An obit of sorts...
How stupid will it sound if I write here, now, that Amrish Puri has probably been the most versatile actor in Indian cinema outside of Naseeruddin Shah and Amitabh Bachchan? Bang after he died. Quite. And I can see that.
I mean, I have for a long time now protested big time against the Indian fascination with dead people. I call it the Obituary Syndrome. About how dead people are lionised, called model people, however much we despised them when they were alive. And however despicable they were in reality when alive. It's terrible the way we go about Obituarising people...
And here I am, doing much the same thing here...
Anyway...
Yes, I believe that way about Amrish Puri. And, to be honest, I started believing it since he aged and started doing more supporting roles. Rather than the one-dimensional villainous roles he became famous for through the best part of his career following his disillusionment with the Shyam Benegal brand of cinema. He was out to make a name for himself and not go the way his brother Om was going. If that meant playing one-dimensional people who got beaten up by morons with warts for brains, so be it. He played the same role in movie after movie, aided and abetted by his booming voice, and lived happily under the shade of that broad-brimmed hat he became synonymous with.
And then came his second coming, as mainstream Hindi cinema moved out of the kitschy 80s and early 90s. As style, a semblance of substance, less-dimwitted directors, better muzak came in and the audiences asked for a tad more sense, I think Amrish Puri came into his own. He continued playing villains every once in a way, but more often, he played different people. Often one-dimensional (we are still talking Hindi meainstream cinema, see), but more fleshed out. He had become far too big by the time for directors to offer him roles without substance.
In films like Gardish, Muskurahat, China Gate, Chachi 420, for example, we saw a totally different Amrish Puri. One that had nothing in common with the bespectacled lawyer from Aakrosh, or the stupid Mogambo cliche. He had moved on, found his niche finally.... One where he wouldn't perhaps find the scope to explore his full potential (it remained untapped, but so it did with Bachchan), but where he would reach greatness in a way few have in the niches they chose for themselves, or were pushed into.
He's died. Fine. Everyone does. He leaves behind little in terms of legacy. Also fine. His full potential remained untapped. Fair enough; he's not the first.
What won't be fair is that we will be subjected to a pile of Mogambo-heavy headlines in the papers tomorrow. And that's where we will be doing our man a great disservice. He was worth much, much more that that stupid bit of dialogue everyone remembers him for...whether everyone will agree with me about his versatility is beside the point.
I mean, I have for a long time now protested big time against the Indian fascination with dead people. I call it the Obituary Syndrome. About how dead people are lionised, called model people, however much we despised them when they were alive. And however despicable they were in reality when alive. It's terrible the way we go about Obituarising people...
And here I am, doing much the same thing here...
Anyway...
Yes, I believe that way about Amrish Puri. And, to be honest, I started believing it since he aged and started doing more supporting roles. Rather than the one-dimensional villainous roles he became famous for through the best part of his career following his disillusionment with the Shyam Benegal brand of cinema. He was out to make a name for himself and not go the way his brother Om was going. If that meant playing one-dimensional people who got beaten up by morons with warts for brains, so be it. He played the same role in movie after movie, aided and abetted by his booming voice, and lived happily under the shade of that broad-brimmed hat he became synonymous with.
And then came his second coming, as mainstream Hindi cinema moved out of the kitschy 80s and early 90s. As style, a semblance of substance, less-dimwitted directors, better muzak came in and the audiences asked for a tad more sense, I think Amrish Puri came into his own. He continued playing villains every once in a way, but more often, he played different people. Often one-dimensional (we are still talking Hindi meainstream cinema, see), but more fleshed out. He had become far too big by the time for directors to offer him roles without substance.
In films like Gardish, Muskurahat, China Gate, Chachi 420, for example, we saw a totally different Amrish Puri. One that had nothing in common with the bespectacled lawyer from Aakrosh, or the stupid Mogambo cliche. He had moved on, found his niche finally.... One where he wouldn't perhaps find the scope to explore his full potential (it remained untapped, but so it did with Bachchan), but where he would reach greatness in a way few have in the niches they chose for themselves, or were pushed into.
He's died. Fine. Everyone does. He leaves behind little in terms of legacy. Also fine. His full potential remained untapped. Fair enough; he's not the first.
What won't be fair is that we will be subjected to a pile of Mogambo-heavy headlines in the papers tomorrow. And that's where we will be doing our man a great disservice. He was worth much, much more that that stupid bit of dialogue everyone remembers him for...whether everyone will agree with me about his versatility is beside the point.
posted by Black Muddy River at 5:42 pm
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