I see a pattern that has emerged in Bollywood in the past few years, especially after 2019. I was aware of this production house's 'game' at making movies, which is mostly about portraying characters that are larger than life. They did entertain us for a while but then you can’t get only glamour in the name of filmmaking or storytelling for that matter. Imagine casting someone from SoBo and she plays a Bengali character with a horrible Gujarati accent just because she couldn’t care to do any research. Her male co-star was phenomenal with a dialect coach working with him and never once, mind you, all throughout the movie he broke character. He is quite a well-spoken, educated and has his way with dainty English words in interviews. Yet, to slip into a character with quirks that doesn’t speak English or has anything to do with what one calls “class”. This is why admirers of art are so important when one is in the business of filmmaking, theatre or performing arts.
The latest release of the production house has a female lead who plays an author from Agra. I don’t think the creative team has any idea about the writing field or publishing industry or how authors live their lives, act, react or engage in common / human scenarios. For that matter, there is little to no interest of the female lead to portray her character that at least looks interesting. I have never met a fellow author, in all my years of writing books, articles, blogs myself has had such poor emotional range as shown through the story. At this point I am convinced this movie was just made to sabotage the career of the male lead who has created quite a stir with some content-backed films in the last two years or so. He is not the best “outsider” we have but he definitely has a respect for his craft because he takes interest in the process. Opulence doesn’t create talent, and it is apparent in the efforts made by the actors cast in some ‘fun’ movies this production house has come up with in the past few years.
It is not the responsibility of the creators alone, but actors too, when they decide to come aboard for a project that is for visual consumption and people pay for that stuff in order to do something recreational weekend to weekend. It is not only for the pay cheque but the ‘job’ they have undertaken. I have also come to the understanding that once the money comes kicking in, there is absolutely no moral high ground these ‘performers’ walk on. The ground is missing, if one may say so. They have this Big Daddy sitting above who is so obsessed with the pomp and show that he doesn’t even take filmmaking seriously, neither does anything to respect the legacy his late father left him. His shop was running the numbers when a certain superstar was associated with him in and out, the moment the latter was not seen anywhere in the production house’s recent undertakings, there had to be other ‘politics’ to ensure media was always alert about the doings of the Big Daddy. When someone says the rich sell their souls to the Devil, this is exactly what we are referring to. When you forego your actual purpose just to satisfy your ego, you end up digging your own grave, if not today but definitely in the future. No wonder the production house ran into a partnership with another tycoon and the story was run like it were just a business deal that would benefit both the parties? What benefit? There are no ‘actors’ in the films! There is no place for ‘acting’ in the films, at best these movies look like some deodorant advert or some skincare commercial and even a hair spa reel, if one may say so.
The art bug is not something that can be adopted. You are either an artist, or you are not. An actor might work hard, yes, there is no denying of credit and we have seen it in the case of a certain low-profile actor who gave a smashing performance in a recent spy-film that is supposedly independent, a film that was loved by everyone even if there were factual distortions. In fact, a web series directed by the son of the world’s biggest superstar also had the best casting as far as ‘outsiders’ were concerned. This is what you get when you make a film and not some ‘family picnic’ or ‘family dinner/ lunch/ tea party’, yada yada. The fact that some people are trying to move past the usual politics of film casting is a joke to a few individuals who are tone-deaf and unapologetic megalomaniacs who just can’t bear their fragile egos being busted by the ones who are sincerely trying to be an ‘actor’. What level of degeneracy one is subjected to when it is heard that you sack people because they were in the casting seat and decided that they would prefer the ‘good actors’ over just the ‘good looking ones’? One can be good looking and talented, yes, but just on the premise of looks, how far will the art go?
I was engaging in an Instagram post about how actors in Hollywood no longer look like the ones we grew up watching in the 90s. And then I realised, directors and producers have stopped casting random guys they spot on the street and made an attempt to make their dreams come true. If not the industry politics, there is geo-politics that affect everything else. We now have a dearth of talented musicians, singers, etc. too. Ever wondered why we miss the 90s or the works of art that were produced before that? Because back then we didn’t have goons running the business or the country.
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