Amitabh Bachchan may not be very highly ranked in the Channel Four list of the greatest actors of all time, but he’s still ahead of Mic...
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Amitabh Bachchan may not be very highly ranked in the Channel Four list of the greatest actors of all time, but he’s still ahead of Michael Douglas Kevin Costner and Burt Reynolds. As a first for an Indian actor, this is not a bad start and the scores of subcontinental fans who sent in their email votes for Bachchan certainly knew in their heart of hearts that Aishwarya Rai may be hailed today as the new global superstar but it is none other than Amitabh Bachchan who is Bollywood’s pioneer in globalised stardom.
His prime is past, his movies are no longer blockbusters, he appears as a pin-striped tycoon anchoring cash-rich television quiz shows in a far cry from the furious dockyard worker he once elevated to immortality. Yet the mystique surrounding Bachchan still refuses to fade. The injury in the eyes, the anguish in the voice and the peculiarly male tragedy he exemplified clings to him still and spans generations and locales. He still draws crowds in Egypt. He is the chief attraction at an international film awards function forthcoming in South Africa. In Iraq, where according to a recent poll, citizens said they recognise India through Bollywood, Bachchan’s face sometimes flashes out from the cornershop poster. If hard-selling India abroad has been one of Bollywood’s biggest contributions, then Bachchan endures as the industry’s most successful international brand.
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Because of the cultural dominance of Bollywood, Bachchan in India has perhaps has a far greater public impact than Al Pacino, who came first in the Channel Four list. Movies in India are seldom simply about the appreciation of art, instead they are the stuff of life itself. And Bachchan created heroes, scripted for him by the visionary Salim-Javed, who were heroic precisely because they were so real. After the torrent of saccharine sweet feel-good movies of the fifties and sixties, Bachchan strode on screen with his heart as torn and his life as wrecked as any patron of the char anna seats. The red-eyed vengeance of Zanjeer, the brooding loneliness of Sholay, the roguish charm of Amar Akbar Anthony inspired in his audience not just any artistic love of cinema but a gut-wrenching identification with the actor. For this reason, Bachchan’s place in a list of actors is no adequate mark of his influence; as the eternally suffering footpath hero, his empire was always situated in the hearts of his audience.
