How Dilip Kumar let it all out on the screen
Dilip Kumar’s approach was fruitful but taxing, as we learn in this excerpt from a new biography of the actor
By the time Indian cinema entered its classical phase in the late 1940s, Dilip Kumar had completed his self-discovery as an actor to a large extent. The basic features of his hero were earmarked: an introvert who had been wronged, takes it to his heart and generates a complete catharsis of a whole range of emotions. He portrayed the search for an ideal self—one proclaiming true emancipation through love but desires it to be materialized only in a just society; and as that is not possible in actual reality, the self has to perish to validate this idealized conviction. The actor, in fact, represented the popular novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s model of a vulnerable, self-destructing hero in Bengali literature.
Several of his films depicted Dilip Kumar as an unrequited lover seeking a kind of liberation from the unjust world through a prolonged internalized suffering (often ending in death) as seen in S.U. Sunny’s Mela, S.K. Ojha’s Hulchul (1951), Nitin Bose’s Deedar and Gunga Jumna (1961), Ram Daryani’s Tarana (1951), Bimal Roy’s Devdas, S.U. Sunny’s Uran Khatola (1955), Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Musafir (1957) and K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (1960). In contrast, he, during this phase, was also seen in somewhat morbid anti-hero characters such as in Shaheed Latif’s Arzoo (1950), S.U. Sunny’s Babul, Mehboob Khan’s Andaz and Amar, and R.C. Talwar’s Sangdil (1952).
Explaining the roles Dilip Kumar played in most of his films right through the 1950s, Nikhat Kazmi says: “[He] always opted for internal emigration as a course of action. This was a great escape. A voyage into the unknown, which is undertaken not because one is enticed, but because one is disgusted by something. In his iconoclasm, he represented a rebellion that was akin to that of the Bohemians of Baudelaire’s age. He was like the group of desperadoes who tried to break away from the nice and easy positivism of bourgeois society. Charles Baudelaire, Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh were the tramps, the heavy drinkers and the unrivalled artists who chose to destroy everything in themselves that may be of no use to society, who raged against themselves too. For them and for the hero as immortalized by Dilip Kumar, happiness itself was something that is banal and vulgar. In a letter of 1845, addressed to a friend, Baudelaire writes: ‘You are a happy man, I feel sorry for you, Sir, for being happy so easily. A man must have sunk low to consider himself happy.’ However, Dilip Kumar never wanted to sink so low. On the contrary, he doggedly sought nobility in sorrow and imbued it with a romanticism that lingers even today."
Remember his famous dialogue from Devdas:
Kaun kambakat hai jo bardasht karne ke liye peeta hai, main to peeta hun ki bas saans ley sakun
(Which wretched person drinks to tolerate, I drink so that I can at least take a breath.)
No wonder, the world of acting often ushers performers into the limelight, where performance anxiety can run high. The stakes are elevated, and heart rate may surge. Surprisingly, sometimes this stress can become a catalyst for improved performance, embracing the concept of positive stress in challenging situations.
However, a more complex challenge arises when method actors choose to inhabit their characters beyond the stage or camera’s lens. As they tap into past emotional experiences, whether joyful or traumatic, unresolved emotions can linger. This emotional baggage may manifest as heightened emotional instability, intensified anxiety, fear or even a sense of falsehood, accompanied by bouts of acute sleep deprivation. Such emotional turbulence can pave the way for psychological distress, leading to emotional fatigue.
According to experts, this emotional fatigue often arises when actors create dissonance between their actions and authentic feelings. Research indicates that when method acting is employed judiciously and with proper emotional regulation, it need not lead to excessive fatigue. The key lies in striking a balance between immersion in the character and the ability to resurface, ensuring a harmonious coexistence of art and emotional well-being.
Dilip Kumar’s profound commitment to his roles and his deep involvement with the character he portrayed, in film after film, at that stage of his career, led to serious psychological issues, so much so that he had to consult a psychiatrist in England. The advice given was simple: switch to comic roles, which he did with aplomb and poise! His consummate performances in S.M.S. Naidu’s Azaad (1959) and S.U. Sunny’s Kohinoor (1960) in a carefree, jovial and jaunty manner revealed how he could move from one genre to another with remarkable ease and finesse. However, later in A. Bhim Singh’s Gopi (1970) and Tapan Sinha’s Bengali film Sagina Mahato (1970), Sagina in Hindi (1974) and Asit Sen’s Bairaag (1976), Dilip Kumar attempted to introduce some new elements in his acting style, though not always with much success. He designed his comedy through an over-talkative, one-track mind and as an obsessed simpleton who was a victim of the circumstances, but unlike his earlier roles, he did not internalize his suffering; he responded to it with a sense of simplicity, quite the same way Raj Kapoor did in film after film. He also improvised his mannerisms spontaneously to depict the character he was portraying on the screen such as repeatedly jerking his head and clinking his eyes. However, the audience did not take to it...
Dilip Kumar’s second innings began with the 1981 multi-starrer Kranti by Manoj Kumar followed by Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti. Eight films followed through the 1980s and another three in the 1990s, in which Dilip Kumar made his presence felt with his individualistic stamp and authority. These films included Subhash Ghai’s Vidhaata (1982), Karma (1986) and Saudagar (1991), Ravi Chopra’s Mazdoor (1983), and Yash Chopra’s Mashaal (1984), not of course counting the 1998 Qila by Umesh Mehra, which was a complete dud...
Excerpted with permission from The Man Who Became Cinema: Dilip Kumar, published by Penguin Random House India.
Also read: ‘Jungle Nama’: A thrilling play for children reimagines the myth of Bonbibi
topics
