IL FENOMENO SALMAN KHAN

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In questo periodo sono in vena di revival, quindi vi propongo una serie di articoli, pubblicati nel 2010 e nel 2011, che tentano di analizzare il fenomeno Salman Khan. Dal 2018 l'aura di Sallu sembra un po' appannata, ma la superstar non è nuova a cicli di tonfi e resurrezioni. In una carriera ormai lanciata a ripercorrere le orme di un certo Rajinikanth, non è difficile pronosticare nuovi clamorosi successi. Mi porto avanti rinfrescando la memoria circa le ragioni che hanno consentito a Salman Khan di incendiare il botteghino in quegli anni, ragioni valide a spiegare anche gli incassi stellari delle sue pellicole sino a tutto il 2017 (Ek Tha Tiger, Kick, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Sultan - solo per citare i titoli più interessanti).

EDITORIALE, Aroon Purie, India Today, 1 novembre 2010

'Bollywood is dominated by the trinity of Khans - Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman. Though united by their surnames, they have nothing in common either in style or in appeal. The first is the reigning superstar, a fulltime showman. The second is the so-called thinking star. The third, the subject of our cover story this week, is the shirtless wonder whose mass appeal surpasses all the others. (...) 

Most often, the bare-chested Khan is in the news for all the wrong reasons, whether it is for shooting blackbuck or for rash driving or for courting some of Bollywood's most beautiful women. He is the most adored bad boy of the industry and symbolises the old style Bollywood masculinity. He has that habit of putting his foot in his mouth whenever he is not using it for kicking baddies in his films. He is the action hero who has reduced the distance between the make-believe and the real. He's also surprisingly versatile. He started his career as a charming loverboy and then became the first Khan in Bollywood to discover the sixpack. He's got great comic timing and is not afraid of making a fool of himself onscreen. (...) 

He is our cover subject not just because he is the biggest hit-maker of the year. As this year's Entertainer Number One, he also dominates the small screen. The Salman part of the Khan market is flourishing. (...) 

Yet for a superstar, he lives fairly simply. His parents live in an apartment above him, and he's always willing to part with his things, be it money for medical treatment for the needy or even a favourite pair of boots. Apparently, he sleeps only for three hours a day. That should be good news for his fans as well as the industry. His waking hours have become the biggest source of escapism for the millions who swarm the multiplexes. And those hours earn him millions. Obviously, being bad pays'.

THE GOOD BAD BOY, Kaveree Bamzai, India Today, 1 novembre 2010

'The biggest paycheck in Bollywood this year has landed. It reached a star who's 5-foot 9-3/4 inches and weighs 78 kg. He dresses in clothes chosen by his two sisters and lives a floor below his parents. He sleeps for three hours a day and eats five meals daily. He's Salman Khan. And he's made Rs 170 crore and still counting from Dabangg, Rs 24 crore from Bigg Boss 4, and Rs 15 crore from three endorsements signed earlier this year. He is at the top of the entertainment game, measured in the only language Mumbai understands: money. (...) 

For someone who started work at 14 and whose first pay was Rs 75 as a background dancer, becoming the star of Bollywood's second biggest hit ever has not been easy. The pinnacle has come 22 years after he began as a doe-eyed, silken-haired 45-kg son of a famous father, a second lead in the tepid Biwi Ho To Aisi. Salman has reason to be pleased though he cannot look you in the eye, mind you. A little accident with a surgery to fix the unflattering pouches under his eyes has ensured that he cannot take off his dark glasses for another week. But as the star sits on his black leather couch, the centrepiece of his one-bedroom flat in Mumbai, with the steaming cup of coffee to be replaced by successive glasses of Bacardi and Coke as the evening wears on, he knows his fans have seen worse. They have seen him wearing a bikini in Baaghi, dancing with a towel between his legs in Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, being a "manly" Marilyn Monroe in Jaan-e-Mann and in Dabangg, romancing a girl who was a year old when he began his career. 

