Subhash K Jha’s criticism & praise of Kamal
Subhash K Jha is a veteran reporter, who recently became infamous following (homo)sexual harrassment charges by Sonu Nigam. He has had a love-hate relationship with Kamal and is currently said to be out of favour.
After the Dasavathaaram audio release function, he wrote an article generally criticising actors’ vanity and specifically Kamal. Here are some quotes:
Like all Scorpios, Kamal is an extremely passionate man with an exacerbated appetite for life’s most forbidden fruits . When he loves he loves with a hurricane’s ferocity. When he acts he doesn’t care about cost or health. The targets in his mind aren’t numbers. They are far more cumbersome goals to be realised at any cost.
Kamal is one of the funniest and most fun persons I’ve ever met. He’s self-educated and therefore well-informed. He can talk unselfconsciously and extensively on any subject. But when it comes to cinema he can hold forth for hours.
On screen he has become a bit of a limelight-moth. The signs of a creative megalomania have been creeping up on Kamal for a long time.
Why 10 roles? Isn’t it a little self-defeating to give the audience an over-dose of genius?
Let’s not bother defending Kamal. It’s not necessary. To close the argument, here goes another description of Kamal by the same person, talking of his receptivity to criticism.
I don’t flatter Kamal Haasan. He loves praise, oh yes! But he isn’t averse to criticism. When I told him his last Hindi film Mumbai Express was the pits (and that too barely hours after the release!) he didn’t stop talking to me, although he was going through a traumatic time at that time with his lady love in hospital. Nor did he turn nasty and call me a traitor. He certainly didn’t accuse me of changing loyalties.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:54 am
It is the creative meglomanias who have contributed most to cinema.
eg: Stanley Kubrick, Kamal, Tom Hanks etc.
It is a fact that people like Kamal are antidotes to the otherwise mediocre Indian cinema. I think the only way people will realise this is by forcing a rule to seperate songs from films like in Hollywood. Then we will know who truly ‘act’!
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 am
Kamal, for as long as memory serves, has admittedly lamented the requirements for songs as part of a formulaic condition for indian movies - esp tamil movies. If one takes count of tamil movies without songs, most of these will be with kamal’s taking the most.
However, this age old formula of 4 songs, 3 fights and an irrelevant comedy track is here to stay for a long long time.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I don’t think you can mention Kubrick, Kamal, and Tom Hanks in the same list. I’m as big a fan of Kamal as any other diehard fan, but I beg to differ. I think Kamal is yet to reach the level of cinematic genius like Kubrick in his heydays did. And Hanks should not even be compared to Kamal, let alone Kubrick. I think Ed Norton would have been a far better choice.
A Clockwork Orange is one movie I will never ever be able to forget. It disturbed me like no other movie has done in my entire life. As far as Kamal’s works are concerned, Guna brought me very close to that experience. But he’s not quite there. He definitely has the potential, no doubt. But due to the commercial and social constraints in India, he is not able to reproduce the magic of Guna or Hey Ram for that matter.
I know some of you might differ with my opinion, but this is what I honestly feel.