Desi Train

There are movies. Then there are heroes. Then add a story writer, director, cinematographer etc. etc. Movies run, movies flop. It takes one Friday to decide the fate of the star/ rising star/ aspiring star and what have you, to shine or flop into the darkness.

But every once in a while comes a movie where someone else besides the hero (or heroine for that matter) shines far brighter than the others. The script just helped to push this “someone else” ahead of the leading actors. An author backed role or the genius of the actor or perhaps a mix of both these elements. Whatever it may be, you leave the movie with magical memories of this “someone else”. This “someone else” is the Character Actor or you may also know him/her by the title of Supporting Actor/Actress. The character actor is one of the anchors in each and every movie; the story moves forward because of them; there could be no spice in a movie without the Character Actor.

And when the character actor shows his brilliance partly because he got plenty of freedom to
apply his creativity and partly because the role was strongly defined….in that scenario - this character actor becomes the star of the movie. Here are some roles in movies where the Character Actor became bigger and more famous than the rest of the cast and perhaps even bigger than the movie itself. The listing is random and not in any particular order.

Amjad Khan (Sholay, Maa Kasam)

Perhaps the most famous supporting role in all of Bollywood made eternal was Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh in Sholay. There never was such a wild fire feverish craze and never will be – which Gabbar Singh once generated among the masses. Each and every of Gabbar’s dialogue was memorized plain verbatim. Even today the present generation may not know about Sholay but it would be quite rare that they do not know about Gabbar Singh. Interestingly Amjad wasn’t the first choice, for the role passed through the hands of Shatrughan Sinha, Danny and others before Amjad. Gabbar Singh was made eternal by Amjad Khan, though sadly he could never ever reach the heights of fame and creativity which Gabbar Singh had provided him with. Sholay was Amjad’s first release (that I know of), after which Bollywood as usual threw him into mini/macro/micro versions of Gabbar Singh. The impact has been so great that Gabbar’s dialogues have seeped into our everyday lives. This point struck me the other day when at a BBQ party, I welcomed friends I had not seen for a long time with “Aaooo Thakur…” – 30 years after it’s realease, Gabbar Singh still impacts people’s lives in one way or the other however subtle it may be!!!

There was another movie in late 80s called Maa Kasam starring Mithun Chakravarthy in the lead. No please don’t go and see the movie cause it’s one of those you may end up banging your head on the wall. But whatever positives Maa Kasam may have had, I noticed just one – Amjad Khan as an overweight guy released from jail, who starts working with Mithun to swindle people off their money. And like me, Filmfare noticed it too and that year Amjad won the Best Comedian Award. A glimpse of his comedy in this movie?…The camera focuses on Amjad while being released from jail. He is shown neatly folding his jail uniform, and with a slight smile goes to the jailer, hands his neatly folded jail clothes to him and says “En kapdon ko achi tarah press kareke rakhna, main wapas ake pahnoonga.” – (Iron my jail uniform and keep it nicely since I’ll be wearing these whenever I come back)

Nana Patekar (Parinda)

Nana had already shown his intense acting powers (a la´ Al Pacino) in Marathi movies and his first Hindi movie – Ankush. Then he did some movies here and there and a few movies later came Parinda. Equally surprising was Jackie Shroff’s excellent performance. But Parinda belonged to Nana Patekar. Vinod Chopra plays with you. He sparsely produces Nana, a bit here and a bit there making you thirsty for more of Nana’s onscreen dynamite performance. Famous scenes include his casually commanding Suresh Oberoi – “Bhai bhai ka pyar beechmen aaya to dono ko goli mardo” (kill both the brothers if their love for each other overrides that for the job); Or where he tries hard to show that he does not feel sad for his dead wife…opening up his eyes with his fingers and asking Jackie “Kuch hain..?” (Is there any (pain) in these?).

Nana won Filmfare’s Best Villian role for this movie. Technically speaking, it should have been the Best Supporting Actor award, but then the award givers these days want to please each and everybody. Does any actor/actress NOT get an award in any year these days?

Saeed Jaffery (Ram Teri Ganga Maili)

Saeed had been in Hindi movies for quite sometime. That is whenever he came to India from England. He started his career in Delhi at a radio station and his first assignment was to cover Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s event at Delhi airport when he was flying overseas. The only thing the then young Saeed could ask before Nehru boarded the plane was “Panditji how do you feel about this trip?” (Ofcourse he asked it in Hindi)

But RTGM made Saeed a recognized face in the country. Raj Kapoor’s last movie was
the one which made Saeed Jaffery a household name. Playing the hero’s Mama (uncle), Saeed’s character was the only one which was shown to have a strong backbone and the guts to fight back at injustice. Since the movie was a tear jerker, Saeed’s entry in any frame provided hope and strength to not just the other characters in the movie but to the audience watching it. A fantastic author backed role, this character is one of the dream roles every character actor wishes for. On a personal level I hated this movie (can’t digest tear jerkers anymore), but Saeed Jaffery in this movie impacted my view and understanding of dialogue deliveries and character subtleties to a large extent.