And they are not surprised that he now commands Rs 5 crore for each of his five endorsements; that he's taken the ratings of the opening episode of Bigg Boss 4 to a high of 4.83, bettered only by Amitabh Bachchan's Kaun Banega Crorepati 4 TRP of 6.21; and that his next yet-to-be-shot film is being sold at Rs 75 crore. The bhai who never grew up seems to have finally become the boy who can do no wrong. Or even if he does, it is quickly forgiven. Perhaps because he is seen as someone with his heart in the right place and his tongue in the wrong place. As an equal opportunity offender, who, if he is unprofessional, is so with everyone big or small. As a loveable lout who may be feudal and flawed but is still very funny. As a star who is less about the brand and more about the body. Which may explain why while everybody is busy wearing branded clothes, he's happy taking them off. 

Perhaps it's because the audience watching him suspects that behind the bluster is a boy who can still get slapped by his father, scriptwriter Salim Khan, and still stands to attention when he's on the phone. In many ways, Salman is the retrosexual man every boy would like to be. His brothers are his best friends and despite having dated four stunningly beautiful professional actors, he still believes that women should not "expose" onscreen. Unlike middle class darlings Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan, film scholar Shohini Ghosh believes Salman's films echo our more complicated "good and bad times". Movies like Tere Naam and Garv portray him as a brooding hero while even in his most raucous comedies he often loses the girl or gets trumped by another star. Like the young Amitabh Bachchan, despite his elite upbringing, he has a common touch. He can play the folk hero of the masses as much as he can embody the rock star swagger.

Salman hasn't worked with too many star directors and he still cannot remember the dialogue of Pyaasa that he and director Sajid Khan had to learn in acting classes with Daisy Irani, but he seems to have found a new commitment to work. Always known more for his body than his brains, he is not only completing movies in one schedule to maintain continuity of physicality and character, but he has also reserved the right of final edit. "When I see a film now, I see it from the point of view of the audience, not myself. Yuvvraaj was 25 minutes too long, London Dreams would have been super 35 minutes less, and for Veer, I just needed more shooting dates. It's my fault that I didn't put my foot down. But I didn't whether out of respect or not wanting a misunderstanding. Perhaps they would have been worse if I had put my foot down," he says.

It is rare to find a star so unaccustomed to asserting his veto. Perhaps because Salman regards himself as a worker bee, who's broken every bone in his body, save his head, at least three times. He's always worked, whether it was as an assistant to Shashilal Nair for Rs 30 a day or as a model trying to maintain a Rs 300 bank balance. Which is why, among the Khans, he's made the most films - 71 compared to 57 for Shah Rukh and 36 for Aamir. Now the madness has a method. Still, don't expect him to come to work before 11 a.m., kiss onscreen ("why mix business with pleasure," he murmurs), or play a villain ("people need to see heroes"). Also make allowances for the days when he won't want to shoot, or will do so only with dark glasses on, because his eyes are puffy. But then once he's on the set, surrounded by his toys (an all-terrain bike, a bicycle, perhaps his Yamahas R6 and R1, and his four dogs, the oddly named Veer, My Love, Saint and Handsum) expect him to do anything the director demands (...).

He sees a reason for the phenomenal success of Wanted last year, which was like Ghajini before it, a southern import, and re-established the action genre in Bollywood which involves heroes walking through doors and fighting battles with bare hands. "We've had the angry young man, the action hero who would fight for his family or neighbourhood, the romantic hero, the rom-com loser hero. There had to be a reaction," he says. (...) "I believe the entertainment industry is for children or for the child in everyone. Somebody wants to grow up like you, somebody wants to be you, somebody wants to remember their youth by you," he says.

He's not a great fan of change. "I get attached to things. It took me 35 years to go from the floor above to my house here. And that happened only because Sohail (his younger brother) took over my room when I went on a world tour," he says. Rather than being seen as a provider at large for his family, he believes they have been a great support to him. "I have no responsibilities. My family takes care of me more than I take care of them. They've always supported me," he says. Especially when he's in trouble, which can vary from being in Jodhpur Central Jail for six days in 2007 as Prisoner No. 343 in the blackbuck case to 17 days in Thane Central Jail in the hit-and-run case in 2002. His family bristles at the thought of being seen as parasites: "People behave as if he's been parking money in our accounts. No. The greatest thing about him is that he hasn't alienated us from his success. He wants us to enjoy it with him," says brother, actor Arbaaz who is also the producer of Dabangg.

