August 12 marks a special 60th anniversary, a Shashtiyabdhapurthi of one of its kind for Indian cinema. The date marks the completion of 60 years of Kamal Haasan onscreen. It is a landmark matched by few talents from across the globe (mostly actors who have faced the camera from their childhood maybe) and this milestone can be celebrated in myriad ways. Sixty of his best roles, sixty of his best movies etc.
But I don’t wish to contain his illustrious career to mere numbers. Kamal’s success lies in the sheer variety, versatility and verve that he brings to his films, which defines his brand of cinema. What is he to many of us, who have grown up on his movies? He’s even done a Bengali film in his twenties, and has worked in 30 plus Malayalam films before he set foot again as a hero in Tamil in the late 70s. It is a career that has touched many an Indian state, and this doesn’t happen by chance.
It happens because there is passion for what one does which goes beyond the call of duty, a quest for enhancing one’s own skill and knowledge. This made him search out for gurus in acting, writing and technical areas of filmmaking, and then, of course, there is his own disciplined approach to working hard unmindful of rewards, especially when they don’t match the effort he had put in. In the West, if an actor puts in his time and effort to get under the skin of a role, the monetary and publicity payoffs are multifold. In India, one has to just hit the ground running. And that’s what Kamal Haasan has been doing ever since he faced the camera for Kalathur Kannamma.
A film for every genre, a role for every emotion, Kamal’s filmography sets the standard even for his own career graph, with each role bettering the previous one and each film different from the one before. I am among the fortunate few who have worked with him, and can attest that you become better at what you do when you work with him. He shares his knowledge and insights and benchmarks freely and willingly with his team and when that happens, you learn to set your own benchmarks. Many a time, Kamal is appreciated for tangible talents like dancing, acting, ability to play musical instruments or learning a skill for a film, like, say makeup.
My observation is this: Kamal takes a few days to master what would take many a few months to learn. He is truly gifted in that sense. He learnt to play the Thavil for Anbe Sivam in less than three days and would practise only for two hours in the evening. The same goes for his stunts — he would choreograph every bit of the action sequence before lunch break, and by afternoon, the scene is canned without injury to anyone on the set.
But the talent I hold as pure gold in Kamal is his ability to write. And he writes every single day — be it a story, a passage, screenplay, dialogues or his yet-to-be-published bunch of poems, of which there are many gems hidden in the notebooks in his office. Give him any genre, and any character and watch him weave a scene out of nowhere with exact staging for the camera, the movements, the dialogues of all actors and the finish for editing purpose. The Tamil which flows with world philosophy is a delight to hear. The writer in Kamal far supersedes his other talents. For it is the writer who imagines, creates, and brings a world alive out of thin air.
It is with joy I await his next – Thalaivan Irukkinraan – and anticipate a lot of sharp lines that go hand in hand with his political journey now. This 60 is indeed special for a man who has raised the bar and remains the gold standard in cinematic excellence – a standard which is yet to be crossed by anyone else. It is because the talent in Kamal Haasan is matched with consistency in delivery. It is a tough combination to match.
The writer can be contacted at Twitter – @n_sujatha08
(The writer is a former journalist who has worked in the film industry for several years and is passionate about movies, music and everything related to entertainment.)
Source: The New Indian Express