Skip to main content

The Dignity of Dilip Kumar

 By Jaideep Sen      

On 7th July, 2021, Dilip Kumar Saab was finally relieved from his suffering due to poor health of many years and gave lesser mortals like me to relive and rewind to the greatness of Dilip Saab. 

Dignity is precisely what Dilip Saab brought not only to his performances but to the overall realm of Hindi Cinema. 

A scene from Shakti

My generation was brought up more on Salim Saab-Javed Saab’s Angry Young Man portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan Ji and uncannily it took the same haloed trio to introduce me to the greatness of Dilip Saab in Shakti. What a film, what crackling writing, what performances by both Dilip Saab and Amit Ji! 

Dilip Saab was hitting the ball out of the park in every scene. Like a chameleon on top of its game -- because the character of Ashwini Kumar had such vast changing colours to cover. From a tough cop to loving husband to helpless father to ultimately shooting his only child dead. 

Dilip Saab scored a 10 on 10 in every scene of this once in a lifetime film, that too with an understated performance. That is the magic of masters who achieve maximum impact with minimum fuss. No wonder then that Shakti finds a mention in almost every conversation that involves marvels of Hindi cinema. 

I often tell Salim Saab that he and Javed Saab must have relished writing the dialogue of Shakti, knowing that their lines would be mouthed by two of the greatest actors on this side of the equator. 

Dilip Kumar in Mashaal

My tribute to Dilip Saab can not be complete without mentioning his greatest scene. In Mashaal, his histrionics reached another level. While the Shakti scene was understated, the Mashaal scene was at the other end of the high-strung histrionics spectrum: when he tries to stop a car to take his wife (played by Waheeda ji) to the hospital. That scene is hair raising to say the least and Dilip Saab actually transforms into a middle class distraught husband, an achievement that makes the actor evaporate and only the character is visible to the audience. 

What is remarkable about Dilip Saab’s genius is that he performed this emotion twice in the film, once when his wife is actually dying and the second time when he takes Raja through what happened that fateful night. Dilip Saab was a volcano on fire even the second time around and that happens only with acute understanding of the craft and unflinching love for the art of acting. 

Dilip Saab’s mortal remains have been put to rest but the mashaal of his immortal status and stature in Indian Cinema shall always burn bright. 

Jaideep Sen is a filmmaker and a connoisseur of the art of storytelling.  

Read his earlier posts in the Salam Salim Saab series: 

#1 Salaam, Salim Saab 

 #2 Silence that Speaks 

#3 The Invaluable Value of the Pen

 #4 The Guru of Screenwriting

 #5 The Forever Burning Flame of Sholay

 #6 The Strength of Characterisation 

 #7 Bond of Brotherhood

 #8 The Sangam of a Genius and his Admirer 

 #9 First Link in the Zanjeer 

#10 Vijay – The Eternal Winner 

 #11 Let's Celebrate Salim Khan! 

 #12 The Memorable Women Behind the Angry Young Man

 #13 The Definition of a Love Story 

#14 Relevance Etched in Stone 

 #15 Fuelled by Rejection 

#16 Dialogue - the Spoken Word 

 #17 When Salman Khan Chose to Strip Off his Stardom

 #18 The Most Memorable Line of Indian Cinema

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class".  Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa
4 comments
Read more

'Pure Evil' has been my biggest and most complex project - Author Balaji Vittal

Love them or hate them, you simply can't ignore them. That cliche is perhaps most apt when it comes to the bad men of Bollywood. In fact, some of the most memorable lines of dialogue have been mouthed not by the heroes but by the villains of Hindi cinema. So it is only fitting that these shining stars of the dark world (after all, antagonists are the protagonists of their own stories!) deserve to be spotlighted. Balaji Vittal , the author of Pure Evil: the Bad Men of Bollywood undertakes this onerous task of highlighting the world of these evil characters and how they have come to occupy a special place in the hearts and minds of movie goers.  I spoke to Mr. Balaji Vittal, a National Award winning and MAMI Award winning author of Bollywood books, a columnist for News18, Outlook India, The New Indian Express , a Bollywood commentator and a public speaker, about his journey of venturing into the world of Pure Evil .   Here are some excerpts:   Your book "Pure Evil: the Bad Men
Post a Comment
Read more

Review of Vikram Vedha - The "Kahani" lets the film down

If there is one movie that is perhaps the Godfather of all dirty-cops-and-gangsters movies, it's gotta be The Departed by Martin Scorsese. Interestingly, it was an adaptation of the hit Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs . While the latter was itself a very popular film, it may not be wrong to say that The Departed has surpassed it by acquiring near cult status.   So, it was with this in mind I wanted to watch Vikram Vedha which is a remake of the Tamil film of the same name. The original film starring Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi was a huge blockbuster and it was no wonder that the filmmakers were keen to remake it in Hindi with Saif Khan and Hrithik Roshan in the roles of Vikram and Vedha. However, the Hindi remake failed to recreate the magic of the original. Even though the film is supposedly an exact copy, made by the very same filmmakers who directed the original.  While there has been a bunch of theories about why the Hindi version failed, the consensus has been that "
Post a Comment
Read more