Tamil cinema needs script over spectacle

After watching the highly anticipated Tamil movie, The GOAT (The Greatest of All Time), the first thought that came to my mind was, ‘Why do our filmmakers struggle so much to make a simple and watchable commercial movie?’ No one is demanding an arthouse masterpiece, like ‘Aparajito’, or an epic, like Lawrence of Arabia. 

This thought comes from being regularly disappointed with high-budget, hyped films. From the mediocre Captain Miller to the underwhelming Ayalaan, from the disastrous Lal Salaam to the unbearable Indian 2, Tamil cinema has been suffering heavy losses. Apart from Maharaja (which had a major hero), it was only the low-and-medium-budget movies — Garudan, ‘Aranmanai 4’, and ‘Vaazhai’ — all without big stars, that did decent business at the box office. In the last few years, the movies that worked well with the audiences— ‘Kaidhi’, ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’, and even ‘Maanadu’, were made with meaty scripts, supported by good performances.

The GOAT suffers from weak writing and tries to camouflage its shortcomings using techniques like de-aging Vijay, resurrecting a dead popular hero using AI, making supporting characters quote lines from Vijay’s earlier movies, and showing fan moments from a live IPL match. All these embellishments fizzle out when the film doesn’t have an engaging screenplay. The writing is on the wall, but the directors and producers live in the illusion that a superstar can bring them great box office numbers, regardless of how good or bad the content is.

The problem with Tamil cinema is that all major directors take on the additional responsibility of writing scripts. Producers prefer this practice, without realising that scriptwriting and direction are different departments, with each demanding its own specialised skills. 

Here, that is the reason one doesn’t come across excellent script writers like Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List, Searching for Bobby Fischer), Paddy Chayefsky (Network, The Hospital), David Mamet (The Verdict), Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull), and Robert Towne (Chinatown, The Last Detail). One need not go to Hollywood to look for exceptional scriptwriters. Malayalam cinema — Shyam Pushkaran (Maheshinte Prathikaram, Kumbalangi Nights’), Hareesh (Jallikattu, Nanparkal Nerathu Mayakkam) — and Hindi cinema—Jaideep Sahni (Company, Rocket Singh’, ‘Chak De’, ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’), and Juhi Chaturvedi (Piku, October) — show us how having a scriptwriter can make a difference. After all, some of the greatest commercial Hindi movies were built on Salim-Javed scripts.

Kamal Haasan, though primarily an actor, has served as a writer (he is one of the best screenwriters in India) for his movies— ‘Thevar Magan’, ‘Aboorva Sagotharargal’, ‘Michael Madana Kamarajan’, ‘Mahanadhi’, and ‘Anbe Sivam’. His partnership with Singeetham Srinivas Rao is one of the best in Indian cinema. Kamal had the luxury of turning script writer by virtue of being a top hero owning a production house. Even influential Tamil writers like Sujatha, Balakumaran, and Jeyamohan haven’t had autonomy in writing scripts. Their role has been strictly limited to dialogue-writing, and fine-tuning existing scripts. 

Very few directors have exposure to Tamil literature, let alone world literature. So, the possibility of adapting novels or short stories is also ruled out. Needless to say, a majority of films, which have neither the backing of a scriptwriter nor the foundation of a literary work, end up being mediocre. The characters look artificial and one-dimensional. Plus, the screenplay meanders in different directions.

Producers spend crores on big stars, production designs, and promotions, but are not ready to pay decent money to hire scriptwriters. But some improvement is in sight. After seeing the success of ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, ‘Viduthalai’, and ‘Vendhu Thaninthadhu Kaadu’, as an ardent cinephile, I wish other sensible filmmakers dig into the rich Tamil (or any language) literary works to make better films. If there’s one line our directors and producers need to have framed on their walls, it is Hitchcock’s famous quote: “To make a great film, you need three things — the script, the script, and the script.”