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Satyam

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1. 

   Comment by satyam on 15 May 2008:

   http://www.naachgaana.com/2008/05/07/satyams-col-for-sakaal-times/

   This is a briefer version of the longer column I have written above and would’ve liked to for the newspaper.
2. 

   Comment by jayshah on 15 May 2008:

   Satyam a well articulated post, agree on many points.

   ‘Prestige’ film is the theory and agree on the whole that Aamir has harboured this notion post Lagaan. But the roots were set in the mid 90’s. He added “prestige” to his brand by doing this one film at a time, exclusitivity etc. And I don’t think someone gets this kind of thing overnight.

   I don’t actually feel someone can do it with frequent releases. There is a certain level of “buzz” and wetting the audiences anticipation about all this.

   The Abhishek theory of his being the major star promising to marry the Aamir Khan paradigm with the volume of Akshay Kumar is IMO an improbable one. Because it is like suggesting “porsche” will be going into “mass production”. When this happens certain level of brand attachment, buzz, prestige whatever gets diluted. And “porsche” as a brand don’t go into mass production, infact in mid 80’s they cut on supply because they didn’t want too many of their cars on the road (bit like Aamir)

   I personally feel Abhishek first needs to get on a consistent box office run first.
3. 

   Comment by satyam on 15 May 2008:

   Good points Jay. I think we are looking less at the Porsche model and more at the Benz one. The latter is my definition of prestige married to volume.

   Aamir, as I’ve noted, is the only star who gets away with lower volume. I don’t think the others could without suffering by way of low visibility.

   On Abhishek you’re quite right. The problem though is that he cannot get consistency via the ‘regular’ otherwise prestige would be lost. Unless of course this were a long term plan. On the other hand by doing too much that’s different before a star is completely ‘accepted’ in the public mind is also a risky strategy. Because the audiences are not able to spot the ‘kernel’ from film to film.

   Again what is not appreciated is the extent to which Aamir keeps the narrative constant in terms of playing certain kinds of populist characters. Abhishek’s outlier in this sense is Dostana of the next four films.

   Also remember, that box office consistency cannot be had these days by doing the same unless one is Akshay Kumar. Again even if Abhishek has a good run this year the question is whether he can keep doing back to back films, even with interesting setups in each case, and maintain the box office graph. It’s tricky for sure because a certain narrative has to be preserved.
4. 

   Comment by satyam on 15 May 2008:

   Also on the mid-90s films I think those were seen as ‘big’ films and were of course prestigious but weren’t necessarily defined as ‘different’ films the way comparable films are today.
5. 

   Comment by jayshah on 15 May 2008:

   ‘Hence ‘alternative cinema’ is made mainstream while purely commercial genres are enriched with numerous unconventional moves. ‘

   I guess by the latter you mean like Fanaa.

   Your penultimate paragraph is well crafted. Agree though behind any one person are set of others. Gowariker/Mehra/Akhtar have played their part too. The former 2 at least have continued the trend, Akhtar has probably tried to but not succeeded.
6. 

   Comment by jayshah on 15 May 2008:

   Glad you see Dostana as the dummy, so do I. And had a feeling you’d comeback with Benz!
7. 

   Comment by satyam on 15 May 2008:

   Jay: Yes I continue to rate Fanna more highly than most people do. Which is not to say that it’s a very good film (though if you revisit it you’ll be surprised at how well it holds up; I liked it less in the theater than I did on a second and third viewing) but I’m interested in what Aamir is trying to do here.

   Those directors certainly deserve credit, cinema is after all a collaborative art. But for my money Gowariker has not been close to Lagaan control or Lagaan ‘aesthetics’ anywhere in Swades or JA. Farhan pretty much lost his way after DCH though it could be that he just had one really good film in him. With Mehra it remains to be seen what he does with D6. Of course I still like Aks very much.
8. 

   Comment by satyam on 15 May 2008:

   Thanks for the comments.. on that penultimate paragraph I think the point that is often missed is that Aamir has for the longest time been devoted to the idea of reinventing Bollywood for the better while also keeping it rooted. There’s a difference between being interested in ‘good’ films for personal reasons and the same for larger ones. Aamir has been more devoted than any of his contemporaries to the latter idea. Not that he’s doing charity of course but clearly his career suggests that he’s not in a mad race either.

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