Happy Birthday Shankar: More than the ambitious director, Tamil cinema misses the quality producer in him

On the other hand, one cannot miss pointing out the difference between the films that he directed and the ones he produced. Shankar started his production banner S Pictures for his directorial venture Mudhalvan (1999). However, that film also turned out to be his last directorial venture produced by him. Since then Shankar has only bankrolled movies of other directors. The stark difference between his films and the movies he produced for other directors is the budget.

While Shankar’s directorial ventures are by default big-budget films, his production ventures were the reverse of it. Except for Imsai Arasan 23aam Pulikesi, all other movies under his production banner were made on a small budget. Similarly, the films directed by him had huge stakes with themes involving national issues like corruption. This made all his directorial ventures larger-than-life. Meanwhile, his production ventures like Veyil, Kadhal, and Kalloori dealt with emotions, love, and everything real.

In his directorials, couples would be immediately shifted to some exotic locations in the blink of an eye. “Poovukkul Olindhirukum” from Jeans is a literal tour of the seven wonders of the world. If Shankar decides to stay in India for his songs, then they have to be shot in sets that are costlier than the budgets of his production ventures. The song “Sahana” from Sivaji is a case in point. On the other hand in S Pictures’ Kadhal, directed by Balaji Sakthivel, the couple struggle for money even to elope to Chennai. On one hand, Shankar was taking things too far in terms of scale with films like I, Enthiran, and 2.0. At the same time, he was going the other extreme with his production ventures. Anandhapurathu Veedu, perhaps the most economical film made by the director, was mostly set inside a house.

The disparity between the two sets of films could just be in terms of the budget and the magnitude of the stakes. When it came to quality, there’s close to no difference between them. Eeram, Kalloori, and Kadhal were arguably more powerful films than some of Shankar’s directorial ventures. It goes on to show that the director has a great eye for talent and potential. While Shankar continues to direct films, he has paused his career as a producer after Kappal (2014). While the whole country is catching up with the pan-India frenzy, Shankar, who has done such movies even before it became a trend, has also proved that for a film to be good, budget is irrelevant. The lesson is more important than ever as the craze for big-budget films has made larger-than-life stories the norm pushing plot-driven movies to the back burner. Hence, more than ever, Shankar, the producer, is much needed for taming this pan-India beast, which was in a way created by Shankar, the director.