lunchtime poll #10: Bachchan and beyond
When someone says "70s film hero," it's hard not to think of the Angry Young Man right away. Even I, proud holder of a cabinet position in Shashi Pradesh, can plainly see that Amitabh Bachchan has run away with the stardom of that decade, much as I love his frequent co-star and better half. But the more films I see, the more I learn about who else was a big name of the decade - and, more interestingly (at least for me), what values and ideas they represent. Back in 2005, Nina Patel did a great piece on this very topic in EGO Magzine called "Hero: It Takes All Kinds to Make 70s Bollywood Leading Men". "Compared to present day Bollywood, the 70s offered a far larger variety of protagonists played to exquisite perfection by actors who understood that the hero is as much a flawed man as the knight in shining armor." She outlines types with their major representatives: AYM (Big B), bad-ass dude (Feroz Khan), dapper and debonair (Dev Anand), and - hold on to your neckerchief for this one - sensitive lovin' (Shashi).
So read, ponder, and let's discuss our choices for quintessential 70s heroes or hero-types! (No need to stick to four, either.) I haven't seen any Dev Anand movies from the 70s so cannot weigh in on him, but the other three brands resonate well with my film-viewing experiences. I adore that description of Shashi, and it sums up much of what I like about his better-known characters (though it's almost the total opposite of his first big hit in the 60s, Jab Jab Phool Khile). Of course, Shashi played many kinds of characters over the years, even just in mainstream films, but this is an effective evocation of the ultra-Ravi type. How do people like Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Rajesh Khanna, Manoj Kumar, and Sanjeev Kumar fit in? And do you think it's true that 70s heroes were a more diverse crew than today's?
So read, ponder, and let's discuss our choices for quintessential 70s heroes or hero-types! (No need to stick to four, either.) I haven't seen any Dev Anand movies from the 70s so cannot weigh in on him, but the other three brands resonate well with my film-viewing experiences. I adore that description of Shashi, and it sums up much of what I like about his better-known characters (though it's almost the total opposite of his first big hit in the 60s, Jab Jab Phool Khile). Of course, Shashi played many kinds of characters over the years, even just in mainstream films, but this is an effective evocation of the ultra-Ravi type. How do people like Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Rajesh Khanna, Manoj Kumar, and Sanjeev Kumar fit in? And do you think it's true that 70s heroes were a more diverse crew than today's?
Comments
I love 70s movieS..My fav actors all the time are Amitabh,Feroz Khan ,Shatrughan Sinha ... Also I lovw watch movies for Sanjeev Kumar,Raj Kapoor,Shashi Kapoor and Mehommod he is sooo funny..
But actrees parveen only..actrees in 70s,80s and 90s they don't know how to act
Thanks
It's not that the modern pretty people can't act, because many of them can. And it's certainly not that the '70s weren't full of awesome manly eye candy, because they were! But it seems to me that there was a wider variety of eye candy available, to suit different tastes.
Such sweeping generalizations call out for research. :)
I too think that the heroes today are not nearly as varied and interesting...and the ones who are interesting are almost all over 40 at this point. But that could be my viewpoint because I am such an old bag myself (thanks for pointing out via your birth year how very old I am) :D
(and ps I am growing weary fast of the "open id error" message so if you stop hearing from me here that's why)...
I haven't really seen enough 70s movies to comment intelligently on your question. But (not letting that stop me!) it seems to me that one difference between 70s heroes and those of today is the element of a larger social context. The Big B was the Angry Young Man, but he was made angry because of the injustices of poverty, prejudice, discrimination and corruption.
Today's heroes are more likely to portray successful businessmen (or the sons of successful businessmen), and what tends to be at stake for them (and their heroines) is their personal romantic happiness. Not that personal romantic happiness is unimportant, but only infrequently do larger social questions come into play.
A sweeping generalization to which there are many exceptions, of course. (Aamir in Rang de Basanti comes to mind, though I think that film is problematic.)
As for my favorite 70s hero, I have a fondness for Vinod Khanna: a lover and a fighter who somehow never seems to get the girl.
Also, I think that Vinod definitely deserves to be in the top tier of 70's men, though he's a little harder to stereotype than the others, as he comprises equal parts AYM, badass, and sensitive Shashi-type.
Seriously though, the one thing I notice about the heroes of 70s that is missing from today, is the essential manliness (not in character but in looks) of the actors. Today's heartthrobs all look like sculpted boys who stopped growing at age 22, even the 40 something actors! And nobody has the kind of sex-appeal that a Vinod Khanna or a Feroze Khan or a Kabir Bedi had back then - but that could be just my hopelessly biased view!
And while I agree with Todd that Dev Anand has no business being on that list, he did fulfill the quota for socially conscious lech. So... um, whatevs.
However, I do think that we're now entering a golden age of sorts because the Hindi cinema scene has definitely laid the foundation for a new era through the Noughties. We're not quite there yet but with all the interesting directors who made their debuts in the past ten years and all the top heroes who've come into their own over the same period, the time is nigh for another renaissance imo.
Fingers crossed.