An Jo on SRK

In response to SRK discussion in this thread; An Jo’s comment:

SRK was/is one of those actors who can hardly be called super-talented. But he is that star-actor who can be so impactful in certain roles, that he can make even his most ardent-haters realize that he is irreplaceable in a certain kind of role.

When I first watched him in the tele-serials, I was put-off apropos his speedy dialogue-delivery. There was hardly a digression/nuance in dialogue-delivery. Then I watched the pretentious movie ‘In which Annie gives to those ones‘ where he was composed and one where I thought he would be an ace: Dostoevsky’s ‘The Idiot’, Mani Kaul’s interpretation as the ‘Ahmaq.’ But look at the scene; his goat-bleating laugh is here as well! In a Mani Kaul film! [No strange co-incidence; that Amol directed SRK in ‘Paheli’ a re-make of Kaul’s ‘Duvidha’.] So yes, the YRF phase made him a NRI super-star wearing those 3$ GAP T-shirts and hoodies but it is not that KJo — I can’t believe I am letting this, well, ‘person’, off the hook — really brought out the deficiencies and stereo-types in acting: It was always there! If one wants further proof, one just needs to look at ‘Raam Jaane’: If there’s any film that needs to be shown to budding film-actors as to how not to ham, it is SRK’s performance in this film.

Now, if one compares this with Amitabh ‘s performance in ‘Sanjog‘ in 1969 starring Mala Sinha, or better yet, ‘Saudagar’, [a marvellous performance bearing testimony to the human emotions of love, lust, jealousy, and greed] before he became a super-star with his hair-style and getting to be an angry young man first, and then, shattering the myth by becoming a one-man-variety go-to-guy, he was always a pure actor first, a star later. Bachchan has too many, too many films on his shelf to contradict his tenure as an actor-star and a star-actor. If he can better Dilip Kumar in a half-commercial but very grim movie like Shakti, no wonder the roots originated here when he could stand his own against a power-house performer like Nutan in ‘Saudagar.’ No wonder even Ray wanted to work with Amitabh! Now that, that’s what’s missing in SRK’s oevure.

There are only 3 films, that I, as a totally uninterested person in SRK’s career, that I plead allegiance to: CHAAHAT, DIL SE, SWADES, ZERO, and lastly FAN [in Fan, the part where he plays the actor/him-self; he was bad as Gaurav but physically, it’s commendable how dexterous he was.] DIL SE was the film that sealed it for me that this actor is a limited-range actor but boy-o, when he gets a role that suits him, he will own it. Two scenes, just those 2 scenes in DIL SE conquered me: a) When he talks to so-called brothers/terrorists of Manisha with arrogance – ‘Mein aaj bhi ek botal hawa mein phenke doosre botal se phod sakta hoon’ and then, the scene when he walks toward Manisha and Meeta Vashisht on his engagement day. That walk, that walk toward Manisha shook me like anything when I first watched the movie. Of course, it was Mani’s umbrella, but that bloody spoke made the umbrella sturdier, richer!

It’s a false understanding, hence, when one says that SRK was a ‘true’ actor and YRF destroyed him. Nothing like that. He was always an actor that needed a very strong director to bring out his talent, and that talent really was not the one that could fit-in like water filling in the contours of a brook, as and when demanded, seasonally.