Amitabh Bachchan
Authors: Ciecko Anne 
Published: January 2019

Amitabh Bachchan (b. 1942 in Allahabad) is perhaps the most enduringly iconic figure of Bollywood. He has appeared in nearly two hundred films and made cultural impacts as television presenter, stage performer, spokesperson, brand ambassador, and social media influencer. “Big B” possesses a tall physique, heavy-lidded visage, and sonorous multilingual voice. After onscreen debut in the epic Saat Hindustani (dir. K A. Abbas, 1969), his reputation and fame were established with anti-hero action roles as corruption-fighting police inspector-turned-vigilante in Zanjeer (dir. Prakash Mehra, 1973), as good-hearted thief in “curry western” Sholay (dir. Ramesh Sippy, 1975), and as tragic gangster in crime drama Deewar (dir. Yash Chopra, 1975). Bachchan’s composite personae represented the populist “angry young man” at a time of political/social/economic crisis. In the pioneering “middle cinema” of director-screenwriter Hrishikesh Mukherjee, including Anand (1971) and Namak Haraam (1973), Bachchan co-starred with the “original” Hindi film superstar Rajesh Khanna, ultimately eclipsing Khanna’s screen currency with his own class-crossing, genre-bending charisma. Bachchan appeared as characters all named Vijay (victorious) in Salim-Javed scripted films directed by Yash Chopra, Chandra Barot, and Ramesh Sippy. He executed his own action stunts, dances, and baritone playback tracks for numerous screen performances. An array of “double” roles, as well as comic films like Amar Akbar Anthony (dir. Manmohan Desai, 1977) displayed his expanding acting range. In addition to classic “buddy”/multihero pairings, Bachchan first shared the screen with actress Jaya Bhaduri in 1973, the year they married. Rumors of relationships with female stars provided abundant gossip fodder, culminating in a love triangle storyline in Silsila (dir. Yash Chopra, 1981). Bachchan’s status as superstar/national symbol was confirmed via public concern after a near-fatal injury during the filming of Coolie (dir. Manmohan Desai and Prayag Raj, 1982), widely covered in the press. Thereafter, Bachchan’s controversial foray into politics representing his home city in Uttar Pradesh, resulted in a screen hiatus and, later, attempted comeback. In the 1990s, his titular production company faced bankruptcy; however, the star accrued new currency in film and across media platforms, topping the BBC News online millennium poll as greatest star of stage or screen and becoming the host of a popular glocalized television game show. His son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan exemplify next-generation stardom. Amitabh Bachchan has meanwhile remained a fixture in the Indian star firmament as the global Bollywood landscape continues to expand in the 21st century. His socially mediated utterances, advertising campaigns, and philanthropic endeavors regularly become part of public discourse. Bachchan portrayed multiple silver-bearded patriarchs in blockbuster millennial films emphasizing traditional family values, but his contemporary catalogue also includes rogues, renegades, curmudgeons, and outsiders. Bachchan’s contributions to Bollywood’s intertextual richness and influence are also demonstrated by his cameos in Hindi movies, Indian regional language films, and in the postmodern adaptation/remake of The Great Gatsby (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2013), his Hollywood debut.