When Style Was Celebrated

Dev Anand is gone. So is Shammi. There is another, silent death though, which has occurred slowly but surely. As Indian cinema, certainly bollywood, aspires for more realism, the style icons of today's generation are  scoffed at by the classes.

When and why did this happen? If we look to the 70s, some one like Shashi Kapoor was appreciated. Amitabh Bachchan is often criticized by the film people of his generation for not doing more classy films. Note for instance this video of Naseeruddin Shah where he observes Bachchan made no great film, for what's it worth. While this can be argued and debated upon, what cannot be argued is that Bachchan was real in his acting. You could feel his pain in Kabhie Kabhie, his anger in Zanjeer and his honesty towards his craft in his comic capers for instance.

Was it Bachchan then from where the shift occurred in appreciating style like we used to? If Govinda and Salman Khan were from another era, would they, along with selling tickets, be given more love and not scoffed at for their mannerisms? I wonder.