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Satyam

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Bachchan — Day 30

May 17th, 2008Related|Filed Under

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  1. Comment by jayshah on 17 May 2008:

    Some decent questions framed for once!

  2. Comment by satyam on 17 May 2008:

    Satyam Says:
    May 17th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

    In the recently concluded Filmfare Awards — and I begin a long paranthesis here — [where I was happy to see you and everyone else is the family skip the proceedings, if truth be told these awards are agenda driven in various ways and quite simply corrupt enterprises. Aamir Khan has got it right all these years and I think it would be wonderful if you skipped these regularly along with Abhishek and Aishwarya. The awards need to be shunned completely and it would help if more stars followed Aamir Khan’s example Having said that I do make an exception for IIFA not because you are associated with them but it seems to me that these are held outside India, it’s more of a spectacle, and finally the ‘winners’ here seem to conform to those everywhere else for the most part. What’s the difference? Precisely this. If Hrithik Roshan wins an award at Filmfare for Dhoom 2 when he won everywhere else for Krrish and the venue is Yashraj Studios one naturally sees the obvious influence-peddling whereas if he won the same at IIFA there would be no such conflict of interest since no IIFA agenda is served whether Hrithik wins for Dhoom 2 or Krrish (of course along the same lines Tobey McGwire should be winning awards for Spiderman or Vin Diesel for Fast and the Furious but that’s another matter!). If the beneficiaries of the IIFA Awards were Amitabh Bachchan or Abhishek Bachchan most of the time one might have reason to frown on these as well but such is not the case. That Shahrukh Khan or any of the other ‘usuals’ win even here is an index of the relative honesty of these! Another example is Shahrukh Khan being nominated for Swades, Veer Zaara, Main Hoon at the very same time at one of the Filmfares (they might as well have mailed him the award). The whole thing has become such a farce that I do not even mind it any more (recently we saw Abhishek not win anywhere for Guru, I think that even Lawrence Olivier would not have beaten Shahrukh Khan at Screen or Filmfare!) but I do mind the continued participation of many major stars even as everyone knows everything about the scam of Indian awards. This is why I was happy to see you and your family skip the Filmfares this time. I hope this becomes a habit and for all awards. The joke here is that if Abhishek indeed won best actor for Guru at this year’s IIFA a lot of people would call the decision ‘corrupt’! Already there is evidence of such a move in certain parts of the blogosphere. It is as if one is with Alice in the knuckerhole where one is the ‘maddest’ for not being ‘mad’! So a star winning for Kal Ho Na Ho or Krrish is somehow ‘unexceptional’ while winning for Guru becomes problematic! How should one shatter this logic? By suggesting that corruption and in influence-peddling should be practiced only when the performances are of the order of a Khakee or a Guru, performances that could never be rewarded along the normal course of things! Note how Abhishek won three awards in a row as long as these were ’supporting’. The moment he came up with Guru the award was denied to him! Even in India I have not seen journalists who have preferred the Chak De India performance to the Guru one. That this happens with a media that is normally quite hostile to the Bachchan name is indication enough of the gulf that separated the Guru performance from everything else last year. Again I commend Aamir. He did not show up when Lagaan won all the awards, for Rang De Basanti they therefore did not give him anything even as everyone else associated with the film was awarded, and again he refused to show up for Taare Zameen Par. This should be the way forward for you as well. It would have a great impact if you did so and even announced it as policy. You could alternatively privilege something in India along the same lines that really rewarded serious cinema or at least made serious decisions about popular cinema.] — I now end this long paranthesis — they started handing out those atrocious ‘nariyal awards’. One of these was handed out to Ram Gopal Varma (who of course wasn’t present) but then Shahrukh Khan quipped that perhaps you should also have been given one for agreeing to do another film with Varma after Aag! I have never heard him apologize for this remark. The media has not made a big deal out of this. In the past Shahrukh has taken many such potshots in the guise of ‘humor’ (humor it is but of a rather nasty sort!), he has never apologized. Why then do you have to? All the time? Even as a gesture of goodwill? This is yet another time I am commenting on this matter. I just do not see the logic behind such a move. I am reminded of that climactic scene in Mohabbatein where Amitabh Bachchan is made to say that he is ‘Vijay’ no more, where he is then made to apologize to Raj Aryan and finally the latter touches Shankar Narayan’s feet after all the ‘apologies’ have been made by Narayan. I remember cringing when I saw this scene. The director did build up a marvelous Bachchan persona, a near mythic one, in the film but suddenly in this moment everything was taken away. What happens in this scene is that Shankar Narayan removes himself from the ‘proceedings’ by suggesting that he is not ‘fit’ for the job anymore and that Raj Aryan needs to take over. The political contours of this scene are rather obvious (even if you never obliged Shahrukh Khan otherwise and continued to remain extraordinary relevant, continued to be the ultimate horizon for Hindi cinema, a truth which has contributed to no mean level of frustration on the other side; the Bachchan name is what cannot be repressed by another name called ‘Bollywood’, all the sneering in the world directed at you or Abhishek will hardly change this!). But I perhaps should not have been very annoyed with that scene in Mohabbatein. You have done far more far more often in real life.

