Raavan - Is it a triumph of South Over North

While the Hindi 'Raavan' is getting very bad reviews, the Tamil version is getting better reviews especially the role essayed by Vikram as Veera is being compared to his best till date in movies like 'Sethu' & 'Pithamagan'....A question (i always thought of) that sparked in my mind is that did 'Mani Sir' actually compromised on his casting because he thought commercially taking Abhisek (who is definitely a poorer actor than Vikram) would provide his movie greater mileage in NEW (North/East/West)....Why is it that even great filmmakers like Maniratnam go for names than characters....Abhisek is a good actor but definitely not in the league where he can shed off all his image and just melt into a negative character like 'Raavan'....Actors in Bollywood are more names than real talent than actors in South and why only South even for that matter East (bengal)....Somehow actors in South & East do not bring their image to the roles and are able to melt into the character much more smoothly than even the best of the Bollywood actors including 'Amitabh Bacchan' for that matter....The biggest difference that i find is that in Bollywood be it 'Shahrukh'/'Abhisek'/ even senior like Amitabh (with exceptions of very few movies) all of them do not change their dialogue delivery style with the role...while when you see a Kamal Hasan/Mohanlal/Mamoothy/Vikram/Surya/Uttam Kumar in bengal you will see how they change completely as per the role...It becomes very difficult to seperate the star from the character and that according to me is the Hallmark of a great actor....Unfortunately Bollywood actors are more wellknown in rest of the country than regional actors and hence going by economics even big producers/directors bow down to star power....It makes Bollywood way way behind Hollywood and i would say even South Industry....Its time that Directors realise that at the end of the day if the movie is good audience footfalls will happen by WOM and not just because it has a big name...Because a movie with big name ensures trials but no repeats if the quality is bad...Poor word of mouth catches up much faster for a bad movie with big hyped star.....Its also time that 'Bollywood' actors come down from the pedestal and realise that they need to learn acting....

Comments

  1. The Lazy TravellerJune 24, 2010 at 12:24 AM

    You cannnot compare apples with oranges.
    Ravaan didn't engage the sensibilities of the NEW audience, while it does appear that cinema crazy South has lapped it up.
    It has nothing to do with characterisation. In south you have dedicated fans of actors who ensure that the movie of their demigod becomes a hit by watching it repeatedly. No such luck with any Bollywood actor. Bollywood audience is far more frickle minded and objective and do not accept something that doesn't appeal to them. The same cannot be said about the south audience (particularly TN and AP) and who are more star led than script...

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