2023-08-25 21:00:00
I watch with keen interest the traveling tribute to writer and comedian Abu Salim al-Tabal. His name on the identity is no longer important, nor is his nickname, and if you asked who Salah Tizani was, few would know him. Abu Salim al-Tabla, or Abu Salim for short. He is from the past, which we call a beautiful time, and we love him today, and we feel comfortable honoring him in all Lebanese regions without exception, and we say that this is nothing but part of the real and spontaneous moral compensation from people, cultural institutions and social clubs in the absence of financial compensation that headquarters have not heard of. The government in Lebanon did not believe in it, and did not realize the extent of its impact on the arts and literature in a reasonable and acceptable life for the great artists, who were kidnapped by death before any smile of interest, gratitude and appreciation.
But the biggest problem in our country is we writers, critics and artists. There are respected artists who have struggled, toiled and sweated on stage and in television studios, over a period of sixty years and more, in which they presented the juice of reason, imagination and knowledge, and we used to receive them with every theatrical or artistic work with the devastating missile strikes. No one should think that this expression is an exaggeration or self-flagellation, but rather it is the painful truth. So who is the critic who wrote “soft words” about the plays of Abu Salim’s troupe and his television programs during all stages of his life? The press throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s tasted them zum olive cash whenever they came back with work! My name is the Abu Salim sect, and my name is “Abu Melhem” with him, and my name is Muhammad Shamel in “This World is Heck” and other works, and my name is Shushu.
The war from the guns – the pens of critics, from the men and women of the “avant-garde” theater, and from the artists who were negatively affected by the emergence of Shushu, against this simple, innate artist combined together, was fiercer than any other war. With Abu Salim, Abu Melhem, and Muhammad Shamil and their works, the “avant-garde playwrights” did not care much, because their concern, arrows, and meta-theories were all focused on Shushu, because they were at the height of their “experimental” launch coming from Western science and its theatrical schools, and they were working on the basis that they are The correct beginning of the theater after previous attempts marked by randomness and “school”. Shushu came and swept the “airspace” that they were preparing for their flight, so he hovered in the audience higher than them and imposed himself on them and on all the skeptics who, the artists’ diary books mention, returned too late, so they understood Shushu’s natural talent and his relationship that was quickly established with the audience, and more: they tried to work With him, they worked and scrutinized his method to understand this sweeping phenomenon… The most difficult thing is that the satisfaction of the theater group that tried to absorb Shushu, was not translated by the critics into anything but an increase in intransigence, so most of the critics remained insisting that Shushu is a step that is not worthy of being written about positively or praising it, because it is to rapid demise. The editor-in-chief of an art magazine once said about him, “Keep him away from the screen, because he “removes” our children and grandchildren with his voice, his movements, and the absurdities he presents!
Abu Melhem, too, was a friend of Lebanese homes and families, and the stories he presented on his television program touched on the life of Lebanese society and its defense of morals and human principles. Abu Melhem had his instinctive way of writing texts, drawing characters and dialogues, and he used to gather around the small screen the families of the neighborhood or the building and the neighbors when televisions were at the beginning of their spread, and the houses that had televisions were relatively few, and it is strange when we remember that in the television room the people of the house were extending One or more rugs on the floor for the children to come in numbers, I don’t think anyone can accept them today in their home. The world was fine, the families were fine, and the souls were fine, so the time of Abu Melhem was called the time of goodness, in addition to the “evil” roles that were embodied by the wonderful actor Elie Sanifer, who convinced the audience of what he was doing, and the role of Abu Melhem, Umm Melhem, the coffee shop worker Darwish, and some other actors who They would come in episodes and be absent in others… All of them were acting, they were normal, as if they were in ordinary life, and their stories were taken from the problems of homes in love, marriage, divorce, corruption, addiction, and “bullying” against good citizens… etc., and Abu Melhem was convincing to large groups of Lebanese society in what it offers. Likewise, critics in the press and magazines used to teach Abi Melhem weekly lessons in stories (so that they would not be superficial!), scenario (so that they would be compact!), dialogue (so that they would be logical!) and the installation of characters (so that they would be professional!) in the hope of modifying or changing what he does. With no use. And if we judged, as we judge today, the rating and the number of advertisements in each episode, Abu Melhem would have been “Number One” in all programs, as well as Abu Salim, Shushu and Muhammad Shamel through television works by the standards of that time. A newspaper critic once said, in which Abi Melhem’s program was returned to the screen, “Who asked Abi Melhem to return?”
Muhammad Shamil’s “Al-Dunya Heck” program was not his first television work, but rather it was almost one of his last, and all of his works, on radio and television, were par excellence popular, except that “Al-Dunya Heck” was a stand-alone phenomenon. A number of professionals in this type of business, from Ferial Karim to Elias Rizk to Amal Afish, to his son Alloush, to Majid Afiouni, to others, and this gentle humorous program entered all Lebanese homes with the cleverness of the plot, the phrase and the performance, and the audience decided in his favor .. at a time The artists of the “Vanguard” were mocking him, and the critics of newspapers and magazines poured out their anger on him as “superficial”, so that a vulgar critic blamed, in one of his articles, the composer, Tawfiq Al-Basha, for how he agreed to put the melody of the lyrical introduction to this program, himself, and the program is not worthy Any melodic “crackling” from any beginner, as he said!
