In the movie
‘Joker’, there is an expression of Joaquin Phoenix that tells it all. It
essentially captures the complete loss of his innocence, and his belief in the
world. He is alone in his thoughts in a made up world and all his psychotic
mind can think of is the destruction of the world outside. Something similar
happens to Pvt.Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio), when he loses his faith in everybody
and just snaps.
These two expressions of two very good actors are quite different, understandably as one is about to self-destruct and is sure about it (Pvt.Pyle), while the other (Arthur Fleck aka Joke) looks it at like the start of a dangerous game. This perspective of ‘Full Metal Jacket’ and Pvt.Pyle comes very handy in understanding the portrayal of Joker by Joaquin Phoenix, who internalizes everything except the laughter as if it were a defense mechanism or an appearance and his every hurt comes to haunt him in mega proportions which he unleashes on the real world.
In the end what we have is a mad man, who looks at his moves as funny and questions who are others to decide what is funny. But there is question about the performance of Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, which is serious and spectacular in each and every frame.
Bill Pullman as an actor is known for his supporting roles, in blockbusters like ‘Independence Day’ (1&2) and ‘The Equalizer’.
In ‘The Ballad of Lefty Brown’ he gets to play the protagonist and he pulls it off with élan. It’s a very difficult role to portray…as someone who is struggling to find a footing in life even after 60 years and suddenly receives a jolt when his friend is shot dead. He plays a character that is almost dumb witted to outside world and hence cannot show much of a change in his demeanor or expressions. (In contrast the other two— Jim Caviezel as Governor James Bierce and Tommy Flanagan have decent scope to show transformation as their characters evolve. I haven’t watched Tommy Flanagan much after ‘The Gladiator’ and he does a superb job in this film.)
It takes a
while to get connected to Lefty Brown and once we do, we root for him all the
way. Overall the movie makes it a good watch for all westerns’ fans, with
revenge and suspense thrown in for good measure.
Someone said
‘Comedy is a serious business’. It is no joke to regale the audiences and that
too over and over. Jandhyala did that for many years. When someone asked him
why he does not make big budgeted masala movies he said he was comfortable in
doing his gig and not very sure about directing commercial fare. Well,
subsequently his associate EVV Satyanarayana and other writers and directors
like Kona Venkat, Srinu Vaitla and Trivikram showed how it could be done,
extending Jandhyala mark comedy into full fledged commercial entertainers.
Infact, all of the new age directors have taken inspiration from his kind of
comedy.
So, what is
Jandhyala’s kind of comedy? A mix of both physical and dialogue comedy. Prior
to Jandhyala, stalwarts like Bhamidipati, Mullapudi, Appalacharya etc used to write
primarily dialogue based comedy situations. But a few decades earlier a genius
called Pingali Nagendra Rao, would also create situations that would evoke
humour with antics from characters, for instance the sastry-sarma exploits in
MayaBazar. One could say Jandhyala took a leaf or two from him and came up with
his unique brand that stayed intact all these years.
Also,
Jandhyala being a seasoned writer before he started doing full length comedy films
sets him apart from others. He worked with all the big directors including
K.Viswanath. This gave his writing a unique flavour even in comedy films. To
quote one interesting example after the heroes listen to some atrocious music
from Brahmanandam, the dialogue that follows is “kanulaku reppalu laga,
Chevulaku kuda pettunte bagundedi ra devudu”. His wordplay is legendary much
before Trivikram…like ‘ aa manava ane pilupu maanava’ from ‘Jagadeka veerudu
athiloka sundari’.
For Charlie
Chaplin, comedy and tragedy went hand in hand. He made an ordinary tramp into a
legendary character. Jandhyala also used his mark in his films and rarely does
his film go without touching your heart in one scene or the other. In the film ‘
Ahana Pellanta’, the scene where Nuthan Prasad urges his son (Rajendra Prasad)
not to commit any drastic acts in the event of his love failure or in the scene
where he admonishes Kota Srinivasa Rao ‘…prapancha patam lo srilanka antha
unna nee chinna burraki artham kaadu’, he elevates an out and out comedy film
into a complete film of emotions. He was also a seasoned actor and that helped
him to create the diction for his artists, as he did with Sutthi Veerabhadra
Rao. He also dubbed for a few films with his unique dialogue delivery.
So long as new directors pay tribute to Jandhyala by adopting his humour style, he will forever remain in our hearts. In his own words, ‘kottocchinattuga, baadocchinattuga’ kanapuduthune untundi.
