a MAT called MGR. MGR was a man who was looked up to as THALAIVAR. This personal bond was telling factor that made his name common in every house hold.

The unimaginable fan following he had was directly proportional to amount of "Good Values" he propagated on screen. He mastered the art of aggrandizing his on screen persona that reflected his growing exponential fan base.

He never allowed the audience to see the "Character in his films", whether he played a "Rickshaw puller", " Cop", "Brother", "Rich Zamindar", even sometimes "Thief"...
I have always wondered Why people chose to cloud their minds from seeing just the character on screen, and always "focused" on "WHAT MGR their Thalaivar" says.

I am not going to go in to this very uninteresting debate on how it all started, I presume it was a simultaneous cycle, where in MGR tried to project himself as do - gooder, the audience also picked it up and concluded that MGR is always magnanimous. Other than this simple hypothesis, I cannot not speculate anything more and I will not speculate anything more.

I still insist, MGR did something that other people couldn't manage to do, If you are a rational man(man here refers to human) you would be asking number of question sto me, and one among them would be "Then why didn't our audience reject him once he got redundant after few years."

My answer would be slightly irrational, I would say, he already managed to carve a niche for himself, that "He" means what he says on screen, more often than not he always backed his words with his action...his fans were smitten by this capacity of MGR to "Do" things that he says "ON SCREEN". This elevated him to god level status and thus the legend of MGR still lives on , not only does he is a legend but also rakes in votes once in 5 years till today.

This era is incomplete without talking about Shivaji Ganeshan. He was a different commodity all together....Now, what did he do to keep "His" kind of audience hooked up to him. He lived the character literally, whether it is "VeeraPandia KattaBomman " , my favourite "Deiva Magan" , "Pudhiya Paravai", "Bharatha Vilas" and the most famous of them all "Thillana Moganambal". His era , unfortunately Coincided with arguably the most influential On Screen performer of all time in South India.

Then how on earth did he manage to stand tall?.

The Magic Word - INNOVATE!!

The way he portrayed complex characters and the way he emotes on screen were simply impeccable and his "Method" of wooing audience was directly and diametrically opposite to MGR's. The difference is blatantly obvious. He made audience forget that the person on screen is "Shivaji" and it was "Veera Pandia Kattabomman" himself. The man made it possible every single time he donned the grease paint. Though , am not really impressed with these 2 actors, I still relish his films , a few of them that I have already mentioned.

Again the magic word is INNOVATE and be different, this fetched Shivaji Ganesan lot of laurels and a HUGE fan base.

Marlon Brando reportedly remarked " Shivaji should not be called Marlon Brando of Tamil Cinema, Rather I should be called Shivaji Ganesan of Hollywood" .I really don't know if the quote was authentic, but I would say the quote actually doesn't have irrationality written all over it.

We have to move on to the next generation, RAJINIKANTH and KAMALHASSAN. The 2 are undoubtedly the top guys in TC right now. Innovation has played a vital role in their careers as well...

Rajinikanth AFAIK, broke into the limelight with thunderous THUD. He was the most unique person on screen, doing something different all the time, the way he uttered his lines, his gimmicks on screen, his cunning-ness , his negativity, his hair style , the dark complexion everything about him was new and different.

After seeing arguably 2 stout actors for 30 long years , time had come for our audience to switch to something different...The change was Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan.

Back then, Rajini was everything what a conventional hero will not be identified with.He was dark, Slim, Fiery eyes, full of gimmicks, handsome but not so handsome, fast and oozing style. This repertoire of style included everything from flipping a Cigarette Nonchalantly into his mouth, or running his hand through his head, or flipping his coat with hands around his waist.

What he did on screen was something very distinct, unique appealing and belligerent, he broke all rules of a conventional hero and that's a telling factor of his success so much so that, his " Gimmicks" still sells today, which re-Iterates that the investment towards innovation has paid him rich dividends.

This Era was also flooded with extremely talented and refreshing film makers like K. Balachander called the "God Father" for the 2 pillars in Tamil Cinema today, Balu Mahendra (Helped Kamal to a National Award), SP Muthuraman( Or (Rajini - Courtesy -SPM), the most intelligent Screen play writer of 80's Bhagyaraj and many more.

