Film in Retrospect: Images Images

yaasa was about the artist's search for recognition for his work. But an indifferent society, including his family, rejects the poet as a lazy wastrel and even sells his poems as waste paper. "If my poems can be sold for ten annas, and my existence has meaning only because of them, does it mean that my life is worth only ten annas?" the artist asks of himself. "Wouldn't it be better then to die?" This was the dilemma that became the cent ral preoccupation of many Guru Dutt films-that an individual with a sense of destiny may pursue a particular goal that seems more important to him than life itself, even when all others around him consider that goal totally worthless.

From personal experience, Guru Dutt knew that this question is most often posed in the life of an artist with the further irony that society's evaluation of an artist may change overnight and quite unpredictably. The success that comes to him is not always because of the intrinsic worth of his works but often only because of chance. Thus in Pyaasa, we have the poet becoming successful because of the mistaken announcement of his suicide. From this arise two further Guru Dutt themes-one, the market culture of life where everything may be bought or sold and evaluated according to the price, and two, the basic antagonism that exists in social conditioning to the free flowering of life.

One of the most memorable sequences in Pyaasa is set in an amphitheatre. A large gathering has collected at a function in memory of the now popular poet. Vijay (Guru Dutt), who is believed dead. The latter is present though he is not recognised. On stage are many of those who had humiliated him the most during the years of his struggle. Also on stage is the macabre presence of his shrouded bust. Slowly Vijay begins to see fame and success as the meaningless accolades of hollow men. The anonymous gathering, the insincere speeches, the eager crowd-all take on the quality of a nightmare, The faceless people backlit to look like an army of silhouetted ghosts sit in silent unison waiting for the unveiling of the statue. What they are in for is a different kind of revelation. For the poet, first through a distracting whisper, then gradually louder as the song Yeh duniya agar and scene gain momentum, stands at the head of the hall accusing the world of false values and pretensions and rejecting all that it can offer as both shallow and worthless.

This theme of the artist struggling against society is carried through in all his major works. Pyaasa's poet is extended into the film-maker of Kaagaz Ke Phool. While the one film starts with the indifference of society and then moves on to the poet rejecting success when it does finally come to him, the other describes a successful film-maker's slow landslide into poverty and ruin as he loses the will to work because of loneliness and isolation. Again the theme is the indifference of society and the worthlessness of worldly success. The scene of public adulation in Kaagaz Ke Phool bears comparison with Pyaasa. A similar two-tiered hall is filled with a faceless back-lit audience. A central doorway brightly lit at the top of the frame is seen in the amphitheatre in Pyaasa. In Kaagaz Ke Phool a similar frame, with a semi-circular. glowing exit at the top centre of the frame is seen in the foyer of the hall. Huge staircases curve down on either side. The chorus is slow and soft as Suresh Sinha, the film-maker (Guru Dutt) enters the frame from below.

uddenly the staircases fill with people and the song too becomes louder and more strident. Except for the song, there is no effect on the sound track and the crowd is a mute mass as they surge around Suresh Sinha with outstretched autograph books and vacuous smiles. They seem to appear like so many phantoms on silent feet almost out of nowhere. Obviously both the films partake of the same nightmare. Chhoti Bahu in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is also involved in a struggle to maintain her self-respect and dignity against the corroding conventions around her. Unlike the other bahus of the Chaudhuri household, she is not satisfied by material wealth alone but obsessively and self-destructively pursues her need to live up to her own expectations of her role as a wife. To share a companionship with her husband is a very bourgeois concept that has a revolutionary resonance in the feudal haveli.

The Baazi gambler may not be a struggling artist but he is described as a free soul pursuiting gambling for the pleasure of exercising an uncanny talent But social needs force him into the straight-jacket mould of a crook. His only redemption is the deep love he has for his ailing sister. The Aar Paar taxi driver too is obsessed with the idea of freedom but finds himself being constantly enmeshed by other people's social ambitions. In Jaal, the world of the fishing village extends into its natural environs and nature. And Maria is the most loved offspring of this sylvan paradise. Tony appears in the midst of this bringing with him all the temptations of the big city including the lure of passion and romance. Maria is totally entrapped but rather than giving in, she, through strength of moral character and .through her own unshakable faith in herself, manages to lift Tony out of his moral and emotional indifference. Thus in a Guru Dutt film, life is often portrayed as stretched with this tension between one's individual nature and the warping pull of money.

The beetle that is crushed underfoot in the opening sequence of Pyaasa is in fact all forms of unselfconscious natural life that is snuffed out before it is allowed any self-expression. There is a strong opposition in all of Guru Dutt's films between the natural as represented by the innocent, the poor, the rural or the simple on the one hand and the artificial-that is the sophisticated, the rich, the urban or the westernized-on the other. This theme is apparent even in the lightest of his works like Aar Paar or Mr. & Mrs. 55. Reflecting perhaps the euphoric hope of a broadly socialist society that was emerging in India in the '50s, Guru Dutt either intuitively or deliberately chose as his central protagonists, characters who were, in one way or another, "classless".

