- Raj Kapoor blended a western style romance with the theme of social
revolt, and the result was that the unkempt inherited the earth.
Alternately, he splurged himself with glittering showmanship, becoming
the most internationally renowned figure in the Indian cinema, a
pedestal from which he has still not descended. While Shantaram devolved
on the need for social reform, and Abbas on economic disparities, Raj
Kapoor dealt with the interaction of both on the underprivileged, at the
same time insinuating that the underdog was a glamorous rather than
reprehensible hero. That he has not always been able to adjust suitably
to the times, and that spectacle eventually got the upper hand, does not
alter the fact that he has made the most canny compromise between art
and commercial expediency in the conventional Indian cinema.
- The canny compromise continues, so does Raj Kapoor's effort to keep up
with the times, in his own way. To begin at the end, in the final
analysis, Raj Kapoor remains today on the straight and narrow path that he
had started on almost forty years ago. He has changed the locale, the
environment, moved out of the sharp light and shade of the black and white
films, and into the larger- than-life hues of the Technicolor screen of
today. But the naive and sentimental lover of the forties, the idealist
debunker, the heroic underdog, still remain the major underlying motifs in
his work. In his latest film, yet to be released, the son of a wealthy,
industrialist father is an idealist of the old order, and a philosopher in
search for inner tranquility. His father's craving for more wealth and
power leads Naren to exclaim: 'The father cannot see his son before the
banknotes, the son cannot see his father behind them.
- Entering the popular film industry as a clapper-boy in the Bombay
Talkies studio, Raj Kapoor became a producer, director and actor for his
first film, Aag, in 1948. Born in Peshawar on 14 December 1924, Ranbirraj
Kapoor started his career on the stage with his illustrious father,
Prithviraj Kapoor. Strikingly handsome and ambitious, Prithviraj Kapoor
arrived in Bombay in 1929, joined the Indian Film Company, appeared in
Alam Ara, the first Indian talkie, and toured the country staging
Shakespeare's plays. In 1944 he formed Prithvi Theaters, which still
functions today under the supervision of another actor son, Shashi Kapoor.
The sons and grandsons of Prithviraj have all been actors. Raj Kapoor
himself, though he assisted director Kedar Sharma at Ranjit Studios in
1946, was already an established actor when he made Aag. His first film
role was at the age of eleven, in Inquilab, directed by Debaki Basu. By
1948 he had already acted in eight more films.
- Though Aag was not a dramatic success at the box-office, it yet fired
the imagination of the post-war youth in India. Unusual and fantastic
though the story might be, it commanded credibility merely through its
intense portrayal of a highly romantic relationship set within the
framework of a brooding melodrama ideal for the black and white medium.
Raj Kapoor himself made a poignant comment on his first film: 'I'll never
forget Aag because it was the story of youth consumed by the desire for a
brighter and more intense life. And all those who flitted like shadows
through my own life, giving something, taking something, were in that
film.'
- Barsaat, his second film, was a phenomenal success. Young Nargis, with
her haunting beauty once again teamed up with Raj Kapoor in the main
roles. The confrontation in Aag was between inner and outer beautyÑthe
beauty of the soul hidden under physical disfigurement. In Barsaat, moral
decadence is in conflict with integrity; truth with falsehood; Pran, the
romantic idealist, with Gopal, the ruthless rationalist. And weaving it
all together are two separate tales of love and loyalty, one ending in
death, the other in happiness. The music, a lively confluence of Western
and Indian, enhanced the mood of quiet melancholy created so ably by the
black and white camera of Jal Mistry.
