TechECE

How can u say one musician will play things the way some other person does?!?! We cannot say that - each person has his own way :) Especially with musicians and their histrionics ;)

So, even if he was different from the other real musician on the split screen, it is okay!!!

If ur question is "were his actions in sync with the music???" I’d say they will be. Long time since I saw that song - I'm going by reputation anyway.

See the movie Thillana Moganambal to know what I’m saying!!! The way he plays the nathaswaram - amazing. This guy can act - period.

It is quite weird that someone like u (and me), completely out of his generation, can pass judgment on his acting skills!!!

Those were the days when movie was a mere extension of stage dramas - so acting was always amplified. As members of the age where acting has become very subtle and more real life like, we will always find that generation to be hamming :)

 

without doubt shivaji is master of acting. i wud b a fool if i doubt it. but i am talking of different issue here.

have u seen some of the miruthangam players. they wud shake their body like ricky martin. kunakudi.... man his face and what he does coincides always. but someone who is not a musician tries to act like them, v think it is over acting. but actually it is not. thats the point i wanted to make.

ofcourse it depends on the personality. V see SPB shaking his mammoth body like anything. But u see susheela or janaki sometimes i wonder whether they r singing or they r playing audio.

 

Sivaji, I would say never, moved from a stage actor to cine actors. I do appreciate he was a great over actor. There is a fine line seperating a good actor and over actor. If you are performing on a stage, people watching you from very far. You need to overact or else you won't catch their attention. While on silver screen you could do better by just performing as it is requested. It's interesting to notice, actors especially in tamil movies have the tendency to overact and that too repeat their established body language. You could take any example prakash raj, raghuvaran, kamal, surya, vikram. The only guy who stayed right on the line was maadavan, until he did "Thambi". It depends on directors also. Typically maniratnam's films: the show of emotions will just be as much required (except for kamal's breaking out at naayagan). I'm not a great follower of english movies but what i realised was they are comparatively expressionless. Over acting is not a common phenomena there. Even Russel Crowe crying at gladiator was a small scene. Perhaps we people are more emotional and sentimental (I have never seen a "thangachchi" movie in english).

 

Sunil da - Getting an Oscar does not mean that Russell Crowe ACTED well in Gladiator!!! Dont get me started on OSCAR :) I mean, in the scene after he kills 10 ppl in a flurry and shouts at the viewers "are u entertained", in the scene where he gets to meet the emperor again and says the famous "i am ... and i'll have my revenge" and in the last scene when the emperor stabs him and they exchange dialogues - dont say all that was great acting.

And to my knowledge Sivaji came from stage dramas and was also involved in many stage dramas even after parasakthi and a lot of other movies were released. When he passed away, i remember seeing some tele-show on his life where they mentioned a few movies of his, which were made coz they were succesful dramas.

Your list is pretty correct - but in my view they have hammed in a confused state, when THEY thought that whatever they did would be accepted by the ppl. Their movies have mostly done well when they were on the line. And yeah - Kamal shud have copied that scene too from God Father. Probably the only original piece of the movie and he gets slammed for hamming :)

Speaking of that list again - i'm getting to hear abt raghuvaran again. He's supposedly spent time in pattabarthi etc, and come back as a pretty modified person. There was an interview in Kumgumam (or anandha vigadan) and there was one more in Madhan's ThiraiPaarvai @ Vijay TV. I can see some good signs and hopefully this time he'll have a steady mind and a steady career.

Firangi movies - i cannot say much. But there is a completely diff genre of movies (perhaps what we can call DRAMA) which provides the scope for the actors to cry on the scene a bit more. Alas - we dont get to see them more here (unless ofcourse they are oscar nominated ones).

Even there - ppl hamm and the ones where they do, the movie fails. We're lucky that we get to see only the movies that worked in this genre...

there are actors at diff levels of their career in any industry - world wide. So - you can always have ppl who do more than required!!!

 

I didn't say "English actors are the best of the breed and ours are hams". I think I never mentioned Russel Crowe is a great actor and Oscar is always given to right ppl. Perhaps the patriotic fervor in you woke up for all wrong reasons :D.
Let me clarify

I mentioned about Russel Crowe, as that crying scene in gladiator is the only scene that comes into my mind when I think of "show of emotions" in english movies, by men. As I had told their movies are generally expressionless.

I don't know what gave you an impression that I'm watching only the oscar winning, much-hyped-about movies :D. There are some random picks I use to watch too, that fall under the category of 'dramas'. Despite the genre of the movie, the common show of expressions turn out to be, women shrieking, love (not indian flavor, no strands of hair, not balloons :D), some kind of cruelty in villians, kids. Adhukku mela avanga kitta emotionse illa. Heroes generally turn out to be professionals. Of course there are exceptions like that Tom Hanks movie whose name I always forget.... Forest Gump. You could take "Life is beautiful"

Try to come out of desi - firangi views and look at the movies from a central stand point. In sharp contrast with the stage plays, I've felt the best movies even novels for that matter, are the ones where emotions remain "unspoken", implicit. The latest movie I watched that I would rate to be one of the best, is "Being Cyrus". A classic show of "untold story".

