Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) is one of the most moving self-reflexive films made in India. It is a fine and subtle tribute to the glorious days of the studio era, using its history from about the 1930s to the 1940s as its backdrop. Drawing from film historian Feroze Rangoonwalla’s monograph, Shoma A. Chatterji, unspools memories of a landmark movie.
Guru Dutt’s first directorial film Baazi was released on 15 June 1951, at Mumbai’s Swastik cinema. Navketan, a production company founded by ex-members of Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), including Dev Anand, produced the film. In 1954, Guru Dutt Padukone started his own production company, Guru Dutt films. This was also the year in which Aar Paar was released. His last film was Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). He died by suicide on 10 October 1964, reportedly from an overdose of barbiturates.
Apart from the telling lyrics and music, Guru Dutt’s works are noted for his imaginative use of the close-up and rhythm in editing, signposts for the films he made after his first film Baazi. Baazi focused on Dutt’s imaginative use of songs that did not intrude into the narrative but formed an integral part of the story and the film. At the same time, the songs defined an independent identity unto themselves, were an audiovisual delight for the audience, are timeless and have strong archival value. In Jaal (1952), boats at sea, village fairs, Sunday church services, fisher folk at work created an ambience enriched by the absence of the synthetic plasticity of a studio set. Jaal, shot in black-and-white by V.K. Murthy who cinematographed every Guru Dutt film after this, like many Guru Dutt films, evokes a sense of nostalgia of the period it was set in and made to this day. The multiple layers of music for the backdrop and for the songs (S.D. Burman), complemented by the rich lyrics (Sahir Ludhianvi) of Pyaasa (1957) turned out to be the hallmark of the film apart from the contributions of Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha, Rehman and Johnny Walker to the film.
Some 15 years after his death, a revival of extensive interest in the works of Guru Dutt began, a trend that continues till this day. Film historian Feroze Rangoonwalla wrote a monograph on Guru Dutt in 1973 under the aegis of the National Film Archive, Pune. Delhi and Mumbai began to have sporadic screenings of his films at mornings shows, pointing out to distributors that Dutt still had a dedicated following and a market pull.
Sometime during the late 70s and early 80s, his films began to draw international attention. Henri Micciollo, a French critic, during his posting at the Alliance Francaise in Mumbai, happened to attend a morning screening of Pyaasa. Though the film was without sub-titles, Micciollo was moved and intrigued by both the film and its director. He wrote an excellent study of Guru Dutt’s films. It was Micciollo’s writings that sparked off interest in Guru Dutt in the West much before they had a chance to see his films.[i]
Kaagaz Ke Phool
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) is one of the most moving self-reflexive films made in India. It is a fine and subtle tribute to the glorious days of the studio era, using its history from about the 1930s to the 1940s as its backdrop. An early shot in the film reveals Suresh leaning from the balcony of a cinema hall where Vidyapati, a film of 1937, an unforgettable musical romance with Pahari Sanyal and Kanan Debi directed by the legendary Debaki Bose, enacting the classic lovers, playing to a full house. The films that Suresh is shown making or having made in the film are films that actually exist in the archives of Indian cinema.
The film is an introspective and retrospective journey of Suresh, a once-celebrated film director currently going through a bad patch both professionally and personally. He is estranged from his wife and daughter, while Shanti, the leading lady who he had groomed to fame and glory, and had subsequently fallen in love with, has drifted away. He discovers that the studio floors are his last recourse, and seeks refuge there, tracing back his journey. He finally comes to terms with the reality that fame and success are as ephemeral as life itself. By then however, it is too late.
Kaagaz Ke Phool was India’s first cinemascope film with brilliant cinematography by V.K. Murthy. The cinematographer had multiple responsibilities. One, he had to shoot the film as the audience would see it. Two, he had to shoot the ‘indoor studio sets’ where Suresh shot his films with the right touch of light and shade and chiaroscuro it needed to reflect the time-setting of filmmaking the film represented – 1930-1940, approximately. Three, he had to maintain clear lines of division between the surface film to create the holistic effect it needed, and the make-believe structure of the studio-within-the-film. Four, he had to present the simulated indoor studio ‘sets’ to portray two different moods – the mood of success with bright lights and busy technicians, director, actors, in the earlier scenes, and the mood of failure when Suresh, sad, alone, an enlarged figure of tragedy and failure personified, steps into the studio again as the film, very slowly, almost regretfully, yet inevitably, moves towards its tragic climax. The tragedy is like a paean to filmmaking as an ephemeral phase in the life of its creator, the filmmaker, the films-within-the-film and the larger film itself.