In Baazi particularly, which was written in collaboration with Balraj Sahni, the characters are a Dostoevskian mix of all classes. There is the poor young crippled girl who brings luck to the dashing gambler and her ailing mother who is willing to stake her gold cross to help him out of a tight spot; the gentle invalid sister dreaming of a fine marriage for her brother; the rich lady doctor who practises her profession free in an underprivileged neighbourhood, the police officer with the troubled conscience, the rather tragic and forlorn dancing girl.

In the midst of this medley there is Dev Anand. Although he is shown as belonging to the lower-middle class there is a suggestion in one dialogue that he and his family have seen better days.

Tony, the smuggler in Jaal is of course a total social outcast but in the world of Jaal, it is not social stratifications that matter but moral commitments. In Aar Paar, the garage owner is shocked that a man he employed off the streets could have the effrontery to woo his daughter. But as the hero (Guru Dutt) points out, just because he enjoys a low social position at the moment, there is no reason to suppose that he cannot rise in the future. If in Baazi the contrast was between the hidden immorality of the rich and the sincere feelings of the poor, the contrast in Jaal was between rural contentment and urban ambitions. The analogy between Tony and the proverbial serpent in the Garden of Eden is drawn very clearly in the film with more than one deliberate reference to him as the serpent.

Pyaasa's Vijay is socially unacceptable even to his brothers. His college sweetheart decides that she must marry someone who can offer her more social security than him. The only people who recognise his worth are the prostitute Gulabo and the oil masseur, Abdul Sattar. This same social outcast suddenly becomes a celebrity with the news of his death and the publication of his poems. Suresh Sinha who during the course of Kaagaz Ke Phool sees both aspects of the social seesaw and remains untouched by either is contrasted sharply with his in-Iaws, the B.B. Vermas who specialise in anglicized manners and social inanities. The son, Rocky, is ideal material for one of Johnny Walker's characteristic take-offs. The world of the upper middle-class is shown as taken up with the appearance of things rather than the essence. In Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Bhootnath, the rustic educated youth neither belongs to the quasi-modern set-up of Mohini Sindoor where he finds employment nor the heavily ornate atmosphere of the haveli to which he is introduced through his tenuous relationship with Chhoti Bahu. His fascination is for the haveli, although history decrees him a part of Jaba's more rational world. Thus their preordained marriage is not a coincidence but an inevitability. Even in as light a film as Mr. & Mr. 55, the dreaming out-of-work cartoonist is exploited to the hilt by the angrez Sita Devi, who initiates the proposal to buy him, then accuses him of having sold himself.

What made Guru Dutt films memorable was not just his obsession 'with certain themes but the fervour and intensity with which they were portrayed on screen. In this context his own contribution as an actor was vital to his films. He had developed for himself an underplayed non-gesticulating style-how often he was seen on screen just walking or standing with his hands in his pockets-which combined with his rather vulnerable facial expression conveyed more eloquently than any carefully worked-out sequences could, the rather self-absorbed dreamer buffeted around by the vagaries of Fate. The romantic image of the tragic poet was his hallmark and because director and actor were so strongly identified with each other, it is how one thinks of him personally even today.

Another compelling element of a Guru Dutt film was the image. The visual style that he developed along with his cameraman V K Murthy (who worked with him from Jaal in 1952 through all his films) was not only immediately striking but instantly recognizable and remained constant from the time of Baazi down to Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. The main feature of this style was the sharp shadows and strong beams of light, the use of backlit frames with the main actors often in silhouette in the foreground and haze-suffused interiors. He had a tremendous feeling for a moving shadow across a face-or a character moving in or out of a shadow into light-so that the image became at the same time both enigmatic and expressive. He used the backs of actors for very much a similar effect. In fact one can quote a few instances of his main actor being introduced first from the back. In Pyaasa for instance, Vijay the poet is first seen from the back of his head as he lies day-dreaming on a lawn. Gulabo too is first seen from the back as she recites Vijay's poetry and even Abdul Sattar enters the frame in longshot then quickly turns his back to the camera before approaching closer just as the 'tel malish' song begins.

In Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, the first shot of Bhootnath is taken from his back as he stands looking at the haveli. Jaba too is first seen from her back as she laughs on hearing his name. A silhouette is similar to a back in that it is an outline of a mass without many details. One example of the many uses Guru Dutt made of the silhouette is the scene in which Suresh Sinha and Shanti sit talking in the large empty studio in Kaagaz Ke Phool. Although Guru Dutt's form was melodramatic, his actors' performances were always low key. Thus the silhouette, the shadow across the face, the mute back were used like moments of silence on a sound track, or the blank areas of a canvas-so that many levels of meaning could well up rather than have the connotations limited by articulation.

Guru Dutt had the uncanny knack of getting the best out of his music directors and lyricists. If many of his films were hits, it was as much because of the songs, as because of the film itself. Although he was often known to express a desire to make films without any songs, his talent for picturising songs and of using them with effect has been the envy of many a director. His songs were not used just as an interlude in the narrative but they usually subtly served to expand the perceptions of the audience.

