Lights, Camera and Conversation .....
I am moderate movie freak and I watch all kinds of movies - the good ones, the bad ones and sometimes even the ugly ones. In case of the latter two categories I do wonder in my postmortem thoughts - how did the script writer come up with such hideous dialogues , what was the screenplay guy seriously thinking of , where did the director leave his skills before arriving on the set ... and sometimes yes even why have the good actors even think of acting in the not so good movies or sometimes even in the downright terrible ones.
The last of these thoughts sprang to mind after watching a recently released Hindi ( Official language in India, in addition to English ) Movie. It starred one of the bigger stars of the Hindi Film Industry - nicknamed Bollywood being inspired by its counterpart in the US of A. Now the film in question didnt need anyone but the hero .... after all it was made just for the fan club of the hero in question. However what actually surprised me was that it had a superb supporting cast with well known character artistes playing really dumb roles with nothing more to so than act stupid and look like fools in front of the all powerful and all knowing hero who fills the screen for more than three fourth of the movie time. What a powerhouse cast and it could easily have been a terrific offbeat movie and yet they were all just satellites around the hero. Ironically one of the scenes even had the hero on a bridge looking at one of the other character actors on the street below and saying " You will always be beneath me ". It made me wonder why do actors take up roles that would obviously do nothing for them.
That was when I realised there is more to it than that meets the eye. For us in India we are very passionate about our movies and our stars. And when we see a good actor in a bad movie it shocks us. This happens with actors alone though. We do not think twice when a famous lawyer takes on a case that doesn't deserve his expertise, or drop our jaws when a renowned painter takes up a cartoon commissioning.But with actors we end up wondering " why did he even act in such a crappy movie ? "
The probable answers to this rhetoric are -
(1) The Obvious - Acting is what he is supposed to do ain't it ?
(2) The Realistic - Making money is what he wants to do ... Don't we all for that matter ?
(3) The Pessimistic - Maybe he wants to keep himself from getting rusty or going mad waiting at home for the perfect script that almost never comes or hasn't been written yet.
(4) The Optimistic - Acting in the so called B-Movies would help him get recognised , make contacts, get a foot in the door of 'camps'
(5) The Unjustified Maybe he is just having Fun ...
Is this an Indian Bollywood phenomenon ? My research showed me otherwise ... much to my relief. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars - Episode 1 gave me such thoughts. So did Cate Blanchett as the campy villainess in Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Cate Blanchett was coming off playing parts in movies as Little Fish ( a heroin addict ) , Babel ( bad marriage, dead child ), the Good German ( a jew in Nazi Germany ), Elizabeth : The Golden Age ( beleagured Royal ). On hindsight it makes us see why she wanted to go " skull hunting " while bellowing in a Rraaashan accent .
At the other end of the spectrum you have actors like Laura Linney in Congo. The movie had reviews that said - " .... Its all about Good Gorillas meeting Bad Gorillas while human beings search for treasure " To make some sense of this good actor's role in this far from good movie ( which ofcourse has its so-bad-it's-good moments ) we have to consider the movies that followed herafter she decided to take off to the African Jungles with a vengeance. It was a question of visibility and what followed was - Primal Fear ( with the oh so hot Richard Gere ) , Absolute Power directed the quintessential Clint Eastwood and ofcourse the Truman Show.
The best wisdom in this matter was probably delivered by Michael Caine - to whom apparently no movie was low enough to be refused. A year after winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in " Hannah and Her Sisters " he dropped our jaw by starring in Jaws -4 : The Revenge. When asked about the film - this was what he had to say " I haven't seen the film, but by all accounts it is terrible. However I have seen the house that it built and it is definitely beautiful "
( This has been written for Week 16 of the LjIdol series-9. The prompt given to us was " ... and a terrible beauty was born .... " If you do find beauty in this attempt please do vote for me .... and yes as always concrits are welcome ... even the terrible ones. Good Luck )
The last of these thoughts sprang to mind after watching a recently released Hindi ( Official language in India, in addition to English ) Movie. It starred one of the bigger stars of the Hindi Film Industry - nicknamed Bollywood being inspired by its counterpart in the US of A. Now the film in question didnt need anyone but the hero .... after all it was made just for the fan club of the hero in question. However what actually surprised me was that it had a superb supporting cast with well known character artistes playing really dumb roles with nothing more to so than act stupid and look like fools in front of the all powerful and all knowing hero who fills the screen for more than three fourth of the movie time. What a powerhouse cast and it could easily have been a terrific offbeat movie and yet they were all just satellites around the hero. Ironically one of the scenes even had the hero on a bridge looking at one of the other character actors on the street below and saying " You will always be beneath me ". It made me wonder why do actors take up roles that would obviously do nothing for them.
That was when I realised there is more to it than that meets the eye. For us in India we are very passionate about our movies and our stars. And when we see a good actor in a bad movie it shocks us. This happens with actors alone though. We do not think twice when a famous lawyer takes on a case that doesn't deserve his expertise, or drop our jaws when a renowned painter takes up a cartoon commissioning.But with actors we end up wondering " why did he even act in such a crappy movie ? "
The probable answers to this rhetoric are -
(1) The Obvious - Acting is what he is supposed to do ain't it ?
(2) The Realistic - Making money is what he wants to do ... Don't we all for that matter ?
(3) The Pessimistic - Maybe he wants to keep himself from getting rusty or going mad waiting at home for the perfect script that almost never comes or hasn't been written yet.
(4) The Optimistic - Acting in the so called B-Movies would help him get recognised , make contacts, get a foot in the door of 'camps'
(5) The Unjustified Maybe he is just having Fun ...
Is this an Indian Bollywood phenomenon ? My research showed me otherwise ... much to my relief. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars - Episode 1 gave me such thoughts. So did Cate Blanchett as the campy villainess in Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Cate Blanchett was coming off playing parts in movies as Little Fish ( a heroin addict ) , Babel ( bad marriage, dead child ), the Good German ( a jew in Nazi Germany ), Elizabeth : The Golden Age ( beleagured Royal ). On hindsight it makes us see why she wanted to go " skull hunting " while bellowing in a Rraaashan accent .
At the other end of the spectrum you have actors like Laura Linney in Congo. The movie had reviews that said - " .... Its all about Good Gorillas meeting Bad Gorillas while human beings search for treasure " To make some sense of this good actor's role in this far from good movie ( which ofcourse has its so-bad-it's-good moments ) we have to consider the movies that followed herafter she decided to take off to the African Jungles with a vengeance. It was a question of visibility and what followed was - Primal Fear ( with the oh so hot Richard Gere ) , Absolute Power directed the quintessential Clint Eastwood and ofcourse the Truman Show.
The best wisdom in this matter was probably delivered by Michael Caine - to whom apparently no movie was low enough to be refused. A year after winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in " Hannah and Her Sisters " he dropped our jaw by starring in Jaws -4 : The Revenge. When asked about the film - this was what he had to say " I haven't seen the film, but by all accounts it is terrible. However I have seen the house that it built and it is definitely beautiful "
( This has been written for Week 16 of the LjIdol series-9. The prompt given to us was " ... and a terrible beauty was born .... " If you do find beauty in this attempt please do vote for me .... and yes as always concrits are welcome ... even the terrible ones. Good Luck )