Double impact – earth and fire
Sheela Naheem
They were not afraid of the long shadow of Amitabh Bachchan. They had made it, and how! But now, both must take new risks... the sooner the better. A critical assessment of the two main players
Opposites attract the viewer. Individually, they are remarkably different - like earth and fire. Taken together, they reflect much of what is new and better about Indian cinema of the 1990s.
Fortunately, both were young and naturally confident to be burdened with the long shadow of Amitabh Bachchan. Their originality and confidence helped revive Indian cinema from its late 1980s doldrums.
Now, at the age of 31, they are both faced with a dilemma of their own. How daring and inventive do they want to be, now that they have built their brand - now that they have made it?
They did it on their own terms: Aamir Khan with a meticulous attention to detail and a penchant for the measured and natural, Shah Rukh with his restless energy, racing emotions and an innate complexity and curiosity. Each has been a risk-taker in his own acting strengths, but none is yet an 'all-rounder'.
Athletic metaphors work really well with them - and not just because each is a remarkable athlete. Aamir has a temperament and talent akin to a cerebral, workmanlike, doggedly determined athlete. His mental preparation and dedication guarantee few mistakes, but also limit the real chances he takes.
Shah Rukh is closer to being 'natural' - gifted but with the ferocity, innate acting and a mystery of ability that is neither fully tempered nor fully mastered. Shah Rukh is capable of astonishing audiences and even surprising himself, but equally capable of deeply disappointing everyone involved. Aamir is steady, Shah Rukh explosive.
The athletes and actors who enjoy long innings usually do so by complementing innate strengths with acquired skills. Sure, success lets you cruise and repeat what works for a while - you make few but calculated corrections. That worked breathtakingly well for Amitabh, who led an extraordinary career on just such a formula. But it's a brave new world out there now - with plenty of competition and an audience and industry in flux.
So the next step for Aamir and Shah Rukh is tricky. Do they stretch themselves? Do they take real risks and work on their respective weaknesses?
Both are bright, talented and dedicated. But success has a way of taming daring and turning artists into cautious entrepreneurs. The question that remains to be answered is whether Aamir and Shah Rukh master success or are mastered by it?
Aamir - the right scale, some wrong notes
Both Aamir and Shah Rukh got immediate attention in undoubted debuts. They had not come to films to be anyone's weak imitation or to chase anyone's status quo. Aamir's genuinely fresh and sparklingly alive performance in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak pierced the jaded and increasingly worn-out pathos of the late eighties.
Romantic films came back with a bang but more importantly for the nineties, youthful energy and realistic heroes displaced the ponderous larger-than-life scale of Amitabh's characters.
From his first performance, Aamir quietly but fiercely insisted on a natural style of acting. Initially, the realistic scale of his performances offered a deliberate contrast to Amitabh's penchant for the epic genre.
Throughout the 1990s, despite all the critical and popular attention heaped on flamboyant and intense performances, Aamir has stuck steadfastly to this subdued and astonishingly detailed approach to his characters.
It has been a long and often lonely campaign to breathe more realism into the overheated confines of Mumbai melodrama, and Aamir has clearly paid a price. Nominated for an award every year (really every year?) since he came into film, he has seen professional honours inevitably go to showier performances.
A lot of good work has gone unrewarded. In Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, Aamir's dogged, clever inventiveness rescues a film that seems poised to ruin itself. Severely miscast, a slightly sour, abrasive Pooja Bhatt is difficult to handle, but Aamir remains composed and keeps a light touch. He lets the humorous frustration turn to distraction and then affection, softening Pooja Bhatt's character in the process to ultimately make the relationship work for the audience.
Only a year separated the release of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar and Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, but their characters seem more than 15 years apart. Aamir is probably a little too grown up to play the immature boy who rises to the occasion in Jo Jeeta... and a little too young to take on a father figure in Hum Hain... Aamir doesn't put any pressure on himself or overdo it. In each one, he nicely fulfills expectations. His naturalness, his mastery of everyday details and his effortless timing give these films a solid foundation. His characters - and this is the real constant in his films - have an immediate believability and sympathy.
But Hum Hain... also hints at a problem that has tended to grow in the years that have followed. Aamir's muted, precisely drawn characterizations sometimes make him disappear in his own films. Juhi Chawla - at her cheeky and feisty best - clearly carries the audience's attention and hearts in Hum Hain... Aamir would have to match her emotional energy to balance the film better, and he doesn't.
