Coming back to Nayagan, I remember reading somewhere that Devar Magan is a more actual adaptation of Godfather (Father being the DON-like figure in the village, useless elder brother, younger brother taking after the father, sacrificing his lady love to marry another girl due to situation etc.). However, one thing clearly etched in my mind is how Kamal imitates Marlon Brando’s mannerism i.e. his mouth. But as they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery..

In any way, my opinion is that a lot directors at that time particularly, Balu Mahendra and Manirathnam especially copies (or rather inspired by) English movies without giving any due credit to the originator..it was good initially, but after u know that the Tamil version is a copy, u will lose respect to the director..of course not all of their movies are copies, they do have their original creations (example Mouna Ragam, Alai Payuthe, Veedu, Moondram Pirai etc.). In my opinion, they take the viewers for granted, “yaaru inthe padathellam paatu irukke porrethe”…their earlier films were good as the my personal exposure to foreign films at that time was limited, if I have watched Godfather or She-Devil before Nayagan and Sathi Leelavathi, I might not have liked Nayagan..Maybe we will still like the movie, but not as much as what u and me experienced, watching the copy after the original…

Thanks Venkat — I value your view but don’t agree. Kamal is clever enough to use his tonsured head as a new get-up in the next movie.. Nayagan — Sathya, Aalavandhan — PKS.

Around this time, we also saw Pushpak (Pesum Padam) where Kamal appeared w/o mush. Around this time is the starting period for Kamal realizing that he has to make such good movies for the audience and not the likes of Thoongathe Thambi Thoongathe and Sakalakalaa vallavan types as you have so many actors capable of making such roles.

Aboorva Sahodarargal started off with such — every movie being different for Kamal and he did not let us stereo type him into any one character…unlike V Kanth (remember, Kanth chasing some anti-national/social in North India as a police in every f***** movie) or Rajini (crappiest story and/or comedy) movies.

Kamal going and seeing his daughter and grand daughter in that police officer flat is a class scene for his life time… you cannot believe someone can act like that.…

Thanks for rekindling those memories.

When this movie was released and even now — I am not in tune with the message of the movie — belittling law and/or law and order machinery is not good in the long term interests of the country… and worse still this movie received National award — is again not good…

என் பங்குக்கு நானும் சங்கு ஊதிட்டேன். :-)

Thanks

Venkat

I saw “Godfather’ much later in life and it is a master piece by itself. Recently I saw Godfather Blueray version which had the voice over narration of “Francis Ford Coppola” on each and every scene and sometimes logic behind each scene.

One interesting narration was…Don and Michael did not have even a single scene together in the movie(except a short scene where don pats michael’s shoulder when tessio and clemenza were demanding separate territories)…so they decided to add the scene where don will be drinking wine in the backyard and giving advice about anybody coming up with barzini being a traitor etc.…..they are such great actors and it would have been a missed opportunity if they had not planned that scene.…

Sonny roughing up Carlo was also a scene added when the producer felt that storyline is sagging without action sequence.….producer it seems threatened coppolla that he would bring another director if he did not add an action scene.…those days coppolla was a newbie.…so producer could afford to threaten.…

I get non stop when I have to talk about Godfather.….sorry for such long comment.…..(Unna kettenada.…)