Film critic Nasreen Munni Kabir says Salman doesn't show himself in real life as the perfect, intelligent man but as a feckless fellow who bumbles through life learning from his mistakes as he continuously makes them. "He becomes human to us in a more meaningful way than the high achievers," she points out. As Salman himself says, "Some people think I'm a total jerk. And some people love me to death." He also has a habit of loving to death, as all accounts of him stalking Aishwarya Rai at the height of their romance indicate. Salman seems to have become philosophical about his love life. "You get somebody better for you. That person gets somebody better for them," he says in his famously cryptic way. He has finally learnt to move on romantically, though there is the odd fixation he has with casting lookalikes of his one-time girlfriends. His father puts it more poetically: "Salman suffers from divine dissatisfaction."

For someone who grew up idolising Sanjay Dutt, (...) he's quite impressed by his own fitness. "My body is better than it ever was," he says, looking at himself in a mirrored wall conveniently next to the sofa on which he receives guests like a mini-head of state. "The only fat I have is under my eyes," he says, denying he ever went in for hair grafting but quietly writing the number of the Dubai doctor who did the honours in case you need it. He keeps himself fit, whether by swimming, playing cricket or football, or simply trekking or cycling to work. He sleeps three hours a day, usually by 5 in the morning. "Either my mind wakes up and my body is tired. Or my body wakes up and my mind says 'go to sleep'. Sometimes both are sleepy and I'm wide awake." And sometimes he wakes up weeping, his pillow wet, dreaming of his days at The Scindia School, Gwalior.

He's had a chequered academic career, weaving in and out of St. Anne's High School, Mumbai; The Scindia School; St. Stanislaus High School, Mumbai; and St. Xavier's, Mumbai, from where he was thrown out. Why? "Attendance. I always had that problem," he mumbles. He dropped out of third year at Elphinstone College, deciding not to take an exam one day because a cricket match seemed more interesting. He also gave up the idea of admission to the JJ School of Art because he thought the crowd was too "arty" for someone who was the proud possessor of a single pair of Wranglers bought by his mother's brother, Tiger Uncle, from Germany. "I wore them until they tore," he says, recalling a time when the family was short of cash. His father agrees. "Remember I struggled for 10 years as an actor before I began writing.(...)."

A Bandra boy who would often attend midnight mass with his gang after a drinking session, Salman has grown up with a Hindu mother, a Muslim father, and a Catholic stepmother. In many ways, he is Everyman. "What you see is what you get," says director Farah Khan. (...) "He's never stopped a movie or not completed it even if he knew it was a turkey in the making. When he's good, there's no one like him."

As he contemplates marriage ("I'd like to have children"), a post-retirement career involving painting and working with his charity, the Being Human Foundation, the coolest thing about the always underrated Khan is that he's happy even with his lack of inches. "It's just a bit taller than the heroines and shorter than the villain." Because, of course, it's fun to beat up the bigger guy. Isn't that what heroes do?'.

SOME PEOPLE THINK I'M A TOTAL JERK, India Today, 1 novembre 2010

(L'intervista è piuttosto insipida, e ne riporto un breve estratto solo per gossip. Gli intenditori capiranno)

'So are you ready to finally get married?

No, not now. I'm not ready. I don't feel like it. Nevertheless, whenever I've been in a relationship, I have always wanted to get married. But I would get cold feet. I would panic if I started thinking about it too much.

Who were you in a relationship with?

All the people that you know about. What's the point of naming them? Everyone is happy, everyone is married.

Not everyone.

Yeah, Somy (Ali) is not.

And Katrina ...

Katrina is too young to get married'.

BOLLYWOOD'S ROCKSTAR, Anupama Chopra, Open, 2 settembre 2011

'He’s rash and unpredictable, and the jury is still out on his acting skills. So what makes Salman Khan such a force to reckon with? (...) 

The intriguing thing is that he can’t act. Or at least, he prefers not to. There have been occasional flashes of craft, but mostly, Salman seems content to play one persona: a charming, irreverent, but morally upright superman who invariably drops his shirt (...). In a recent interview, he said that he chooses to do films that he himself would buy a ticket for. Over the past few years, these have been loud, largely mindless action movies in which he crunches bodies while delivering signature whistle-worthy dialogues. When I asked in an interview why he repeated himself in every role, his response was: “Why? Do you have a problem with my personality?”. 