- With Barsaat's success, it became obvious that RK Films should now have
their own studio. Construction of the four acre RK Studio began in 1950 at
Chembur, a then remote and sparsely inhabited suburb of Bombay. The first
stint of shooting was done even before the walls and ceilings were in
place. This was the incredible dream sequence of Awara, Raj Kapoor's third
film, to be released in 1951. The sequence marked the beginning of Raj
Kapoor's involvement and experiments with the spectacular and the
grandiose. Awara revolved around a fundamental dichotomy, between
environment and heredity. The hero of Awara, a young tramp who comes to
Bombay in search of an honorable existence, finds himself caught in the
web of a nefarious underworld. He emerges triumphant from his ordeal,
establishing the power of truth and love in a decadent society. The dream
sequence was very much a part of the overall scheme. It was to portray the
tramp's conflicting loyalties towards Jagga, the criminal who brought him
up in his own image, and Rita, the lawyer, the ward of a respected judge,
the image of truth and justice. While it externalized the dreamer's
conflict in a dramatic manner for the viewers, the sequence helped the
hero to face his dilemma and come to a moral decision. The art director,
M.R. Achrekar, converted an entire floor of the studio into a giant set.
In all there were six or seven such sets put up for the sequence which
took three months and a couple of lakhs to complete and lasted for nine
minutes on the screen.
- Awara, which was a moderate success in the beginning when it was first
screened in India, became an overnight favorite with audiences in the USSR
and the Middle East. The Soviet distribution began in 1954, the same year
that Satyajit Ray conquered the West with his Pather Panchali. While Ray's
film appealed to the aesthete, the discerning cinema viewer, Raj Kapoor's
Awara stormed its way into the hearts of the lay audience from the East.
Raj Kapoor and Nargis became popular pin-ups in the bazaars of the Arab
world, while the Soviets, who were said to have made a massive
distribution of Awara, dubbed into a number of languages, even flew prints
out to two Soviet expeditions near the North Pole. The songs from the
film, translated into different languages, were sung in the streets of the
many countries where the film was shown.
- In an attempt to diversify production, Raj Kapoor encouraged his
assistants to direct films under his banner. But sometimes not only the
inspiration, but much of the work remained Raj Kapoor's own. Boot Polish,
which was produced the year Awara hit the headlines in the USSR, was
supposed to have been directed by Prakash Arora, yet it bears the
unmistakable stamp of Raj Kapoor's craftsmanship right through the film.
Most of the final version of the film was shot or reshot by him. It told
the story of two children who earned their living as shoeblacks in the
streets of Bombay. The film which recreated the world of the Bombay slums
of the times, had a quality of direct realism that makes it a worthwhile
document of the period. On another level, as a great tear-jerker, it
appealed to the common audience, an increasing number of whom came from
the working classes. The successful collaboration with Abbas, a left-wing
writer, in Awara, had already attracted Raj Kapoor to proletarian themes,
and Boot Polish was followed by Shree 420, based on a screenplay by K.A.
Abbas and V.P. Sathe.
- In Shree 420, Raj Kapoor plays an honest country youth who comes to the
big bad city of Bombay in search of work, only to discover that an easier
life awaits him if he can abandon his conscience and accept a dishonest
existence. Already with Awara, Raj Kapoor had established the character of
a lovable tramp, which took on Chaplinesque undertones in this film. Shree
420 still remains one of the most memorable comedies of Indian cinema. The
opening sequence creates a mood of infectious nonchalance and fun which
spreads across the first half of the film. Needless to say, the film was
promptly distributed in the USSR where it was extremely well received,
though perhaps not in the same spectacular scale as Awara.
- 1957 saw the release of Jaagte Raho, which received the Grand Prix at
the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 1958. To direct this film under the RK
Films banner, Raj Kapoor had borrowed two major figures from the
progressive theater movement in Calcutta: Shambhu Mitra and Amit Maitra.
Both Shambhu Mitra and the music director for the film, Salil Chowdhury,
had belonged at one time to the Indian Peoples Theater Association, an
all-lndia left-wing cultural organization which had nurtured many a talent
of the times. But Jaagte Raho did not do well in the box-office, not till
it had won the international award. After that the film was reissued and
predictably ran to full houses. Raj Kapoor had once more cast himself in
the role of a ragged country yokel in this present-day allegory. Wandering
alone at night in Calcutta, he enters a house for a drink of water and is
mistaken for a thief. Running from his pursuers, he goes from one flat to
the other, witnessing the real face of the city behind the curtained
windows of respectability. A Bengali version of the film, Ek Din Raatre,
was released the same year.
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