The multifaceted demands of his role in Dil not only confirm Aamir's range and multiple strengths, but also suggest that steadfastness is not always a virtue. It's tempting to extrapolate from Aamir's vengeful stalking of Madhuri Dixit in Dil to what might have been had he taken on the stalker role in Darr.
Aamir's staring, piercing gaze and sheer rage make for a brief, intense scene in Dil, but a jarring transition. The impression left is surprisingly unsympathetic. The performance suggests pure vengeance, unmitigated by pain or vulnerability.
Whatever Yash Chopra's original concept for Darr was, the filmed version feeds on the duality of its characters. Sunny Deol, who would normally be the undisputed husband/hero, is not, well, an entirely reassuring protagonist. The macho protectiveness is double-edged and seems more rooted in his own ego than his love for Juhi Chawla.
Conversely, Shah Rukh Khan, who should be a terrifying, if not despicable, villain, is far more confusing - he is terrifying and sympathetic. Replace him with Aamir and you get a film that is just as thrilling but far more straightforward and less morally ambiguous.
Aamir's single-mindedness serves him better in Raakh and Aatank Hi Aatank, though neither of those films serves him well (Raakh is relentlessly dour, Aatank an unfortunate combination of entitlement and clumsiness).
In Aatank, the execution of the Michael Corleone-like character is utter and callous, Aamir no different. The slicked-back hair is a mistake - it conveys a mad dandy look - but the wildness is right.
By 1995, a brooding thoughtfulness seems to have crept into Aamir's work. The warm, lively, engaging quality of his early performances is beginning to fade as something colder and more reserved takes over. The scale of his performances is, as always, unfailingly right. He remains, without question, the standard-setter among younger actors.
But Aamir's smile, once boyish and appealingly shy, now seems to be weighing the effort two-thirds of the way through - as if drawn back by a hidden sadness.
Perhaps it is simply a matter of fact decision. Over the last two years, Aamir has had to expand his commercial range first and foremost. In Baazi, he throws himself into both his macho and cross-dressing scenes with equal passion but different results. He is unusually good at fumbling but noticeably less at home with the demands of action films. Action is best done from the gut and ideally without taking itself too seriously. It also largely requires you to leave your brain at the door for safekeeping.
None of this comes easy to Aamir. He gives the flimsy hero of Baazi a conventional interpretation, so that the final effect is undermotivated and underfelt.
Akele Hum Akele Tum, by comparison, suits him impeccably. Aamir does excellent work with the child actor (a difficult task that Aamir invariably makes look effortless), offering an intelligent, sincere, mature interpretation of a relationship in mighty trouble.
He and Manisha Koirala apply real feeling and concern in developing their respective characters, but sadly too little overall impact. The film never finds a brisk dramatic pace, let alone maintains it. Its grim solemnity sinks the valiant efforts of its actors and hurts without screaming.
Aamir's new work Rangeela is easily the most interesting. Ram Gopal Varma's fresh eye for sets and bold use of song and dance gives Aamir the most stimulating setting he has had in a long time. Aamir's Tapori embodies all the hallmarks of Aamir Khan, the performance is extremely well observed, thoughtful and well-crafted.
But it is a performance that is also hampered by a poorly fleshed-out character and an interpretation limited by literalism and lack of emotional complexity. Aamir's Tapori is a young man in no hurry.
There is no hint of the kind of growth that makes Shah Rukh Khan's character in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge so dynamic or Anil Kapoor's Tapori in Mashaal so endearing.
Once Aamir has sketched out his characters as tough, witty and tongue-tied, the Tapori remains a static being. You want to be assured that behind the posturing is an insecure young guy madly in love. You want a glimmer of hope that here is someone who can grow and change.
But when Urmila Matondkar makes her choice at the end of the film, it feels more like obligation than love. It has none of the rush at the end of DDLJ and no sense of two people being right for each other. The tapori of Rangeela is a classic case of arrested development. You leave the auditorium thinking - hmm, this relationship has as much chance of surviving as an ice cube in hell.
Despite its runaway success, Raja Hindustani has much of the same problem. While the hero is honestly and effectively drawn, his lack of growth leaves him painfully static. You find yourself, like Karisma Kapoor, wanting to pound on Aamir's chest and beg for the character to develop.
You want to like the character more than Aamir lets you. You find yourself yearning for a plumper, more pleasing, more emotionally satisfying portrayal. There's a detached quality to these recent portrayals - as if Aamir Khan dissects his characters but hasn't found their hearts yet. The rest of his work, though, is so good, so honest, that you know this can be fixed. He can find their heart if he wants to, if he looks.