Waqt ne kiya in Kaagaz Ke Phool with its atmosphere of unrelieved tragedy is used in the film at the point when Shanti and Suresh are discovering the depths of their feelings for each other when there isn't as yet any obstacle to their realizing a relationship. In fact it could have been used later after they have been forced apart by circumstances. The song itself would have remained just as memorable for its poetry and its music. But by Guru Dutt's use of it so early in the film, the song became more than just a lament of ill-fated lovers. It became less particular to Suresh and Shanti but instead expanded in its connotations to include the irreversibility of time the tragedy of man's desire for love and the bitter-sweet irony of life that was the director's dominant leitmotif.

To give another example of Guru Dutt's talent for the light and imaginative touch we have Johnny Walker's song in Mr. & Mrs. 55, Jane kahan merajigar gayaji. Johnny Walker suddenly describing rhythmic pirouettes starts opening and looking into desk drawers in his office while his typist girlfriend watches with testy curiosity. All we hear on the sound track are effects. There is a little exchange of dialogue with the girl friend before he walks upto a phone, dials a number and suddenly bursts into song into the mouth piece. The usual convention of an instrumental prelude to an approaching song has been replaced by Johnny Walker's stylized movements, a bit of staccato dialogue and the sound of the telephone dial. When the song does burst out, it manages to be both in tune with the preceding visuals and take us by surprise. Often Guru Dutt picturised his songs not on the central protagonists but on people who were outside of the mainstream narrative–construction workers, film extras, an itinerant toy seller, fisher folk, a sanyasini. In Pyaasa, one of its most famous songs Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo, is picturised on a stray sanyasini, while Gulabo and Vijay are on a terrace above the street where the song is being sung. For the sanyasini, the song is a convention of her religious vocation, but for Gulabo the song expresses her deepest sentiments articulating what it would be impossible for herto express herself. In visual terms too, Vijay stands immobile and unmoved almost like an icon in a temple while Gulabo at his back moves hesitatingly forward or retreats timidly with mute appeal dominating every nuance of gesture and expression. In this way Guru Dutt managed to inject tremendous profundity of feeling into what might have remained either a simple love song or a conventional bhajan.

With great depth of bitterness, Guru Dutt exposed the environment in which he worked in Kaagaz Ke Phool. The false tinsel world of films, the greedy producers, the pressures of the box-office, the corrupting influences, the petty-minded stars and the unforgiving fans. That he still succeeded in making films in this environment that were suffused with a personal vision of life and at the same time reflected the social tensions and aspirations of the period, could have been possible only at great cost to himself. The influence of Hollywood and the American film was manifest in his work-the romantic, tough hero, the gangster environment, the slick fast-paced cutting, the ballroom rhythms and the studio settings. In Aar Paar particularly, the rather obvious narrative in a thriller mould set against the streets and Sights of Bombay, is obviously shot with great feeling for the metropolis. This was the classic Hollywood genre that managed to inject the experience of actuality to any concoction of events. Since the Bombay formula insisted on comedy, Johnny Walker and Tun Tun became permanent members of his unit. But again one can see in every comic sequence or character developed, an attempt to give it body and a specific social setting. Thus we have Johnny Walker playing at various times a Parsi gangster with a moral code, a press photographer often called on to keep his cartoonist friend monetarily afloat, the oil masseur of Pyaasa or a high society playboy. The use of Bombay Hindi too must have been both a highly perceptive comic touch and the symbol for thousands of filmgoers all over the country of the street-side resourcefulness of the conglomerate metropolis that Bombay was and is.

here are directors who have been praised for developing a style or technique that comes imperceptionably into the film. But Guru Dutt always used his craft in a way that was very perceptible to his audience. His dramatic lighting, sharp cuts, very rhythmically-paced song sequences, and stylized acting constantly drew attention to themselves. Thus even a film like Mr. & Mrs. 55, that had such an obviously regressive social stand on the question of women, could become a delight to watch for the exposition of the director's craft. An example: In Kaagaz Ke Phool, Suresh Sinha walks up a large curved staircase in order to confront his estranged wife. Dramatic music accompanies him and the rhythm of his footsteps is taken up by a booming drum-beat. He reaches the head of the staircase and the music is cut off by the sharp sound of his wife banging the door in his face. Furious, he turns around and hurriedly descends-this time to total silence. This shot cuts to an exterior shot of the house with Suresh Sinha walking down the large portico steps. This time the sound track uses the light patter of his feet (creating a totally different expectation in the audience as compared to the previous scene) preparing us for a light-hearted sequence with Rocky (Johnny Walker) that is to follow.

Since Guru Dutt did not work through realism but through melodrama and industry-dictated fantasies, this transparent technique that he evolved seems more appropriate than a technique that would have created a total illusion. The audience remained acutely aware all the time of the presence of Guru Dutt behind the camera while viewing his films. Which is perhaps why his films, in spite of the slick Hollywood technique and the obvious Bombay masala ingredients never became mere escapist fare.