Guru Dutt’s body of work provided the semantics of creative genius
If Guru Dutt hadn’t ended his life suddenly at the age of 39, he would’ve been a ripe-old 84 today. But still making movies ahead of his, or any times. And when I say ahead of times, I don’t mean a “Kaminey” or a “Sankat City” which are ‘timeless’ in the most basic and negative sense of the term.
The timelessness of Guru Dutt’s art was reposed in the ravishing and roomy rebellion of mind that wouldn’t conform. He could make every frame of his cinema a statement on the quality of existence. On the other hand, he could just have fun and make film for entertainment, as he did with his earlier breezy musicals like “Mr. & Mrs. 55” and “Aar Paar”.
As a deep melancholy set into the artiste’s soul, Guru Dutt’s cinema grew deep, dark, retrospective and brooding. “Pyaasa” was a homage to a manic pessimism. Long before depression became clinically certifiable, Guru Dutt made this elegiac film on the unbearable darkness of being.
It inspired a whole brood of filmmakers, including Manoj Kumar – in whose underrated “Roti Kapda Aur Makaan”, the gold-digging Zeenat Aman was discernibly modelled on Mala Sinha in “Pyaasa”. Instead of Jaane woh kaise log the from Pyaasa, Manoj Kumar sang Aur nahin bas aur nahin gham ke pyale aur nahin…
But the Gham ke pyale (the cups of sorrow) never stopped spilling over for Guru Dutt. Whether it was Waheeda Rehman in “Pyaasa” and “Kaagaz Ke Phool”, or the eternally melancholic Meena Kumari in “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam”, the women that Guru Dutt portrayed were pictures of smothered self-fulfillment. Their relentless search for self-fulfillment invariably took them much further away from decorum than social conventions permitted. Guru Dutt’s characters never stopped searching. They never knew what they wanted.
The characters of Guru Dutt remain as relevant to today’s politics and dynamics of love and betrayal as they were the day they were created. The difference is, they were seen as rebels when they were created. They are seen as social oddballs today, as oblivious to their social obligations as Guru Dutt was when he lived.
“Kaagaz Ke Phool” was a deeply autobiographical film with shades of candour and grandeur that transcended the boundaries of cinema; it remains to this day Guru Dutt’s most personal film.
Many say it was based on his own troubled and tormented love life. Guru Dutt played an arrogant and sensitive filmmaker who falls in love with his discovery, Waheeda Rehman. The topicality of that relationship never waned. To this day, filmmakers from Subhash Ghai to Sanjay Bhansali fall in love with their discoveries, only to see them walk away after they’ve attained stardom.
Guru Dutt too walked away. But in the opposite direction. He couldn’t take the heat and hypocrisy of the world he had to inhabit in order to be creatively functional. This was the looming irony. He loved cinema. But he hated its trappings. Today Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Anurag Kashyap want to make films on Guru Dutt.
Only Guru Dutt could tell his own story. But he chose to turn his back on the audience singing Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai?
If Guru Dutt hadn’t ended his life suddenly at the age of 39, he would’ve been a ripe-old 84 today. But still making movies ahead of his, or any times. And when I say ahead of times, I don’t mean a “Kaminey” or a “Sankat City” which are ‘timeless’ in the most basic and negative sense of the term.
The timelessness of Guru Dutt’s art was reposed in the ravishing and roomy rebellion of mind that wouldn’t conform. He could make every frame of his cinema a statement on the quality of existence. On the other hand, he could just have fun and make film for entertainment, as he did with his earlier breezy musicals like “Mr. & Mrs. 55” and “Aar Paar”.
As a deep melancholy set into the artiste’s soul, Guru Dutt’s cinema grew deep, dark, retrospective and brooding. “Pyaasa” was a homage to a manic pessimism. Long before depression became clinically certifiable, Guru Dutt made this elegiac film on the unbearable darkness of being.
It inspired a whole brood of filmmakers, including Manoj Kumar – in whose underrated “Roti Kapda Aur Makaan”, the gold-digging Zeenat Aman was discernibly modelled on Mala Sinha in “Pyaasa”. Instead of Jaane woh kaise log the from Pyaasa, Manoj Kumar sang Aur nahin bas aur nahin gham ke pyale aur nahin…
But the Gham ke pyale (the cups of sorrow) never stopped spilling over for Guru Dutt. Whether it was Waheeda Rehman in “Pyaasa” and “Kaagaz Ke Phool”, or the eternally melancholic Meena Kumari in “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam”, the women that Guru Dutt portrayed were pictures of smothered self-fulfillment. Their relentless search for self-fulfillment invariably took them much further away from decorum than social conventions permitted. Guru Dutt’s characters never stopped searching. They never knew what they wanted.
The characters of Guru Dutt remain as relevant to today’s politics and dynamics of love and betrayal as they were the day they were created. The difference is, they were seen as rebels when they were created. They are seen as social oddballs today, as oblivious to their social obligations as Guru Dutt was when he lived.
“Kaagaz Ke Phool” was a deeply autobiographical film with shades of candour and grandeur that transcended the boundaries of cinema; it remains to this day Guru Dutt’s most personal film.
Many say it was based on his own troubled and tormented love life. Guru Dutt played an arrogant and sensitive filmmaker who falls in love with his discovery, Waheeda Rehman. The topicality of that relationship never waned. To this day, filmmakers from Subhash Ghai to Sanjay Bhansali fall in love with their discoveries, only to see them walk away after they’ve attained stardom.
Guru Dutt too walked away. But in the opposite direction. He couldn’t take the heat and hypocrisy of the world he had to inhabit in order to be creatively functional. This was the looming irony. He loved cinema. But he hated its trappings. Today Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Anurag Kashyap want to make films on Guru Dutt.
Only Guru Dutt could tell his own story. But he chose to turn his back on the audience singing Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai?
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
1 comment:
this is wonderful article i ever seen on gurudutt.
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