Star Power

Source: http://www.quotehd.com/Quotes/marcus-aurelius-soldier-everything-we-hear-is-an-opinion-not-a-fact-everything-we-see

I watched two biopics almost back-to-back. One in the clamour and buzz of the movie hall and the other in the silence surrounding my phone on Prime. The movie hall one is a Bollywood 100 Crorer based on a current star, who had terror charges on him, and the Prime one is a Kollywood-Tollywood hit based on the first female superstar of the South. I cannot but help draw parallels.

Both stars have gone through waves of stardom and setbacks in their careers and also faced great personal tragedies. Both stars faced addiction issues one with alcohol and the other with drugs. I was motivated to watch both films because of reviews written by students on Facebook, both raving about the respective films they wrote about. Interestingly, both films have sub-plots about writers – one is a renowned biographer Winnie Diaz who hesitatingly accepts to write the biography of Sanjay Dutt and the other is a novice journalist whose dream is to get her by-line on the front page of a newspaper. Both the films have these writers doing their research and the audience getting a peep into the star’s life through this research.

My heart, admittedly, was tugged at, at several moments in the two films and the directors have hit the right chord to move the audiences to empathize with the lead characters.

My head, however, was left deeply perturbed by both the films. While I heard Gemini Ganesan’s daughter crib about the false portrayal of her father and the over-glorification of Savitri, I read about the gross glossing over of the criminality involved in hoarding explosives and AKs in Sanjay Dutt’s house during the troubled Mumbai years of the early 1990’s. Both films are examples of how cinema can make or mar popular opinion, in that sense.  So, I am not going to discuss these issues.

There are other common traits that are somewhat discomfiting for me:

1. The films portray the male film stars’ penchant for sexual liberties rather casually. While Sanju coolly announces to his mildly-shocked, awestruck prospective biographer in the presence of his acquiescing wife the number 308 and rounds it off to 350 for greater ‘historical accuracy’ as the number of women he has slept with, discounting those he refers to as ‘prostitutes’, ‘Gemini’ Ganesan, fondly called ‘Kadhal Mannan’ (King of romance) is portrayed as equally casual in his flings, overtures and extra-marital affairs. Manyata Dutt laughs this off as ‘harmless’ acts and Savitri is expected to do the same when Ganesan reminds her of having fallen in love with her even as he was married then.
2. The films show both Sanjay and Savitri failing as parents, and this is conveniently attributed to their own troubled childhoods. While Dutt is crushed under the weight of expectations to live up to a charismatic father, Savitri is shown as constantly yearning for the absent affection of the missing father. The audience is cajoled into forgiving the two for being bad parents.
3. Like most actors with personal setbacks, both stars are shown to be vulnerable and try to escape the harsh reality using alcohol/drugs or even attempt suicide. Alcohol for Savitri is what drugs is to Sanjay Dutt – debilitating, career-destroying addictions. While the former drowns her sorrows in drinks, the latter uses drugs to numb his pains and fears. Both stars are shown to heroically overcome this otherwise insurmountable hurdle.
4. While the audience is introduced to Savitri with the title ‘MahanaDi’ (great actress) and ‘Nadigaiyar Thilakam’ (title of the film), Sanjay Dutt is fondly referred to as ‘Sanju’ (title of the film) or as Baba (young boy; son). Aww, how endearing!
5. Both stars are shown as being prone to being manipulated by friends and acquaintances and being financially unwise. While Savitri loses millions and comes to penury due to her brash investments and financial management decisions, Sanjay, who is even manipulated into drugs by a wicked peddler is shown to be equally dim-witted when it comes to money matters.
6. Politics and gangsters find their way into both films differently. In ‘Sanju’, the director couldn’t have ignored the fact that gangsters are closely associated with the functioning and financing of Bollywood. Sunil Dutt had to meet Mastan don before he weds the Muslim Nargis, and Sanjay has to hobnob with gangsters during the Ganesh Puja. NTR’s Telugu Desam and the Tamil-Telugu questions of language identity find mention in the film ‘Nadigaiyar Thilakam’, which is technically a Telugu film dubbed into Tamizh.
7. In the films’ focus on the central characters, exciting aspects of the siblings and children are downplayed and even biographical facts merely mentioned and not elaborated, all this probably for cinematic clarity.

However, one thing was clear from both films. It is the person who speaks that colours the listener’s perception. The creators paint the films’ facts with their own brushes. The painter gets to decide what you get to see. Do the real and troubling, political issues of gender, terror, corruption, sexual promiscuity etc get shadowed by the excessive focus on the bright glamour of the cinematic lights? The troubled head is left reeling with the question.