His films have become so successful that Salman is now his own genre or franchise. He’s cinematic comfort food - you go into a theatre to watch him do the same thing over and over again. The story, the setting, the direction, the co-star, they are all irrelevant. 

Intriguingly, Salman has been an A-list star for over two decades without the consistent support of big production houses or strong scripts. Shah Rukh Khan has been the poster boy for the Chopras (Yash and Aditya) and Karan Johar. Aamir Khan, with uncanny instinct, has picked the best stories. But Salman has pretty much winged it. He prefers to work with friends and family. His relationships dictate his projects. There is no strategy or long-term planning. His personal life is equally haphazard. He’s had a slew of famous girlfriends, scandals, brushes with the police, the mafia and even stints in jail. And through it all, Salman stands tall. 

What makes Salman Bollywood’s Teflon man? Why does nothing ever stick? Why do viewers forgive him everything, including allegations of abuse and drunk driving and shoddy projects like Ready and Veer? My thesis is that Salman functions as Hindi cinema’s last Rockstar Hero. Aamir and Shah Rukh are wonderfully charismatic actors, but only Salman feels subversive and deliciously dangerous. He’s 100 per cent attitude. He’s our fantasy of a life lived large and without regrets. With him, there are no half-measures. Every facet is epic. So, he’s moody, but also so generous that he doesn’t blink before giving away watches worth lakhs to friends; he’s staggeringly eligible, and yet, unable to sustain a relationship - and therefore also lonely, so he often paints furiously into the dawn; he’s unpredictable, and yet, reliable like a rock. Salman is all testosterone, but also all heart. He hasn’t had a timid day in his life. He’s fierce and determinedly unlayered. Above all, Salman has no sub-text. What you see is what you get - both onscreen and off. 

Is Salman really all of this? I wouldn’t know. Over 20-odd years, I’ve only interviewed him thrice. I’ve enjoyed a few (too few) of his films. While I am intrigued by the cult of Bhai, I am not a convert. But clearly, I’m a minority. Bollywood’s number crunchers are predicting a Rs 60-crore opening five-day weekend for Bodyguard. This isn’t an actor. It’s an experience'.

KING OF BOLLYWOOD, Aroon Purie, India Today, 19 settembre 2011

'He's an actor who can't really act, his dancing is somewhat peculiar, at 45 he's kind of ageing, he has a great body but so do his peers. So, what makes this actor a superstar? I think it's because Salman Khan is a cool dude. Women, of course, drool over his body but I believe his fans love him because of his bad/good boy image, his nonchalance and above all, because he doesn't ever seem to take himself too seriously. He's the king of two other very successful Khans because he has, particularly in the last year, set the box office cash registers ringing like never before. In an industry where receipts at the box office, more than awards or critical acclaim, are the ultimate measure of success, Salman Khan truly stands out. (...) 

He was the first of the big stars to take off his shirt and bare his toned upper body-waxed chest, bulging biceps and enviable six-pack-way back in the 1990s when it was hardly fashionable to do so. It is a routine he has stuck to religiously since. (...) Other filmmakers have a formula for genres like romantic comedy, thrillers or slice of life but in Salman's recent films, he's the formula. That's the USP (Unique Selling Point). There are set pieces which Salman will do in his films and that's what keeps the fans coming back for more. (...) 

He has an uncanny ability to bond with the masses both off and on screen. (...) When asked about his success, Salman was quick to say, "It's no big deal. You can't go mad about these things." As always, the cool dude!'.

SALMAN KHAN ON BODYGUARD'S SUCCESS, Shilpa Rathnam, Nishat Bari, Kaveree Bamzai, Gunjeet Sra, India Today, 19 settembre 2011

'At any given time, there will be a gaggle of at least 50 people standing outside his home in Galaxy Apartments, in Bandra, Mumbai, waiting for help. Papers are sent in to his one-bedroom ground floor apartment, money or assurances are sent out. Khan insists on wearing simple clothes in his films, usually vests, shirts that are easy to clone, blue jeans or as in most of Ready, bermudas. "I make sure I wear one pair of shoes throughout a movie," he says, "otherwise children start harassing their parents to get them more." (...) "Parents have to want you as their son, youngsters have to think they can be like you, children have to idolise you," he says. (...) 

