Alaka Sahani comes up with a beautiful article. Ahead of the filmmaker Guru Dutt’s centenary on July 9, how his life & personality are reflected in his protagonists in Pyaasa & Kaagaz Ke Phool.
What if Guru Dutt had lived a hundred years ?? What his films would be like ?? What would Bollywood look like ? Definitely not what we see today!
There are unmistakable shades of Guru Dutt in Vijay & Suresh Sinha, the protagonists of Pyaasa ( 1957) & Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), leading the characters an authenticity, pathos & timeless aura.
Vijay , an idealistic & impoverished Urdu poet, gains recognisn only after he is presumed to be dead. Disillusioned by the materialistic world, he ultimately chooses to walk away from it.
Suresh, once a celebrated film maker, goes through upheavals in his personal & professional life, struggles with fleeting success, fading glory & loneliness.
Guru Dutt directed only eight films but the haunting pathos of Pyaasa & Kaagaz Ke Phool came to define his signature film making style & cinematic vision.
Arun Khopkar wrote a book on Guru Dutt. He assumes ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Kagaaz Ke Phool’& ‘Saheb, Bibi aur Gulam’ (1962) as the trilogy , ‘Guru Dutt : A Tragedy in Three Acts’ that defines the film canvas for the Marathi cinegoers. Before he published his book, abridged versions were available in French & Italian.
Shanta Gokhale later translated it in English. By Penguin Books on 15 October 2012. The book won the National Film Award for best book on Cinema.
Today the book is available in Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Gujrati & Malayalam. Arun Khopkar has written the introduction for each separately. He has worked selflessly for his love for this great man.
He had watched the three films separately. But when he watched them back to back he realized that Guru Dutt is not merely a director but an ‘Auteur”! This concept evolved from the ‘new wave’ in the French film industry. It championed the idea of the director as the primary creative force behind the film, emphasizing the director’s personal vision & style.
Mani Kaul, Kumar Sahani appreciated his work but the parallel cinema remained far from the masses.
Getting floored by a film & in a trance for days together, have you ever experienced it ? It was impossible to talk to your friend while leaving the cinema hall. Getting into a rickshaw or walking down the street in a daze….
What popcorn, you forget to breathe…dilapidated chairs or crowded halls, who was aware ???
But for those cinema days full of cinemas…. pure nostalgia..
Asian Entertainment 