The most telling metaphor in Kaagaz Ke Phool is the act of knitting sweaters that Shanti (Waheeda Rehman) indulges in. It is introduced as an innocent time-filler when she begins knitting on the sets during breaks in the shooting. Later, when Pammi’s insults force her to retreat into the village and turn into a recluse from films and fame, Shanti presents Suresh with a sweater, the only one she could manage to give him. Years later, during the shooting of a film, as the female lead, in a scene she is supposed to do with a bit player, Shanti recognises Suresh from the sweater he is wearing when he removes his costume. It is full of holes now, but he still wears it, almost like a second skin. We last see Shanti as a doomed Penelope figure obsessively knitting sweaters for her Odysseus who will never return to claim them or exchange them for the one with the holes. Her cupboard is spilling over with sweaters. But now, it is no longer an innocent exercise to kill time. It is an obsessive act indulged in by a woman who is insanely in love with a man who is both afraid and incapable of loving her in return. It is an act of hope too. It is an escape route for a woman who is aware of the futility of her act. She is like the proverbial ‘dying man clutching at a straw’ that cannot and will not save her in the end. “A dying woman knits them for a man who refuses to die in her memory.”
Shanti’s life, after she comes in contact with Suresh, is defined by intermittent phases of waiting. The first time she appears in the frame, one finds her waiting under a tree in a park to save herself from getting wet in a sudden burst of rain. As an actress, she spends a lot of time waiting on the sets as the lighting and props are being prepared for the next shot. She arrives in the studio much ahead of the others and waits within the darkness of the studio waiting for her love to profess his love for her. It never happens. When Suresh has an accident, Shanti keeps awake all night by his side, waiting for him to regain consciousness. But instead of being thanked for this, Suresh asks her to leave the minute he regains consciousness. Maddened by Suresh’s dogged refusal to acknowledge their mutual love and need, she takes refuge in her bedroom, strewn with a hundred sweaters, “knitting for a man who will never wear them. She is condemned to continue waiting.”
Interestingly, Dutt weaves his film-within-a-film story with Devdas, the film being directed by Suresh. He manages to persuade his producer to cast Shanti, an orphan girl he had met in a park one day to play Parvati in the film. The entire sub-text happens in a series of coincidences and accidents. Not once does one get to see Devdas actually being shot in this film. But there is this strong sense of intercutting between Devdas and Suresh with Suresh taking to the bottle and losing out on life, family, and love. Towards the end, the only retreat for Suresh is the studio where he shot many successful films. Here, with his cameras, his arc lamps, his backdrops, his sets, his technicians and his actors, he can create and control his own world of make-believe and beauty. But the space grants him only metaphorical consolations of a fictitious universe. When he loses his favourite actress in this space and his daughter in the courtroom, he begins to drink, as if with a vengeance, and becomes homeless. He returns to the space all over again after having lost his family, his career and his audience. By now, he defines the space as an indoor space that has evolved into a private sepulchre for himself.[iii]
Conclusion
Kaagaz Ke Phool has strong autobiographical elements. It is almost like a celluloid elegy Dutt wrote for himself with his screenplay and his images, his music and his lyrical pacing of the film. He is said to have had an intense relationship with one of his leading ladies, as shown in the film. He was the one who introduced the lady to the world of cinema. This brought about phases of estrangement with his wife Geeta Dutt and the children from time to time. He began to indulge in drinking during periods when he was not working. He suffered from long periods of depression. And he continued to be a chronic insomniac. It is said that his premature death by suicide was foreshadowed in the film. The film was a failure in every sense of the term. In some cities, the film ran for only a week. Only years later did it receive the acclaim it deserved and now it enjoys a cult following in India and other countries such as France where it was commercially released in the 1980s.
Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author. She has authored 17 published titles and won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema, twice. She won
the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award, 2010 for ‘commitment to addressing and analysing gender issues’ among many awards