He played the anti-hero roles very early in his career. Sivaji Ganesan is the greatest actor Tamil cinema has produced because he has quite a few great and varied performances to his credit. In the Nineties, he went back to the subtle, controlled style of acting. But he became a stylised and flamboyant actor during his stardom days. Sivaji was very convincing and realistic in his earlier films - in the Fifties and the early Sixties.
You have to admit, there is great beauty in understatement.Īnother example of underplaying a role was Bharatan’s Thevar Magan, in which Sivaji was absolutely delightful to watch. And thanks to the filmmaker, Sivaji underplayed the character. Bharatiraja fitted Sivaji into the character of an old man who fell for a young girl. Bharatiraja's Mudalmaryadai, which had a strong script and plot, for example. He began acting more realistically when his stardom started waning. In Sampoorna Ramayanam, he played Bharata while N T Rama Rao was Rama. You could say he was responsible for the revival of mythologicals in Tamil. Take his role as Shiva in Thiruvilayadal. True, his acting - with elaborate gestures - were well suited to mythologicals, as they are fantasies. In the process, his acting became very stylised - even in social films - especially at the height of his stardom. When Sivaji became a great star, HE started dominating films. In Vietnam Veedu, Sivaji's performance as a man who loses his identity after retirement was hauntingly outstanding. Kalaignar recalled this film in his tribute to the great thespian after his death. When his wife comes to know of it, she kills him.īhim Singh's Raja Rani is another memorable film (story and dialogues by Karunanidhi). He's so convincing.Īnother film is Antha Naal, directed by veena maestro S Balachander, in which Sivaji plays a spy reporting to the Japanese. Sivaji underplayed this wily character so well - it's a treat to watch him in the film. To get rid of his wife, he tortures her so that he can marry her younger sister. One such portrayal is in Rangoon Radha (a novel by Annadurai), in which the hero - played by Sivaji Ganesan - is an evil man.
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He could get under the skin of the character he was portraying. So Sivaji's acting was very subdued and subtle. You see, unless the director controls his actor and knows exactly what he wants, the star dominates the film. Those films were made when he was totally under the control of the filmmakers. Then I realised - it was because he hadn't yet become a star. I used to wonder why his performance was so subtle. Sivaji's best and most memorable films are his early ones. These scenes are still talked about because of his powerful dialogue delivery. People still admire the court scene in Parasakthi, the durbar scene in Manohara, the Socrates drama in Raja Rani and the argument with Nakkeeran in Thiruvilayadal. Sivaji's strength was that he could deliver strong words very powerfully and convincingly. It was a milestone in that it had such flowery dialogues that those became an entertainment component itself. He was very lucky to get a role in Parasakthi. So when Sivaji entered the scene, more importance was given to dialogues and rhetoric. It was also entering a new phase - with had fewer songs and more dialogues. Those days, Tamil cinema was dominated by Kalaignar Karunanidhi. Parasakthi, his first film, was made in 1952.
Sivaji Ganesan came on the scene in its third decade. Sivaji Ganesan was the ultimate star, whom youngsters tried to mimic and emulate. And the reason is they were only influenced by the style of acting followed by Sivaji Ganesan. This is a continuation of the earlier company dramas.Īctors who came after Sivaji have also been influenced by this style, even though they were never a part of it. Most actors in Tamil Nadu have been trained in the school of 'company drama' - Sivaji Ganesan, M G Ramachandran, S S Rajendran, K R Ramaswamy and N S Krishnan. With Sivaji's death, one school of acting comes to an end. No other society in the world is as affected by the cinema culture as Tamil Nadu, I think. When I say Tamil Nadu, it includes the entire Tamil diaspora - since cinema in Tamil Nadu is very much part of the popular culture. History will describe Sivaji Ganesan as an icon of the popular culture of Tamil Nadu. He shares some memories of Sivaji Ganesan: Incidentally, Sivaji Ganesan received his Dadasaheb Phalke Award at the same function. T heodore Bhaskaran, noted historian of Tamil cinema, won the Swarna Kamal from the President of India in 1997, for his book, Eye Of The Serpent.