Khan Saheb Kamal Haasan's Jamaat/Jeba Koottam/Devasthaanam - Part 8

[irir123]

Raajjaa and Nerd - MGR came from an era where he was the sole dictator when it came to how he acted, how the screenplay shaped up, lyrics were designed for songs etc etc - he never had to be 'trained' under the watchful eyes of someone like KB ! he might have been ambitious as a commercially viable star, but thats abt it - i doubt if he had, at any point of time any serious intent/desire to push the envelope on the creative front - I would say that MGR designed/fashioned a major part of his entire career with the sole purpose of gaining foothold in politics and moving further on - but he did have an eye for talent around him - talent that not only could he exploit for his personal benefit (MSV-Kannadasan etc etc), he also had the same eye to recognize talent around him even when not of use to him - his accounts of openly narrating to Kamal abt how NT was a better actor and how he rated Kamal himself, are testimony to this

Rajini (and Kamal) should rightfully owe their acting training to KB - though Kamal also benefitted from his interactions with mallu land - am not privvy to his acting in mallu films but am sure they wud be far more understated than his acting in tamil films around the same time - Kamal is a natural in soaking up things, and made sure he kept his creative 'fire' stoked past 1990s - Rajini settled for the low-hanging fruit post-thalapathi and I would say even his pre-thalapathy films were all not equally impressive - he even admits the same in that KB interview as well as some TV channel post-Enthiran where he says he is not interested in anything artistic, only commercial gains interest him - 'namakku award aa mukkiyam ? reward thaan mukkiyam' - once someone had reached that stage of compromise, there is no way, any creative instincts can be kindled / nurtured ! maybe age did it to him, i donno!

my personal take: i used to love Rajini films as a kid (there is a hint there as to how/why he is successful - kids even now love his films - maybe he comes across as a larger screen version of those characters from TV aka Shakthiman, Giant robot etc!)- but past my 11 years, got tired of his gimmickry! even Kamal, if he did something in a film that reminded me of what he did earlier, it will bring an involuntary 'salippu' feeling! thats where he saved himself as a writer/'ghost'-director (though when I later came to know he has liberally suttufied from hollywood, that became a dampener).

Raajjaa - am not sure if you know this Rajini film from the late 1980s - forgot the name - Rajini gets shot and moves into a temple in a jungle, takes out the bullet with the tirusoolam (!!!), somewhere gets hold of a whisky bottle (whisky in a temple!), pours it over the wound burns it up, gives a few taps on the burnt part and walks away in style! the sheer audacity of the sequence left me gasping breathless! and then i laughed - 'you gotta be kidding - did i really see that happening ?' - but the point is people loved it and I see nothing wrong in Rajini riding on such an adulation ppl have for him !