First, the facts out of the way, shall we? I love Aamir Khan, I’m a big fan, and I think he’s the nation’s best actor, coming second only to B. The other Khans (Sallu, SRK), and the Khanlets (Fardeen, Zayed), and even the nanokhans (Arbaaz, Sohail, Jiya?) can take a walk in the park. This is the real performer. Don’t mess, enough said.
Aamir’s blog is him unplugged. And the bloke makes sense, loads of it. However, I tend to disagree with a couple, and exactly a couple of points here.
The market strength that I get from a film like FANAA allows me to do this (make films where he conveys a message from his heart). Plus I enjoyed doing FANAA. I am walking this balance and I am enjoying this journey.
Balance? I call it dilution, when you - as a star performer - ought to invest your time and effort entirely, and entirely, into producing quality cinema. If indeed, your dream is to make movies like Mangal Pandey, then go ahead and have the guts to do it. So what, if it wasn’t a success? You aren’t living on crumbs are you? I sense in him the fact that he’s taken it for granted - mainstream cinema ropes in the moolah.
With that attitude - coming from the best performer around - the gap between mainstream and art will never be bridged. Black tried. Parzania tried. Omkara tried. Why, even Morning Raaga tried.
His other comment on mainstream media made me think as well.
In my opinion the PRIMARY responsibility of cinema is to entertain.
Absofreakinlutely, but hello - there is serious potential in those very three hours of entertainment that you can use, that you can exploit, to rid the nation of it’s problems. Yes, people forget all their worries and come to watch a flick. They laugh and cry. But what happens after that? Where’s the impact? Where’s the footprint? Hit-and-run flicks will get us nowhere except for boosting popcorn sales, Aamir. Bollywood can change the way the country thinks, and they know it.
So, does this mean I like him less now? On the contrary, my respect for this great individual just shot up. Why? Okay, I’ll let you answer this: how many celebrities do you know actually sit and blog, and talk to their fans directly on a forum such as this?
Even the nanokhans wouldn’t.