Shah Rukh - so turned on
Of course, it's rarely heart that's missing from Shah Rukh Khan's performances. Aamir Khan's alter ego is bold rather than timid, loud rather than deliberate and over-enthusiastic rather than reserved. Always too much rather than too little.
Shah Rukh's vibrant debut in Deewana begets repeat viewings. Energy levels climb so massively with his arrival that it's akin to a 'sugar rush' - you can literally feel it under your skin. And he comes with a surprisingly full package - intelligence, grace, sensitivity, passion and assurance. Virtually every element of his later performances is there (notable exception being the emotional maturity that suddenly emerges in DDLJ). That's the good news and the bad.
Shah Rukh can be a very frustrating performer for viewers who are drawn in by his obvious gifts but increasingly exhausted or shut out by his self-indulgence. As Shah Rukh obviously realizes, energy is his comparative advantage. But it's also a full-blown addiction at the moment.
The question may not be whether he can get a grip on it, but whether he really wants to. At the moment, it's a safety net of sorts. When pressed for time or in doubt, he just turns up the intensity. It's a shortcut, a fallback, a safety net. And he's been using it a hell of a lot lately.
Shah Rukh's energy is more focused and purposeful in his earlier films, where it was more integral to the character and less obviously a crutch. His love-struck character in Deewana and his success-hungry engineer Raju (Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman) fed off Shah Rukh's obsessive and nervous energy.
His hyperactivity, however, is largely irrelevant in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. It doesn't add to the white-hot desire, it starts to get in the way of the subtleties in the performance. Viewers have to comb through the near-constant nervousness to get to the substance.
That said, the performance in Kabhi Haan… is, of course, a marvel. It is almost world class. Disarmingly frank and heartbreakingly indulgent, Shah Rukh in Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman vividly confirms something previously obvious. His character may be selfish, manipulative and less than honest, but he is forgiven.
Whether it comes from vulnerability, inner innocence or sheer sympathy, some actors – congratulations to the audience – are given a lot of room to let the good stand for the bad in their characterisations.
Shah Rukh has, of course, continued to test how far audiences are willing to give him leeway. In quick succession he made Baazigar, Darr and Anjaam, redrawing the boundaries for Hindi film heroes.
At least in Baazigar and Darr he carefully cultivated the tortured and positive core of his characters. They remained flawed, sympathetic people who did terrible things.
Baazigar's motivations are questionable, a haphazard spin-off of A Kiss Before Dying's personal revenge theme, both US versions delving deeper into the frustrations of class and the dark side of the American dream.
Darr is more meaningful in its structure and motivations, and the plot makes better use of Shah Rukh's emotional complexity. At any given time there are usually two and often more disparate emotions plaguing Shah Rukh's screen persona. This emotional wrangling is something he seems comfortable with and curious about. In any case, he gives it plenty of space when he's not on autopilot.
In Darr he is simultaneously an emotionally troubled boy and a dangerously obsessive adult. One never excuses or invalidates the other. The constant tension within the character also means that viewers never get a full understanding. Forget the light-hearted final line at the end of the film. No one comes out of Darr without their sense of love and obsession being tainted.
At present, DDLJ offers the most useful gauge of where Shah Rukh is as an actor. It is a compendium of possibilities and bad habits. A unique pleasure of the film is that every character evolves a little, and none more so than Shah Rukh's Raj. This evolution from know-it-all, smug school dropout to committed lover is heartfelt, convincing and moving.
Then again, there's what everyone calls Shah Rukh's overacting - the unnecessarily extended, strident and over-the-top mannerisms that at times (especially in the beginning) seem to make Raj into a cartoon character. Mhm. Anyone got a Valium for this guy?
Shah Rukh never does one thing when he can cram in ten. He never underacts when he can overact. The effect of all this is to drain the audience and distract them. It makes you crave strong acting that's simple, clean and direct.
And then oh - there's that Dishum Dishum ending in DDLJ. It was at Shah Rukh's insistence (as he admitted in an interview), and it's a huge mistake that seems to get more discordant and painful with every viewing. The fight scenes are unnecessary to the film and the integrity of the characters. It's as convincing an argument as you'll ever need to resist the self-absorption of star logic.
More than Aamir Khan and his other contemporaries, Shah Rukh has cultivated the physical and psychological details of his screen image. He has made sure that the clothes are hip - as in hip-hop - not yuppie or overtly Bollywood. Aamir Khan may have a certain look - the popped collar, the rolled-up sleeves, the belted trousers - but Shah Rukh is big on styling.
