Book Director's chair
Amongst all the many books on Hindi cinema I ve read over the years most have been about actors or rather occasionally composers singers or even lyricists Biographies autobiographies analytical insights into their work Meena Kumari Balraj Sahni Asha Bhonsle Rajesh Khanna Ashok Kumar SD Burman Majrooh Sultanpuri Sahir Ludhianvi Helen Lata Mangeshkar Dev Anand and many others By contrast with these I can count on the tips of my fingers the number of books I ve read about directors Hrishikesh Mukherjee by Jai Arjun Singh Basu Chatterji by Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Nasir Hussain by Akshay Manwani even an autobiography by Kidar Sharma But other than that Not too many Or none that I ve read though I will admit I am yet to read both Nasreen Munni Kabir s and Sathya Saran s books on Guru Dutt. Director's Chair ebooks free I was keen therefore to read Manek Premchand s Director s Chair Hindi Cinema s Golden Age when its publisher Blue Pencil Publishing offered to send me a complimentary copy I am of the firm belief that a director plays a huge role in making a film what it is yes everybody plays their part but how so many disparate elements are brought together how the sum becomes greater than its parts is up to the director. Director's Chair kindle direct Director s Chair is a bulky book close to 600 pages and I will confess I approached it with some trepidation I envisioned a long slog This book after all covers hundreds of directors and no as Premchand explains in his introduction to the book that does not by any means include everybody who ever directed a Hindi film just those who directed even one film that is by some measure noteworthy. Director's Chair booking As its subtitle clarifies this book focuses only on the directors of Hindi cinema s golden age Not all Indian cinema though there are occasional glimpses of exemplary work being done in regional cinema mostly in the context of directors like Satyajit Ray SS Vasan etc who may have made forays into Hindi cinema but did their best work in a regional language Not even Hindi cinema in its than a century of existence only Hindi cinema from its inception up to 1980 though in this case too there are passing mentions of films directed after 1980 by directors such as Govind Nihalani or Muzaffar Ali who first made a mark for themselves before the cut off date for the book s focus period Rekha in Muzaffar Ali s Umrao Jaan After his introduction in which Premchand also explains something of what a director really does and is responsible for plus how that differs from a producer s job description Premchand goes on to the first part of the book This The Early Masters covers the starting years of the Hindi film industry and includes people like Dadasaheb Phalke Ardeshir Irani the director of India s first talkie Alam Ara to other equally successful and talented directors who might have been forgotten by most over time Chandulal Shah for instance or Baburao Painter There is an interesting anecdote in the context of Baburao Painter which caught my eye how it is thanks to him that entertainment tax began to be levied on films in India Baburao PainterThe directors enumerated in The Early Masters have been listed in alphabetical order with depending upon each director s importance in the realm of Hindi cinema something about the films they directed a brief synopsis where logical of a landmark film or two any pioneering films or innovations and so on For most of the directors there is also some level of personal history involved and it s interesting to see what varied backgrounds these men and a very few women like Fatima Begum came from what careers they abandoned to enter cinema and how cinema evolved in India Fatima Begum Hindi cinema s first woman directorThe second section of the book The Significant Virtuosos is the largest section of Director s Chair spanning all of post independence Hindi cinema up to 1980 and taking up than 400 pages This is where almost all of the familiar names the titans come in Bimal Roy V Shantaram Vijay Anand Nasir Husain Mehboob Khan Raj Kapoor Guru Dutt And hundreds of others from actors turned directors Sunil Dutt for Yaadein and Reshma aur Shera for instance to flash in the pan directors whose works have far outlived their makers. Custom branded director's chairs The last few sections of the book are relatively shorter There s The Honourable Others including people who directed the one off film or whose films didn t make much of an impact This is followed by Special Notes which include films made by comedians and so many of these It seems pretty much all the comic actors even those not especially successful ended up directing films films based on or inspired by published works foreign nationals who directed Hindi films remakes of films various statistics about Hindi cinema across the decades and other such trivia. Directors chair with side table walmart I enjoyed this book a lot As I mentioned it s a long book but one aspect of it which really works besides Manek Premchand s writing which is easy reading is that it s not monotonous If Premchand had discussed each director in exactly the same way if the same format had been followed for all it might have swiftly become a question of plodding through one biography after another But that s not how Director s Chair is Instead what Premchand does is to keep it fluid keep it varied There are excerpts from reviews that acerbic Baburao Patel is in evidence but so are others There are anecdotes there are quotes. Book Director's chair exercises For the big guns the Mehboob Khans and Guru Dutts and Shantarams of the film world there are detailed and often extremely interesting biographies with fascinating insights into their lives and their work There was trivia here that I hadn t known For example that Mehboob Khan had done some pretty daring stunts in the days of the silent films or that if things had worked out differently he might have been the star of India s first talkie Alam Ara 1931 A scene from Alam Ara 1931 Or that Bimal Roy s cinema had become very popular in the Soviet Union or even that Kishore Kumar had been the so hard to believe despite Naukri initial choice for the eponymous Anand of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee film Or that Hemen Gupta director of films like Kabuliwala Ferry and Anand Math was so ardent a freedom fighter he even went to jail for his anti British activities Hemen Gupta director and freedom fighterThere is no set pattern so a quick list of films with a birth and death date may suffice for one director while pages and pages may be devoted to people like AR Kardar Raj Kapoor Vijay Anand and Chetan Anand etc. EPub Director's chair I won t say that everything is completely flawless There are a couple of slip ups Nargis s character in Miss India for instance is described as a frolicking tomboy in one place a flippant urban tomboy in another both pretty much opposite to what this character really is despite Jaise ko taisa nehle pe dehla 1984 has been credited to Aldous Huxley not George Orwell its actual author Shammi Kapoor s character in Professor has been described as having been employed to tutor the two young women played by Kalpana and Praveen Choudhary not actually he is employed to tutor their little brothers him ending up teaching the women Sanskrit happens as an afterthought Pritam is told to tutor the girls as wellBut yes there were few very few errors and just the occasional repetition nothing really that came in the way of my enjoying this book I liked it a lot it was informative engrossing entertaining inspiring And I liked that Premchand doesn t go overboard with the praise He is very level factual and generally fairly objective when it comes to discussing these directors For instance he gives praise where it is due and doesn t hesitate to criticize the same director where that s in order. Director's Chair books While reading this I kept having to go online to check if possibly so and so film was available for viewing By the end of it I had added around five films to my watch list on YouTube and had searched for many all of which I have had to give up on as being among the lost films of India. Directors chair with side table folding Highly recommended If you are interested in Hindi cinema of the yesteryears do get this book it s not just a very good tribute to the directors who made all those films but also in its way a guide to the cinema of those decades Director s Chair Hindi Cinema s Golden Age
| Director's Chair: Hindi Cinema's Golden Age By Manek Premchand |
| 8195666086 |
| 9788195666089 |
| English |
| 572 |
| Paperback |
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