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Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) may well be Indian cinema’s most famous flop, but subsequent revisionist verdicts have anointed it a classic. In an essay for Kaagaz Ke Phool: The Original Screenplay, authors Dinesh Raheja and Jitendra Kothari deliberate on how the film’s fate ironically reflects actor-director Guru Dutt’s ever-evolving relationship with fame.
An emotional tour de force, Kaagaz Ke Phool explores the pendulous swings in a film director’s career and its impact on his relations with his lead actress, his wife and his daughter. His precipitous decline — his creativity suffers, his films flop and he is indifferently tossed aside by his parent studio — synthesises Dutt’s observations on the evanescent nature of fame. Kaagaz Ke Phool proved eerily prescient for Guru Dutt, whose art obsessed him, fuelled him and felled him.
Besides archiving the screenplay of this classic, this book also incorporates insightful interviews of Dutt’s leading lady Waheeda Rehman, assistant director Shyam Kapoor, friend Dev Anand and brother-cum-colleague Devi Dutt. Iconic cinematographer V K Murthy reveals how he crafted the film’s eloquent frames and the chiaroscurist lighting that have long fascinated cineastes.
The films made under the aegis of Guru Dutt Films Pvt Ltd. are an ineluctable part of Hindi cinema’s belle époque and this book is part of a compendium of books on three ageless classics — Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Chaudhvin Ka Chand and Kaagaz Ke Phool.
DINESH RAHEJA has written on cinema for over 25 years. Raised on a staple diet of two films a week, Raheja is currently the Editor of Bollywood News Service. In his long and prolific career as a writer, he has worked as the Editor of Movie magazine (1988-1999), been a columnist for Sunday Mid-day, Channel Editor of India Today’s online film section and written scripts for television. Raheja has also authored two books on cinema, The Hundred Luminaries of Hindi Cinema (1996) and Indian Cinema, The Bollywood Saga (2004). Recently, Raheja has started a weekly open discussion group called, ‘Let’s Talk Over Chai’ that enables professionals from myriad spheres to exchange opinions on trenchantly topical issues and, of course, Raheja’s first love, cinema.
JITENDRA KOTHARI is a passionate film archivist and film historian. Currently the Deputy Editor of Bollywood News Service, Jitendra found journalism the perfect cauldron to merge related interests: literature, numbers, history and the movies. He has co-authored The Hundred Luminaries of Hindi Cinema and Indian Cinema, The Bollywood Saga with Raheja. Besides his long tenure as Deputy Editor of Moviemagazine, he has also scripted the BBC TV show Film India and worked on the film section of India Today online. Kothari’s commitment to documenting cinema history was shaped from personal journals in which he has, for years, recorded his comments on classic movies as well as filmographies of numerous creative entities connected to the Hindi film world.
ISBN - 9789380070995
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Pages : 240
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