And Shah Rukh knows (and he knows that he knows) how to use clothes to effect. That big shirt with unbuttoned cuffs and a collar sliding down his back puts a pointed exclamation point behind his desperation in the prison scene in Chamatkar. And the shirtless suits in Ram Jaane are evocative. With this one element, he figuratively suggests wealth and power, which clashes with the street kid's rough bravura.
All this styling and attitude, however, serves as an unlikely method of showing pathos. The conventional hero dispatches a dozen villains while his hair barely gets messed up. Not Shah Rukh. Cutting his arm in Deewana Divya Bharati and taking a brutal beating in Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman were just the beginning. Shah Rukh likes pain in a big way. His characters are survivors, not victors. Shah Rukh
's success has allowed him to indulge his penchant for suffering. In Baazigar, it's a quantum leap in flying blood, glass and water, and in Darr the beating gets longer and more brutal.
The issue in all this, however, is not quite clear-cut until Ram Jaane and Chaahat. In Ram Jaane, there is a decisive confrontation between Shah Rukh, who has just been arrested, and his primary nemesis.
The scene is one-sided and brutal, but that's not the point. The scene is about resistance, not defeat. Shah Rukh's heroes endure, they refuse to lose. The obsession now treads dangerous ground, with no evidence of cushioning and any control that channels the dark energy into something more constructive for the actor and the audience.
Ram Jaane garnered few fans among critics. Everything about the film - but especially Shah Rukh - is too much of a good thing. It's a grossly over-the-top performance. But more than anything, the characterization is fascinating for its anger - even if it's part Jimmy Cagney (the film is a remake of the 1930s classic, Angels with Dirty Faces), part Al Pacino (in Scarface mode) and part pure adrenaline.
The frenzy of the performance could have worked better if the rest of the film had offered a calm counterbalance (instead it is hopelessly infected with Shah Rukh's aggressive energy), and if Shah Rukh had put his character in more gear. Still, the full-throttle self-destruction is so unabashed that it's hard not to grant the performance some grudging respect for its all-out internal logic.
You might think that Ram Jaane was at least doing us all the favour of exorcising that particular demon from Shah Rukh's system. But no... Chaahat takes the brief defiant scene in Ram Jaane and builds it into what feels like a three-reel finale. It's tempting to read a certain cranky psychoanalysis into it - about guilt and absorbing punishment to exert some semblance of control over events. But the bottom line for viewers is that the film greatly exaggerates its bloodshed. The violence sets new standards, all bottom-shelf.
Excess is always risky business. For the audience, there is a risk of blunting sensibilities. For the actor, it tips dangerously towards parody. At what point does an actor stop being credible? SRK has to prove himself here too. Does he rely on the audience to accept him in a quieter, implosive role? Does he trust himself to deliver the performance without attention-seeking antics?
Over time, it is much easier (and more amusing) for actors to expend energy than it is for the audience to process it. At some point, over-excited actors get on people's nerves. Shah Rukh is particularly lucky to have alternatives. The question was whether he wanted to take them.
A look ahead
Success is a crazy, wonderful, always dangerous thing. It rarely makes you yearn to increase your range or the long-term effort to tune in your audience.
Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan are at exciting but difficult and critical junctures. Aamir has committed to fewer films and a higher quality product. That has borne fruit commercially. Raja Hindustani is a smashing commercial success. But where is the increased depth and richer characterisation you would expect from the extra time and attention? Where is the upside?
Shah Rukh's heavy workload increases the fear that quantity will overtake quality and mannerisms will be repeated for sheer lack of time to develop characters. Will his insatiable curiosity, which has fuelled risk-taking in the past, continue to do so? Will his liaison with his own energy deter him from the harder task of developing more emotional maturity in front of the camera?
Will Aamir Khan, who seems to be a leading man looking for a career as a character actor, give himself a nudge to work on a wider emotional surface? Will Shah Rukh, who often seems keen to exchange exceptional acting gifts for some manic acting, find the modulation and clarity he needs to fulfil his acting and comedic potential?
Will both find the strong fundamental and inspired direction they need? And when they find it, will they be able to sublimate the needs of superstardom to the demands of the character? Will either of them seize control of their own destiny and that of the industry and make a difference in Bombay film?
Both will have to take risks, different risks. What is risky for Aamir - letting go of some of that famous control and exploring uncharted emotional territory - is second nature to Shah Rukh. And what is risky for Shah Rukh - dropping the manic façade and working more realistically - is reflexive for Aamir.
Both have the capacity to be all-rounders. But will they be? There are no crystal balls. We just have to wait… watch… and hope.