The many phases of a performer

Surendra Kumar  

He hit the silver screen with Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Saat Hindustani (1969) but it was Mehmood’s Bombay to Goa (1972), a remake of Tamil film Madras to Pondicherry (1966), which changed Amitabh Bachchan’s life. His intensity in a fight scene with Shatrughan Sinha impressed the producer-director Prakash Mehra so much that he offered Amitabh the role of a police officer looking for the assassin of his father. After this, there was no looking back. Amitabh gave 12 flops in a row before hitting the bull’s eye with Zanjeer (1973). Barring a few years when he was laid off by a deadly accident on the sets of Coolie, he has worked in 192 films in a career spanning 45 years. He has enjoyed the longest active acting career; and perhaps, the most commercially successful one.

His long innings present four evolutionary phases. In the Angry Young Man phase epitomised by films like Zanjeer, Deewar and Sholay, he is an intense, raging, smouldering person. He was able to pulverise more than a dozen baddies. His intense, dare-devil roles were greeted by front-benchers with whistles and applauses. In the second phase of his acting career, this angry, intense character changed, adding generous doses of humour in films like Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Amar Akbar Anthony and Laawaris.

Then came an Amitabh with soft, sensitive and multi-layered characters in films like Anand, Abhimaan, Mili, Saudagar, Chupke Chupke, Silsila and Kabhi Kabhie. In the films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Yash Chopra, he interpreted delicate nuances of love and relationships. 

So when a producer signed Amitabh, he was getting a wholesome package — action, comedy as well as intense melodrama. French director Francois Truffaut called him a One-Man Industry!

When he eventually graduated to do character roles, it offered him the diversity and variety of roles challenging his histrionic talent like never before. Big-budget films like Mohabbatein, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Baghban, which also featured actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Kajol, were huge boxoffice hits. The success of these films established his reputation as a bankable actor. 

The last and most popular phase came with off-beat, experimental flicks like Black, Paa, Piku. These films brought the thespian in him to the fore and fetched him National Awards. He had also won a National Award for Agneepath, taking the total tally to four. He has won 15 Filmfare awards in different categories.

While actors like Dilip Kumar, Kamal Hassan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, too have enacted diverse roles successfully, yet what sets Amitabh apart from them is his ability to infuse life even in the most absurd roles with total conviction. His performance in songs like “Khaike paan Banaraswala”, “Mere angne mein”, “Ke pag ghunghroo”, “Rang barse,” etc. offer clean wholesome entertainment with many hearty laughs.

The factor which has helped him survive for so long is not letting himself fall into stereotypes but reinterpret his craft and leave his imprint in any role, irrespective of its length. The sincerity and seriousness with which he addresses the challenges of roles and makes these his own have endeared him to a band of young directors like R. Balki (Paa), Shoojit Sircar (Piku) and Ram Gopal Varma (Sarkar).

While his contemporaries like Dharamendra and Shatrughan Sinha retired years back, the Vijay of Deewar is rubbing shoulders with youngsters like Deepika Padukone (Piku) and Taapsee Pannu (Pink and Badla) giving them a run for their money. But what made Amitabh Bachchan the Big B aren’t his films but his much-loved TV show: Kaun Banega Crorepati, which is now running in its 19th year. The informal, jovial and empathetic manner in which he interacts with the contestants puts them at ease. He richly deserves the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, which was recently announced, besides the Padma Vibhushan and French Legion d’Honneur bestowed upon him earlier. This entertainer who has ruled the film industry for half a century, is the first Indian actor to be immortalised by Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.