    I have offered the following every single time — an apology too must be earned, an apology cannot simply be offered as a diplomatic move, an apology must not become part of an economy of bourgeois or even patrician etiquette but must be the mark of a most authentic gesture, which gesture can never be confused with the demands of ordinary civility. An apology must therefore never be made meaningless where one apologizes for any and everything. Those to whom an apology is made must truly deserve such.

    In most of the instances where you have offered apologies I have not seen the slightest need for such. It has not even been reciprocated by the other side. An exception was again Aamir Khan who during the whole Black imbroglio maintained the greatest fidelity to you and in more ways than one. Very few have done this. Certainly not the people you routinely apologize to. Such meaningless apology constitutes a kind of self-defacement and it pains me to see such practiced by you all the time. Not to mention the fact that within industry politics this results in a loss of prestige in many ways. I hope you will take to heart this plea and desist from such not because it is the request of a ‘fan’ but also because I have I think offered enough reasons.

    I do like this interview otherwise. It is quite thorough. I also commend your decision to skip the Indian section. I think you have learned well from your experiences with the current government! Goa anyone?!

  3. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    There was no need for AB to apologize to SRK. That blog he made wasn’t a boastful one but a reasoned, intelligent analysis of what might be causing the ratings to decline. In fact I would not want him to apologize even if he had boasted. He has every right to.

    BTW Satyam don’t take Mohabbatein seriously. It’s a silly movie.

  4. Comment by satyam on 17 May 2008:

    Henry: The ’silly’ can often be quite serious. That film has some very specific ideological messages. In fact ideology works best subliminally, when people are not forced to take it seriously. With a Deewar however no one can be deceived about what the film stands for. It has been the ‘Yashraj/Johar’ move to really practise the regressive in the guise of the progressive. And this is made possibly by such ’silly’ films.

  5. Comment by beld o beld on 17 May 2008:

    What absolute nonsense. Media liked guru more. Duh! I think cdi performance was by far the most appreciated performance, be it media, movie lovers, common man, ngiites, critics.only competition to srk last year was darsheel. Personal liking can obviously be whatever, but to make statements like the one satyam does is just a plain lie. I guess the ibos effect is showing a little ;-)

  6. Comment by satyam on 17 May 2008:

    The only two films in recent memory where the lead performances really became a media event were Bachchan in Black and Abhishek in Guru. Even by the standards of the bankrupt Indian film media, which ran out of superlatives a long time ago despite mediocrity on a weekly basis, there was something different about these two performances. In many ways those films really became those performances or about those performances. I have not detected anything comparable in recent memory, rightly or wrong (and of course one could debate this).

    So I’ll add to my “lie” here!

    Of course expecting a civil response from Beld is like expecting the Pope to worship at a mosque! Unfortunately he still loses out to Achilles in the crassness department (I am responding to the Achilles comment from earlier here!).

  7. Comment by Ravi on 17 May 2008:

    Always the voice of reason, very well said Henry.

  8. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    I think CDI as a film was far more prestige, and a far bigger event than Guru, which is why it won a lot more awards, including Best Actor. It’s not fair but that’s how brain-dead our award juries are. On the other hand, Oscars did not award De Caprio and Kate Winslet for arguably the biggest ‘event’ film of all time, Titanic. The juries there don’t award stars just because they acted in the biggest or the best film of the year.

    Another example is Aamir’s performance in TZP which was nothing special but he still won a lot of Best Supporting Actor awards also precisely for the ‘prestige’ reason.

  9. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    Thanks Ravi but I think you have mistaken me for Satyam or Qalandar. I am the voice of rambling and barely coherent thoughts.

  10. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    BTW if it were up to me I would have awarded Pankaj Kapoor for Dharm in an instant. No other performance even comes close.

  11. Comment by Ravi on 17 May 2008:

    Henry “I am the voice of rambling and barely coherent thoughts.”

    I don’t think I ever said that but if that pleases you, so be it.

  12. Comment by Achilles on 17 May 2008:

    Media liked Abhishek in Guru to make it a media event of the decade?

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    :D

    Ususal bakwaas from the great ‘bhakt’ … only thing media liked last year was Abhi’s marriage with a more successful international figure in Ash … the hyped up marriage was definitely a media event … his performance in any film never was!

    Only Amitabh (apart from Bachchan-bhakts) became too excited with Guru and he himself printed full page ads in all leading newspapers showcasing letters he had received from ‘bhakts’ and claiming abhi is a better actor than himself!!!! LOL …

    That ad became the ‘joke’ of 2007 after the sudden marriage gimmick played to bolster a poor Guru opening to take it to a Hit status (with IBOS propagating absurd BO numbers for the movie as they are doing for Bhootnath now!)

