Spilled Milk

kudisai.jpg

Jayabharathi, the director of famous 70’s flick Kudisai, who changed some perspectives for Tamil Cinema, cries over spilled milk. In his recent interview to Vikatan, he says that over the last couple of decades, he has been a believer of good Tamil cinema, but it hasn’t reaped many fruits for him.

Having approached more than dozen tamil cinema ‘artists’ including Vadivelu, Vivek, Prakashraj and Rajinikanth, he hasn’t had success converting those meetings into offer for a film.

I’ve haven’t watched Kudisai but I have come across few people(artsy types) swearing on the film to be a one of the few modern Tamil films. Every two months, in Vikatan or Kumudam, there is an old Tamil Cinema technician, a director or crew member, cribs about being left behind with no money to run his life. Its easy to classify him as a loser but there is another angle to it. Irrespective of who cribs about it, the fact remains that cinema isn’t just about art, even in the past. What fuels the handful of good Tamil cinema every year, are those masala flicks that make tons of money.

It’s business guys. Not just some dream sequence like the song, Madai Thiranthu Thaavum Nadhi Alai Naan(one of my all-time favorites). Dreams of good cinema end up being painful and it hurts. It even ruins ones career. Meet Mr. Jayabharathi

நல்ல சினிமாவின் மீது கவனம் படரப் பேசுகிறாரே என்று பிரகாஷ்ராஜைத் தேடிப் போனேன். ‘வாழ்க்கை யின் வளமான பக்கங்கள் இன்னும் மீதமிருக்கிறது’ என நம்பிக்கை வரும்படி ஏதேதோ பேசினார். ஆனால், இன்றுவரை அவரின் பேச்சுக்கள் எதுவும் உயிர்பெற வில்லை. அதன்பின் அவரைத் தொடர்புகொள்ளக்கூட முடியவில்லை. இன்றைக்கு ஆபத்பாந்தவர்கள் எனப் பேசப்படுகிற சாய்மீராவிலும், கிணற்றுக்குள் போட்ட கல் மாதிரிதான். என்னால் 60 லட்சம் ரூபாயில் அருமையான படத்தைத் தர முடியும். அதிகப் பணம் வேண்டாத, அதேசமயம் படுஇயல்பாக நடிக்கிற நடிகர் களும் என் வசம் இருக்கிறார்கள். கதவுகளும் ஏகமாக இருக்கின்றன. ஆனால், ஒன்றும் திறக்கிறபாடாகக் காணோம்!

தமிழ் சினிமாவின் மேலான படங்களில் என்னை ஈடுபடுத்திக்கொண்டது குற்றமா? இத்தகைய வெறுமை யான சூழ்நிலையில் நான் செய்ய வேண்டியது என்ன? தினமும் அவசியமான வேளைகளில் சாப்பிட வேண்டி யிருக்கிறது. சென்னையின் புறநகரில் வசித்தாலும், மாதம் தவறாமல் வாடகை கொடுக்க வேண்டியிருக்கிறது. உங்களிடம் நான் ஒன்றே ஒன்றுதான் கேட்கிறேன்… என் திறமையைப் பயன்படுத்த எனக்கு ஒரு படம் கொடுங்கள்; அல்லது, பிழைத்துக்கிடக்க ஏதாவது வேலை கொடுங்கள்!”

And those lines from Madai Thiranthu, “இசைக்கென இசைகின்ற ரசிகர்கள் ராஜ்ஜியம்” is a bloody myth, dude.

4 responses to “Spilled Milk”

  1. Ram Avatar

    if rajini/vijay/vikram agrees to do ONE film free per year on a worthy project (democratically decided by say, a KB or some jury) – they have virtually nothing to lose, and cinema has everything to gain. A distributor who will not otherwise touch the film may be tempted to gamble as a star is attached – And if all done well, it may even click once or twice.

    So for the current state of affairs, we can put the blame on these super/mega/giga stars’ doorsteps.

    And it certainly doesn’t help the cause when actors like Madhavan give non-commercial cinema a bad name with a crap like ‘Evono Oruvan’ – what was he thinking?

    good movies eventually get noticed is a myth…
    the hardest thing for a creative person is obscurity (never heard of Jayabharthi) –
    they will be better off by uploading their films to torrents in hope that reaches a larger audience for free (or distribute a VCD free with kumudam) – than stay in the can, anyway not making any money.

    Like

  2. Anoop Avatar

    Guru, in case you havent seen the next superstar of tamil cinema here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0iXYpHXWIA & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5jLdwoTLYw

    Like

  3. Lazy Geek Avatar

    Ram,

    your idea of a common jury is so right but unfortunately it wouldn’t happen.

    For a change, rajini, kamal or vijay should feel within them that a worthy small budget project will still take cinema to the next level. Something that’s common now in bollywood.

    And for that, we should have atleast a dozen of small budget indie flicks that should be successful. something like Chennai 600 028. Even that film wasn’t completely indie. The director and his team are established set of people in the industry. But you know, what I’m trying to say.

    So the big stars should be taken aback by a list of small budget niche market flicks. prakash raj or shankar’s production pictures certainly dont fall in that category. its a movement waiting to happen and can only be made by newbies.

    Catch 22, again !!

    Like

  4. Vignesh Avatar
    Vignesh

    From the same song “Madai Thiranthu” the lines “Netren edhirilae nizhalgalin nadakam, indren edhirilae nijangalin Darisanam” came into my mind when I was reading this article.

    I guess reality is striking Jayabarathi the hard way now…

    This is more of a dumb crib like our average Indian who blames everything but does nothing to change things…

    What Ideally Jayabarathi (if he has real passion) should have done is commercially established himself and then gone onto experimentation…

    You need a few movies like sakalakala vallavan before you make an anbe sivam…

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com