The kerfuffle on social media after Akshay Kumar received the National Award for best actor has died its natural death by now. More interesting were the vicious reactions criticizing Akshay Kumar, even by seasoned critics, which beg the question :
Dear critics, how do you define good acting and what, according to you, makes a good movie? Please give a clear and direct answer. Don’t hide behind buzzwords like “Acting should transcend the technique so as to bring out the ethereal beauty of meaninglessness of existence”. I could write a book full of such phrases and it would still mean zilch. Tell me in practical terms how you identify good actors.
I like Akshay Kumar. He is a very good actor. And I will tell you exactly why I think so. It’s subjective, but then so is every opinion on art in general and movies in particular. In fact, when you read a movie review, you should always imagine the author saying “in my opinion” before every sentence. No one has the final word on art.
One of my most important criteria for good acting is language, diction and accent. I cannot believe in a character that has a false or wrong accent. I loved Akshay Kumar’s Punjabi diction in Singh is Kinng, along with the amazing Om Puri. Agreed, it’s easier for Akshay because he is a Punjabi but the language added so much charm to the character. In contrast, in Airlift, he speaks Arabic in the beginning and his Hindi is broken and not fluent. This single aspect brings out the crisis of being away from your homeland for years, trying to merge with the locals but still feeling rootless.
You might think that I am making too much of a small thing. After all, diction is just one part of the acting repertoire. You will be surprised as to how many Bollywood actors have ignored this and consequently ruined the movie for me. In Bazaar, Smita Patil plays Najma who is from Hyderabad. No trace of the famous Hyderabadi accent is to be found anywhere in her dialogues. It’s strange to see her speaking Hindi during intense scenes with Farooq Sheikh who speaks amazing Hyderabadi. Here is a character who is born and brought up in Hyderabad. Even if we assume that she speaks Hindi when in Mumbai, who speaks in a foreign tongue with friends and family? This is like those old Hollywood WWII movies where the German officers speak English even when talking to each other. That’s why I liked The Longest Day, where every European character spoke his or her own language.
The failure of Bazaar is on the script and directorial level. And these are supposed to be ultra realistic movies raising important social issues. This shows that art movies can also be sloppy. An off-beat topic with non-commercial treatment does not, ipso facto, make a good movie. On the other hand, good accent makes the character come alive on the screen. Some great examples of diction are : Naseeruddin Shah in all movies where the character speaks a different dialect, Amitabh Bachchan in Don, Shabana Azami in Pestanji, Aamir Khan in Dangal and Mehmood in Gumnaam.
Akshay Kumar has had a very interesting career. Excluding the Khans, the only actor from his era still going strong is Ajay Devgan. These two actors have constantly reinvented themselves. Starting from a regular Bollywood hero doing song, dance and fighting, Akshay has always ventured into new areas. His flair for comedy roles is impeccable but again this does not register high on the critics radar because comedy itself is not taken very seriously. With movies like Jolly LLB II or Airlift, Akshay has further consolidated his flexibility in doing different roles.
The criticism drives home an important point. No matter how good you are in commercial movies, that is rarely considered as good acting because song and dance movies are considered inherently inferior to the so-called serious experimental cinema. The perception that great art has to be confusing and incomprehensible still persists.
Good acting should not be dependent on the genre of the cinema.
Deciding if one movie is better than another is highly subjective. It’s a classic case of apples and oranges. The main point of awards is to appreciate good work. Good to see Akshay Kumar getting the recognition he deserves.