  13. Comment by ILG on 17 May 2008:

    Re:I think CDI as a film was far more prestige, and a far bigger event than Guru,
    I dont think so. Actually CDI was a kind of underdog and turned out to be a pleasing film with nationalist sentiment and a fairly decent turn by srk. Gur was always big with Mani,Abhi,Ash and ARR. Guru as a movie was in a differenr league and more serious filmmaking. But you are right about how media and awards work.

  14. Comment by Achilles on 17 May 2008:

    Last year CDI and TZP were most prestigious films with super critical acclaim and blockbuster box-office hauls … they are a league apart from the Guru which was a mediocre compared to these two films.

  15. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    I don’t think highly of Guru at all but agree with your assessment on CDI.

    It’s a likable enough film but nothing extraordinary. But there is no doubt it was an event much like Munnabhai and TZP, and its BO trending is as good a proof of that as any.

  16. Comment by beld o beld on 17 May 2008:

    Satyam, calling a lie a lie is not crass, its just speaking the truth. Looks like you are so insecure that you have named yourself ’satyam’. If ever there was a height if irony - well you win by a mile.
    Ach, that statement about those 2 movies being media events, well I guess they were ibos events. And since our friend writes for that racist, bigot org - what more can one expect

  17. Comment by Achilles on 17 May 2008:

    Agreed on all accounts Beld!

  18. Comment by ILG on 17 May 2008:

    Yup, CDI didnt start off as such but gathered momentum and became what it did. At the end of aof the day was ‘fluff’ but succesful and to some extent ‘prestige’ fluff.

  19. Comment by Achilles on 17 May 2008:

    CDI or Guru - Prestige ‘fluff or Prestige ‘bluff’?

    The choice is ur’s! ;)

  20. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    There are scenes in Guru handled so amateurishly that one wonders if it was even directed by Ratnam.

  21. Comment by satyam on 17 May 2008:

    Henry: I was very precise there. CDI was a bigger event as a film. SRK’s performance was assuredly not a bigger event than Abhishek’s in Guru, even by the standards of the pro-SRK media. I would love for someone to prove the opposite though. In any case I was referring only to the lead performance in each case. Remember SRK was praised for CDI but he was praised in almost the exact same ways for MHN! So it ceases to be noticable beyond a point. But Abhishek is usually not accorded such a privilege.

    On the bit about some Guru scenes being amateurish, not sure what you;re referring to but I’d say this. That might be a fair claim except that on these grounds one might have to dismiss the entire cinema of the 90s and beyond lock, stock and barrel!

  22. Comment by satyam on 17 May 2008:

    http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/05/17/day-30i/

    addendum here…

  23. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    I am referring to the over-directed and over-dramatized scenes such as the climax where Abhishek directly addresses the judges and gets away scot-free, and also the scene where Madhavan goes to one of Abhishek’s factory and traps his assistant into saying something incriminating. Also Abhishek making a speech to the public under heavy pouring rain is another poor and unbelievable scene. I don’t know what happened to the usually subtle Mani Ratnam with Guru. And I am no stickler for realism in cinema but I like my ’serious’ films to at least look believable.

    As for dismissing the entire cinema of the 90s and beyond, I am not in agreement, as Guru is hardly a yardstick by which to compare other films.

  24. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    “SRK’s performance was assuredly not a bigger event than Abhishek’s in Guru, even by the standards of the pro-SRK media”

    And I don’t disagree but my point was that our film juries tend award the bigger films and everyone associated with them.

  25. Comment by henry on 17 May 2008:

    “Remember SRK was praised for CDI but he was praised in almost the exact same ways for MHN!”

    No, that’s not true. In recent years, serious critics have praised SRK highly for only CDI and Swades.

    If you are talking about the likes of Taran Adarsh, then I’ll agree with you.

  26. Comment by ILG on 17 May 2008:

    Henry- serious as in……..?
    Who do you consider serious critic?

  27. Comment by satyam on 17 May 2008:

    Henry: you’re conflating two issues. First off I have the ILG problem. I doubt more than 2-3 could be defined as serious critics in India! So we really have to look at the totality of the field and the reason this is important is because my point precisely is that despite the anti-Bachchan slant Abhishek getting those reviews meant even more than it would have for other stars.

    The other point I am in agreement with. Yes they reward the biggest hits. But I am pretty certain that SRK would have won if he had had a Guru moment. Because SRK wins just with a success. hrithik wins only with the biggest blockbuster around. In fact even in ‘06 had Aamir had normal relations with the media he would have probably won for RDB (the film won everything else!). It is only SRK where given half a chance they give it to him. In any case I do know that Guru came early in the year and was disadvantaged. I also know SRK had big grossers and so forth. But all of this is necessary for other stars. In his case it’s just an excuse. By the way this also proves how Don underformed. Otherwise he would have won here too!

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