Sunny Deol (Damini)

This is the Sunny I loved for his experimenting style. From Arjun to Dacait to Ghayal and
then it was Damini. Sunny was already shining the brightest around the time Damini was released. Reason? A year or two earlier, he had brought in a relative unknown Raj Kumar Santoshi and together they had made the powerful Ghayal (it stands at No.1 on my most repeatedly watched movie). While Santoshi had moved on to other projects there was this creative yearning to work again with each other. So when Santoshi was looking for a suitable actor to play the “character” role of a lawyer who would only come into the movie after the Interval, he came to Sunny – and thankfully Sunny agreed and Govind – the lawyer was born. It also fetched Sunny the National Award for Best Supporting actor that year.

Sunny was in his element here and Santoshi was providing him with dream sequences in the
movie even though his entry in the movie comes way past the Interval. Notice the scene where Amrish Puri comes to negotiate a deal (bribe Sunny) late night at Sunny’s house. Making full use of Sunny’s gym toned body, Santoshi angles the camera on Puri and Sunny and Sunny simply produces intense yet bored eyes, slightly smirks, and using his right hand simply points to Puri to get out of his house. The camera too adds to the intensity of the scene by simply moving back as Sunny points to Puri to leave. An amazing performance by Sunny and a mind-blowing technical grasp over the medium of cinema by Santoshi.

Arshad Warsi (Munnabhai MBBS)

Why did he disappear after experiencing moderate success in his first movie (Tere Mere
Sapne)- is anybody’s guess, but Warsi was already clinging to Television for survival. Mercifully for him and for us movie fanatics, the role of Circuit in Munnabhai MBBS landed in his lap. And Warsi was back in action. And the world soon discovered what a great camaraderie he shared with Sunjay Dutt on screen. His character who loves his boss and every wish of his boss is his command…was surely going to hit the bull’s eye. But Warsi made a big difference. Bringing in flavors so undeniably delicious to the character of Circuit, Warsi was back and hopefully this time for good. His movies after Munnabhai are worth watching and I notice an undeniable effort on his part to differentiate each and every character in his later movies. Can’t wait to see the magic again in Munnabhai’s sequel – Munnabhai meets Mahatma Gandhi. Interestingly Munnabhai MBBS may be the first Bollywood movie being remade in Hollywood. Lookout for Chris Rock in “Gangsta M.D.”

Ashish Vidyarthi (Drohkaal)

It is difficult to imagine anyone else playing Commander Bhadra. Ashish in his second movie gave Bhadra the leader of terrorists, such depth, edginess, intelligence, cunningness and above all the transparency for the audience to look into Bhadra’s psyche. I suspect Govind Nihalani never had any intentions, but Drohkaal is one of the fine examples of a movie achieving a perfect balance between art and commercial cinema. This is also an intelligent and one of the few good movies on terrorism unlike the shit loads of crap thrown on us by Bollywood.

Kamal Hassan was so impressed that he bought the rights of this movie and made
it in Tamil with him playing Om Puri’s role while Naseer played the Commander. The characterization of Bhadra is so well defined that some of my friends who watched the Tamil version first believe Naseer portrayed the role better than Ashish, whereas those who saw Drohkaal first swear Ashish is the better one of the two. This just goes to show the superbly sketched out character that Commander Bhadra was courtesy the writer, Govind Nihalani.

Danny Denzongpa (Dhund, Kanoon Kya Karega)

If the so call stars are following a trend today – do one movie a year so their so called “quality” shines in their roles and the “freshness” is conserved, I can’t help but smile. Danny has been doing this for years, and that’s the reason whenever his movie is released we are excited to see what he’s playing and how he has played it. Ofcourse he’s done a load of crap in the last 30 years of his career (yes – he’s close to 60 but doesn’t look a day older than 40), but he is one actor who understood the power of withdrawing from the theaters and unleashing himself sparingly. And in these years there have been some gem of characters he has played.

Dhund had him playing a crippled sadistic husband – Thakur Ranjit Singh, whose wife (Zeenat Aman) can’t take his beatings and verbal lashings anymore. Danny was still comparatively new in this movie but he breathed such fiery life into this character that even on a wheel chair he would strike fear all around. Notice how he keeps falling into self pity only to unleash his fury on his wife with greater intensity. Dhund showed Bollywood that here was one young actor to watch out for. And we did. We all did.

Upon its release “Kanoon Kya Karega” did three things. It showed there was no shame in
Re-making a Hollywood movie specially if it was done with the right intentions – to spread the value of art and entertainment of the original to foreign cinema in different languages. Second, it brought forth one of my favorite directors, the late Mukul Anand, who I would say also pointed to the rest of Bollywood that a technical grasp on the medium was as important as the script. And lastly it reminded all, that Danny was one of the best actors Bollywood has. A remake of Cape Fear, Danny played the guy who dodges the cops and pursues to harass the lawyer and his family right under the law’s nose. A very restrained performance, since every dimension of this character would make an actor go over the top (read: overacting). But Danny, as an intelligent actor, understood the dimensions of this character and played it brilliantly. One of his best performances, rent a copy if you get the chance.

To be continued…..

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
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