‘‘Let it be the last time. If you dare to say that word once more, I will pull out your bloody tongue”, the front benchers broke into a thunderous applause though they could not digest the exact meaning when they heard Jayan, the superstar-in-making, deliver the fiery dialogues penned by T Damodaran, three decades ago.
The same magic was repeated a decade later when Renji Panicker arrived with the acid tongued heroes who could take on the whole establishment with the most dangerous weapon - the humongous dialogues which ran to pages combining complex English words with local adages. Thus, during the seven years from 1992 to 1999, Renji Panicker could churn out eight hits which made the cinema halls tremble when the macho heroes Bharat Chandran (The Commissioner), Joseph Alex (The King) or Chackochi (Lelam) met Ministers or politicians who all were shadows of someone from the real world.
But that was long ago when the dialogues alone could keep the cash registers ringing. To be precise, much before those DSNG and OB vans aired live a lathi charge in front of the secretariat or the disrobing of a politicians in a party meeting. The channels also cornered the politicians with sharp questions leaving them to sweat and fret in front of the cameras in the air conditioned studios. But today, the master piece dialogue by a hero is greeted with lukewarm response. The same could have made a thunder in the theatre if it was a decade ago.
Now, there are more interesting scenes happening in the television screen. For example, no film dialogue is a match for the politically charged statements of government chief whip P C George. Now, many Malayalam films fail when they try to recreate the scenes from the real world for reasons obvious”, says Johny Lukose, director (News) Manorama News, while pointing out how film scenes look poorer when compared to the live telecast of the hot issues.
Live coverages along with heated discussions have also turned tables on dialogue-oriented films. “After the deluge of news channels, there is no dearth of political dialogues for the discussions at nine. If the films were released with an interval of two or three years, the live shows reach your home free of cost 365 days. Obviously any writer will face a difficult time to manage this,” says Bipin Chandran, who scripted the box office hit, ‘Best Actor’. He had also appeared in a cameo as a news anchor in ‘Daddy cool’, for which he penned dialogues.
The news nights that corner politicians receive a better rating, may be for the popular feeling that the politicians are to be grilled forever,” says Veena George, deputy news editor, India Vision news channel, who is also one of the popular news anchors in the state.
The lack of shock or surprise element is really hitting the dialogue-oriented contemporary political films as they have nothing much to offer than what they show in the TV,” says Ravishanker, a film buff who religiously watches all kinds of movies.
Yes. At least some oneliners are true for sure, familiarity breeds contempt.