What is Sivaji's legacy? As an audience who now have access to international films with subtle acting, how do we receive Barrister Rajinikanth, a role donned by Sivaji in Gauravam? Yes, there's a certain போஸ்டர்லயே ஓவெராக்ட் பண்ணுவார் dimension to him. But as a people we were, and to some extent still are, quite dramatic - we fight in the middle of the street, stop talking to our siblings for decades over minor faux paus, and still are able to forgive a murderer. The room கட்டபொம்மன், a larger-than-life role, has for theatrics is not in any way smaller than what Raju, a simple family man, has in பாசமலர், because they operate in the same emotional milieu.
What Sivaji did, in my very humble opinion, was to set a really high standard for dramatics. Take any of his contemporaries, say S.S.Rajendran or Ravichandran, for example. Watch any 30-second clip of them, and you'll realize that they set the gold standard for a தத்தி நடிகன். To continue to push the boundaries amidst such mediocrity is a phenomenal achievement in itself. Like all great actors, he had excellent technique and a sharp instinct and knew when to drop his technique and rely on his instinct.
I watch the linked scene from தெய்வமகன் at least twice a year. The rich dad with a scarred face has given away his first born who has a similar deformity. They meet for the first time after decades. A few minutes later the second son walks in. All are played by Sivaji. The father is guilt-ridden, the first son is bereft of familial joy and the second son, born with a silver spoon, doesn't know how good he has it. If you were to plot their emotional valences of these three characters on a 3D graph, they would be far apart. It's just pure pleasure to watch Sivaji flesh out these roles, but especially the father, who has to transition from shock to guilt to sadness to anger to resignation and finally to acceptance. You can play this in any film school.
When the mukha abinayas from Bharatanatyam are high-art, why is a crying Sivaji with his trembling lips and dancing eyebrows not art? This is not a false equivalence: Sivaji's performances are like choreography. When the stories, characters and situations are morally very clearly demarcated, when the setting doesn't have the modernist shades-of-grey complexities, we have to compare Tamil cinemas of the Sivaji era to operas. And we don't expect subtlety from operas.
Finally, I don't think our cultural icons should be exempt from ridicule. Jeyamohan has ridiculed Sivaji for good measure and I've heard that Kamal would criticize Sivaji's performances. In a twisted rationale, us making fun of icons is what keeps them alive. There are so many performances from other actors that we don't talk about because they're bland and forgettable. Sivaji broke new ground, but some of his styles are now passé. But in the very act of single-handedly moving the goalpost farther for acting, he set the stage for Kamal to be received and appreciated for his realistic portrayals. If we didn't have Sivaji, then Kamal would have had to fill that void.
In essence, Sivaji is not a mass consumer product whose sell-by date has passed. (That would be M.G.R, and very soon, Rajinikanth). But as long as we consider cinema an art and accept that this art evolves in different ecosystems at varying pace depending on market pressures and social identities, then what Sivaji created is art.
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