Thinking much about this, I realised not only in movies but the culture and life style of ours has lot of emotions and sentiment intertwined with it. Perhaps that reflects on our movies!

 

sunil, the main aim of the post is - ppl like u classify few things as over acting. but the truth is - in many cases it isn't.

consider ur example nayagan - people cry that way. cry aloud. so its natural and not overacting. but in my case where musicians play i can't judge. so i was asking others.

and.. shivaji is not over actor. he completely messes as far as romance and action are concerned. give him a tough role, this guy will cake walk.
btw those days only few have reached tinsel town without performing in dramas. gemini is one and shivaji is not an exception.

 

"Show of emotions has become a characteristic of a good actor in tamil films. And once identified as a good actor, people tend to over perform highlighting more the body language or intonations, often stereotyping their expressions. This stereotyping may be due to external pressure."

This was my message which I illustrated in a messy way. The interpretation of this as, over-actors are hams (word of the day, thanks Mr.I), is not an intended interpretation.

As I had told there is a fine line separating good actors and over actors. My definition of good and over acting would be: when you are acting a scene, you should become the character itself. That is goo acting. Any attempts by the actor to show he is a good actor and the amount of expression exceeds than that is required makes it an over-acting. This is slightly undesirable as:
The over-actor stands out in a scene not blending finely with the atmosphere and other actors.
The over-actor makes the character he plays look unnatural.

Perhaps the example I took, Kamal's crying in Nayagan struck the wrong chord with you guys. I agree Ram that some people tend to cry aloud and do as he did. But this cry when stereo-typed in all movies from puunagai mannan to hey ram, creates an unnatural effect where you see kamalahasan in the movi instead of velu naicker. May be chronologically nayagan preceeds other in this cry. But I guess the point was made clear.

Same with Sivaji. Parasakthi I would say is one of his most brilliant performance. But as days went, you can see this "unnecessary" exhibition of emotions. Like during his "oodal"s with padmini in thillana moganaambaal. All his shows of romances with that disgusting punnagai arasi. He would literally fall back in one movie when he hears she died. That famous scene of "saanjaadamma saanjaadu". You are left with a feeling "efecta kudukkaadha da poda." :D

Again the director also plays a very important role, may not be the choice of actors alone. Vikram if you take, had been portrayed pefectly in pithamagan. His strange expressions are somehow justified because of the novel storyline. But if you take Anniyan, the role of ambi was over performed. Even the title role was a bit more than that it had to be.

This was one part of what I said. I brought in the topic of English movies just to share my amusing observation that the exhibition of emotions are comparatively less in them. I didn't mean the actors under perform or they just high the right balance. My observation was in English movies or you can add all Maniratnam movies to this group, they really don't make the actors exhibit their powerful expressions. Rather such scenes are not shown and the emotions are implied! Just take mouna raagam. The movie was made with less dialogue, no show of strong expressions and less lighting! But it drives the right emotions, untold! I personally lke this kind of movies.

 

Sivaji and love scenes - he's just plain bad machi. You should see his lips and cheeks moving all the time, in the name of ROMANTIC LOOK - it just gives this "yuck" feeling in ur stomach.

I understand what Sunil is saying - though he seems to have digressed from Ram's karuthu. If you want to take a much longer time line, which you have eventually done by saying "from punnagai mannan to hey ram", you can see that EVERY actor would have done movies where he has over acted. The good actors are those who, under instructions that his emotions must not overflow, will still make the same impact.

If Kamal's "Ah... Aaah... Aaaaaaaah" in Nayagan is overacting for u ppl, just take a look at the way the kutti kamal expresses his feelings in the movie "aboorva sagodharargal" when sripriya makes a comment abt his shortcomings, well literally :) And take the scene in which the cancer guy dies - in Vasool Raja. It is these wonderful scenes that differentiate the best from the rest. I don’t think u guys require me to list such scenes of Sivaji - we already know and we agreed abt sivaji also.

Well Sunil - it is not patriotism, but I thought the comparison was not correct. We haven’t seen such a wide variety of English movies, over that long a period - compared to the kind and amount of Tamil movies we've seen. My point was that, sitting so distant from their shores, we only end up seeing a majority of their best and very less crap. so we will not be able to draw any parallels I’d say. and going by the law of averages - they must also have such actors.

BTW - in most of the recent cases, as u say, I find them to be very very expressionless. A lot more subtle than what's required. As if they cannot act only.

Probably we should try getting DVDs of the unknown old English movies and do some profiling :)

 

machi sunil,
if u want no acting and only natural emotions, then it is possible only selvaraghavan's movies.
Anyone can act (just stay there) in his movie.