The tragic life of an Indian cinematographic genius

The emblematic director and actor Guru Dutt was only 39 years old when he died in 1964, but he left a cinematographic heritage which continues to resonate decades later.

Born on July 9, 1925 in the southern state of Karnataka, next week marks his centenary of birth. But the man behind the camera, his emotional disorders and his mental health difficulties remain largely unexplored.

Warning: This article contains details that some readers may find painful.

The classic Hindi film manufacturer such as Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool – Film School Staples for their timeless themes – Dutt forged a deeply personal and introspective cinema that was new at the post -independence time.

His complex characters often reflected his personal difficulties; His conspiracies approached universal patterns, inviting the public to face uncomfortable realities through a beautiful cinema.

Dutt’s beginnings were humble and his childhood was marked by financial difficulties and a turbulent family life. After his family moved to Bengal in eastern India to work, a young Dutt was deeply inspired by the culture of the region and that would shape his cinematographic vision later in life.

He dropped his last name – Padukone – after entering Bombay’s film industry in the 1940s. He made his debut not as director but as a choreographer, and also worked as a telephone operator to reach both ends. The turbulence and uncertainty of the decade – the struggle of independence of India had intensified – had an impact on the prospects of the budding filmmaker.

It was during this phase that he wrote Kashmakash, a story rooted in artistic frustration and social disillusionment, ideas that would later shape his Pyaasa cinematographic masterpiece.

Dutt’s friendship with his colleague Dev Anand – who quickly became famous as an actor – helped him have the chance to run his first film in 1951. The black thriller, Baazi, propelled him under the spotlight.

He quickly found love with the famous singer Geeta Roy, and according to many accounts, these first years were the happiest.

After Dutt launched his own film company, he marked consecutive successes with romantic comedies Aar-Paar and MR & Mme 55, both putting him in main roles. But aspiring with artistic depth, he decided to do what would become his decisive film – Pyaasa.

The striking and obsessive film explored the struggle of an artist in a materialist world and decades later, it would continue to be the only Hindi film in the list of Time magazine of the 100 largest films of the 20th century.

Dutt’s late younger sister, Lalitha Lajmi, who collaborated with me when I wrote her biography, said Pyaasa was her brother’s “dream project” and that “he wanted it to be perfect”.

As a director, Dutt liked to “create” the film because he took shape on the sets, bringing a lot of changes in the script and the dialogues and experimenting with camera techniques. While he was known to have abandoned and raised scenes, it reached disturbing levels during Pyaasa – for example, he drew 104 taking from the now famous climax sequence.

He cried and would put himself in poor condition when things were not going on properly, said Lajmi.

“Sleep escaped him. The abusive use and dependence on alcohol had started.

In 1956, when his dream project was in the middle of the end, DUTT, 31, tried to commit suicide.

“When the news arrived, we rushed to Pali Hill [where he lived]”Said Lajmi. He often called me, saying that we have to speak but wouldn’t say a word when I got there, “she added.

But after his release from the hospital, no professional support was sought by the family.

Mental health was a subject “socially stigmatized” at the time, and with a big money on Pyaasa, Lajmi said that the family had tried to move on, without fully confronting the reasons for the internal difficulties of his brother.

Released in 1957, Pyaasa was a critical and commercial triumph which catapulted himself to the celebrity. But the filmmaker has often expressed a feeling of emptiness despite his success.

The director of the chief photography of Pyaasa, VK Mildy, recalled that Dutt had said: “I wanted to be a director, actor, make good films – I made everything. I have money, I have everything, however I have nothing.”

There was also a strange paradox between Dutt’s films and his personal life.

His films often depicted strong and independent but out -of -screen women, as Lajmi remembers, he expected his wife to adopt more traditional roles and wanted her to sing only in films produced by his business.

To keep his business flourishing, Dutt had a simple rule: each artistic bet must be followed by a banable commercial film.

But supported by the success of Pyaasa, he ignored his own rule and plunged directly into the production of his most personal, most expensive and semi-autobiographical film: Kaagaz Ke Phool.

He tells the story of the unhappy marriage of a filmmaker and confused with his muse. He ends strangely with the death of the filmmaker after having failed to reconcile with his acute solitude and his sentenced relations.

Although now praised like a classic, it was a commercial failure at the time, a Blow Dutt would never have overcome.

In the documentary Channel 4 in search of Guru Dutt, his co-star Waheeda Rehman remembered that he had said: “Life mein do salvation toh cheezen hai – kamyaabi ar failure. (There are only two things in life: success and failure) There is nothing between the two. “”

After Kagaz Ke Phool, he never made a film again.

But his business recovered over time, and he made a high return as a producer at Charthvin Ka Chand, the most successful film on the success of his career.

He then launched Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam directed by his trusted screenwriter Abrar Alvi. At that time, said Lajmi, his personal life was in serious troubles, marked by mood swings.

The film plunged into the loneliness of a woman trapped in a marriageless marriage with a philancé owner, often tyrannical in an opulent but feudal world.

The writer Bimal Mitra remembers that Dutt told him about his fight against insomnia and dependence on sleeping pills during this period. At that time, her marriage had collapsed and mental health had worsened. Mitra recalled many conversations with Guru Dutt’s constant chorus: “I think I will go crazy.”

One night, Dutt tried to commit suicide again. He was unconscious for three days.

Lajmi says that after that, on the advice of the doctor, his family called a psychiatrist to find out about the treatment of DUTT but they never followed. “We have never called the psychiatrist again,” she added with regret.

For years, she believed that her brother was crying silently with help, perhaps feeling trapped in a dark space where no one could see her pain, so dark that even he could not find a way to go out.

A few days after the release of Dutt, the shooter of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam resumed as if nothing had happened.

When Mitra asked him questions about the incident, DUTT said: “Nowadays, I often wonder what was trouble, what was the agitation that I was determined to commit suicide? When I think about it, I am terrorized with fear. But that day, I did not feel a dilemma to swallow these sleeping pills.”

The film was a success, has become the official entry of India to the 1963 Berlin Film Festival and also won a national prize.

But Dutt’s personal difficulties continued to go up. He separated from his wife and even if he continued to play in films, he fought against deep solitude, often turning to alcohol and sleeping pills for a respite.

On October 10, 1964, DUTT, 39, was found dead in his room.

“I know he had always wished it [death]he aspira … and he obtained it: “wrote his co-star Waheeda Rehman in the Journal of Film Industry, 1967.

Like the protagonist of Pyaasa, the real acclamation only came to DUTT after his departure.

Cinema enthusiasts often wonder what could have been if he had lived longer; Perhaps he would have continued to reshape the film landscape of India with his visionary and poetic works.

Yasser Usman is the author of the Guru Dutt biography: an unfinished story