All these film makers were different from Each other and the MAGIC WORD AGAIN IS INNOVATE.

Let's move into the late 80's and the 90's, this period was spewed with successful films (At least a majority of them) is what we now call meaningless and NON- Sense cinema. It wasn't completely meaningless back then, because like always,Audience wanted something new.

They decided that they have enough films that were realistic and they were ready to lap up even nugatory films that can only be compared with pigeons pee in 2009. Some huge hits include Sagakalavallavan, Chinna Thambi(What nonsense was that!!!), many Rajini Movies that were ridiculous like Dharma Durai, Naan Sigappu Manidhan (GOSH!) and many more.

Once - So - Popular directors like Balachander and Bharathi Raja were seen in disarray and they completely lost their foothold and people demanded different films. Sadly KB and Bharathiraja could neither make films that people expected nor could stake a claim for their films with the audience.

Then came the MASS masala Bandwagon made popular by Rajinikanth, and paraded on by Ajith's(And his derivatives) and Vijay's(And his derivatives),both apparently are derivatives of Rajinikanth himself. Rajini interestingly shifted his focus from his style to a more MGRsque method of having the personal connection with his audience. Super star's fans always looked for hidden but not so hidden messages on various things. Namely, Spirituality, Religion, "Values" (Though we can have criticisms about it, people were OK with it), and Of course the most important of all Politics.

Kamal's career also took a hit with his "In ability" to put up with paradigm shift, he innovated with his "Own" brand of cinema ,providing an explicable mix of Great acting with ample "commercial factors" , namely an item song or a KUTHU song or arbit heroism. However, Kamal the actor refused to give in to rigors of industry and continued to do films that he liked. This helped him hold his own against barrage of actors who were hell bent on doing everything that RAJINIKANTH does in his previous film.

Kamal took up script writing, direction, Production to constantly keep differentiating himself from the rest of "MASALA" coterie. I am sure he was aghast at the pollutians bothering Tamil cinema namely his good friend, but he couldn't do much as people were unanimous in their support for Rajinikanth. Kamal still soldiered on, with every flop came a Big hit and followed by a "film" that spoke of his credentials to experiment.

His biggest HIT in 90's was Indian , it was a distinct mix of "Kamal's idea of Innovation"....it coupled Great Acting and entertainment...it had ample comedy, Love, Exposure everything to please the foolish front benches.

So, as we can see, the Magic word again is to be different and Innovate.

Just when we thought that MASALA cinema is here to stay, post 2004 people have rejected many films that are supposedly made to entertain people. Post- Ghilli, very few MASALA films have made it big, one's that made it big also had something new in them, starting from music ,dance stunts, costumes etc.

BILLA is an interesting film to analyze, it had the same things that are considered despicable and it didn't even have good acting, still it was liked by people because it was different. The whole idea of bringing Hollywood style visuals to Tamil Cinema was something new. It of course clicked with the audience because of its Innovation.

I do agree some films have clicked with completely no innovation at all, these films would actually be the ones that were successful because of the "WAVE" created by the trend setters.

Just like how some films set up with a village theme were successful largely because "It was similar to Bharathi Raja's films"

Just like how many films following the GHILLI pattern were successful.Some films just tend to be lucky and get people's nod. But that is no way a deterrent for film maker's to not to INNOVATE.

You needn't be a poly math to do this analysis, anyone with a slight sense of brains can do it, I am amazed at how film maker's themselves have ignored this crucial factor.

The present state of Tamil Cinema is appalling, we have 2 good movies every year all other movies flop at the BO , this suggests that another wave is waiting to HIT Tamil cinema, and we are going to be taken back to the glory days of KB and Bharathi Raja and Balu Mahendra.

With Rajini at the fag end of his career and Ajith's and Vijay's biting dust too often for them to feel safe, I guess its an interesting road ahead for people who like Innovations.

So, please INNOVATES YOU IDIOTS.

All said and Done, I am also reminded of a saying "If wishes were horses, only beggars would ride them".

See ya Soon

UDHAV