There's a more studied analysis of his appeal. Khan represents a certain kind of virile masculinity that no longer exists in Indian males but is something they aspire to achieve. He is single, with a string of beautiful girlfriends. He combines rural mobility with urban ideas, something that Govinda or Mithun Chakraborty were never able to do. The dichotomy comes from his small town roots (he was born in Indore and spent every summer there until he was old enough for regular school) and his status as the son of one of Bollywood's most successful screenwriters, Salim Khan. Since more people are migrating to cities from villages, they idealise it, says sociologist Sanjay Srivastava. Even his wealth is subdued, out of the public gaze. (...) 

Khan cashes in on this outsider-makes-it-big image by building his characters along the same aspirations, with names such as Radhey, Chulbul Pandey and Lovely Singh. He's both ordinary and special; Indian and not NRI; loyal to family, friends and servants, and emphatically Indian in style, dressing in neo-urban flash, with earrings and bracelet, says film scholar Rachel Dwyer. 

In an industry where his contemporaries want to be presented as youngsters, he doesn't pretend. His hair is courtesy a weave from a doctor in Dubai whose number he shares freely, his body is the result of constant hard work, and the eyes are often accompanied by bags. Then there is the visceral action. (...) 

He's the 70s-80s working class hero with a new noughties irreverence. Hence the break into comedy often in the middle of an intense action scene. (...) He observes people around him and remembers the simple things. (...)  "Most things I do are improvised from what I see in real life," he says. "There's nothing original." (...) 

He's developed a shrewd business sense too. (...) He endorses seven brands. (...) His Being Human T-shirts are the most pirated across India. (...) There's Bigg Boss for another season on Colors, co-hosted with friend Sanjay Dutt. Plus the movie business can only grow. (...) 

The fans adore him. (...) In a marketed fragmented by the rise of regional cinemas and divided by rising ticket prices, he is a powerful unifier. He's the Khan who can do no wrong'.

INTERVISTA, Kaveree Bamzai, India Today, 19 settembre 2011

'Salman Khan is recuperating in New Jersey, USA, after a complicated surgery to ease a nerve disorder called Trigeminal Neuralgia, which had been causing him excruciating pain for a year. He spoke on the phone about the enormous success of Bodyguard and capping a hattrick of blockbusters.

Q. So how does it feel?

You can't go mad about these things. It's the festive season. The past three films have done well. The business has grown. Aabadi badti ja rahi hai (the population is growing), even if I'm not contributing to it. There's a baby born every 30 seconds or something, right? But seriously I feel happy that a film I selected is something people liked. I hope that never goes wrong.

Q. What's the secret of your success?

I no longer do a film for the wrong reasons. I have to be convinced ethically and morally. Both the director and I have to be on the same page. There are just five songs in most films these days and they have to be amazing. There has to be a twist in the screenplay. The editing has to be crisp. Your hard work should show, but effortlessly. It has to be a subject people relate to. You have to approach the film like a member of the audience. When it's being narrated to you, you should enjoy it.

Q. What are the things you will never do in a movie?

Never kiss the girl on screen. I feel awkward. First, remember, it's primarily a family audience. And second, I learnt this a long time ago, every man's wife or girlfriend is for himself. He doesn't want to share her.

Q. Why is it so important to have a shirtless scene?

I think the whole point is when people see it they think if this guy can take his shirt off, so can we. But you have to prepare yourself mentally. I had just 15 days to work on my body for the climactic fight of Bodyguard. And I would work on every muscle of my body two/three times a week. I would have developed a superb body if I had three months, but squeezing it into 15 days can be harmful. Also, as you grow older, your metabolic rate slows down.

Q. You seem to have become far more serious about your work now.

You have to be. Ticket prices have increased. Your fans expect something. You can't let them down.

Q. And you're more involved?

Yes, I do think of some of the lines and jokes. I enjoy the process of composing music. The first time I hear a song, it has to bring a smile to my lips. You have to tap your feet and be able to sing the song'.

Vi segnalo inoltre l'articolo King Salman, firmato da Bharati Dubey e pubblicato da The Times of India il 12 giugno 2011. Il sito non consente di copiare il testo.

Vedi anche Salman Khan: The Hit Machine