And Muhammad Shamil, the master of the noble craft in shaping the personalities of his works, did not give any consideration to criticism that escaped from any clear or fixed criteria, and “Al-Dunya Heck” hit the record in attracting companies, and the viewership was wide at the beginning of the spread of this type of statistics. For several years, “Al-Dunya is Heck” continued to be successful, likable, and funny with its stances and the sweetness of the performance of its spontaneous actors, and the critics continued to ignore it… Even if its show was halted due to the war in Lebanon, for several months, we saw the critics themselves writing, asking why “Al-Dunya is Heck” does not return. And Shamil was once said about him in the press, “Brick texts, insignificant personalities, and an inflated local dialect, and they will not abandon him!”
I do not know what is that superior feeling that the critics have when they watch a television work or a comedy or social play (on the days of its presentation) so that they see it from “above”, and this exact word is the problem with the critics playing their role, as imagining themselves in a higher place than the writer’s vision And the artist places with them, falsely and claim, a power or authority that indicates that they are more perceptive and insightful than others, so they destroy the work in origin and chapter, and execute its heroes in writing, directing and acting. If they leave a way for their return, it would lighten the load, but they close the doors behind them irreversibly, even for correction and self-revision.
Do the “educated” artists and “specialized” critics, and sometimes passers-by in art and criticism, feel the “paternal” importance over others, whether they are professional, masterful, and creative, or beginners, and consider the platforms that they occupy as authorizing them to do so? And the answer is yes. Television critics, who are the subject of the article, who were subjected to black criticism of successful and outstanding models in their field, such as the Abu Salim band, Abu Melhem, Muhammad Shamel, and Shushu, it is not acceptable for them to attribute the artists who overthrew them with sermons, recommendations, and observations, to the beautiful time, because they show their past ignorance. And the emerging favoritism in what they say and do.
However, is every popular theatrical or television work, i.e. mixing with people and their thoughts and concerns, large and small, subject to criticism and defamation, as happened with the names we mentioned?
The mere mention of the expression “popular play” or “popular TV program” should suggest that its story is taken from daily life, its characters are drawn from reality, its positions simulate situations we always encounter, and its dialogues are our dialogues everywhere. Therefore, the critic must take into account this fact, which differs from the facts of other works of art that may not be popular. Abu Salim’s drum band is a mixture of thoughtful clowning (as in Fahman’s), simplified karakter (as in Asa’ad), sympathetic excitement / rhythm control with everyone (as in Abu Salim), and the eternal and light miser (Shukri Shukrallah, we thank God) and the good fist (Abu Nasra). Thus, these people do not memorize their roles as set by the writer Abu Salim, but rather often take the heads of the stage pens and enter the studio, and most of what they do is improvised according to the moment that passes between them, and the important thing is that none of them leave their main character by an inch. This alone is a great hardship, which the whole team “brought up” and got used to, and it has become a foregone conclusion. And the band stamped one of the critics, during a violent article, “Clowns begging for work with the state’s forbidden money.” And the band did not claim to be performing a message other than the message of making people laugh and entertaining them through certain personalities that the audience memorized, and were influential in the artistic community. Yes.. Otherwise, what would have prompted the Rahbani brothers to request the participation of some members of the troupe (Abu Salim, Asaad, and Fahman) in their cinematic and sometimes theatrical films, had it not been for that sociable presence of them in memory, and had it not been for the brothers’ feeling that these actors, as actors, are well-professional and carefully assume their roles? ?
Shushu, who died in the mid-seventies, is considered today by everyone, including his staunch opponents when he was in control, among our elders, the people of the “beautiful time” and the first builders of the national folk theater. Rather, they consider his acting style, which they called absurd without blinking an eyelid, a special style that he could not Someone to match him in innovation or influence his influence.
And the Lebanese will remember for a long time that if that time was a time of innocence, simplicity, and the suggestion of ideas within traditional frameworks, among the daughters of the relationships of those days that are closest to clean, artistically untested common sense. During the thirty years of their work, no obscene word, sexual term, or sentence uttered from them with an immoral suggestion. Thighs, breasts, and female “temptations” are all to attract “Rating”. What can be said about them one day in comparison, other than investment, exploitation, and “conspiracy” against the objective measures of arts and programs, and crowding the public into the category of insulting taste?
Returning to our topic, psychology says that those who unjustly and aggressively criticized (a person or a specific work of art) from their positions, whatever they were, and harshly, whether from artists who “distinguish” between their work and the work of all others, or from critics, feel after years And time, with regret for what they did and wrote of negative opinions, especially when their artistic egos are dominant and hostile to others out of self-love only in the stages of their formation and growth, or when their opinions are undisciplined in an objective critical framework, in addition to that critical pessimism justifies this act for them to value themselves higher. heels And with remorse, a feeling spreads about the necessity of correcting what was, so thoughts are born related to acknowledging the mistake, and it becomes “natural” for them to give up the high “water” towers, which are without supports, to straighten their view. In addition, a number of Lebanese artists die sick or are unemployed, so signs of admiration appear on the faces that were somber towards them, and in this is a kind of human compassion that the authentic artist certainly hates and considers as underestimating his right once again. Lebanon did not improve the state, (nor the civil institutions) pay attention to the great talents of its artists, and did not give a great artist the appreciation he deserves… As for sponsorship, it is basically hopeless.
Hence, celebrating the writer and actor Salah Tizani, who is over the age of ninety, being the only surviving survivor of that generation, is a commendable effort. It is true that it is moral and ethical and often atones for guilt, and for some it is prestige to them, but Abu Salim’s feelings and thoughts towards these occasions are good and reflect respect for the “sacred” jihad that the Lebanese artist has waged for decades of continuous, and it must be the result of originality in the look Objectivity refers to people, and a feeling is born of the need to reconsider the truly national dilemma, which says that Lebanese creators are left to unjust fate and age in its worst, and to scream in vain!
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