Kaagaz ke Phool (1959)

Directed by: Guru Dutt
Music: SD Burman
Lyrics: Kaifi Azmi, Shailendra
Starring: Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman,
Baby Naaz, Johnny Walker,
Veena, Minoo Mumtaz,
Pramila, Mahesh Kaul

Earlier this year, I missed Raj Khosla’s birth centenary. Today is the birth centenary of his mentor and friend, Guru Dutt, a luminary in his own right, and someone who has contributed his mite to the golden age of Hindi cinema. It seemed only fitting that I acknowledge and celebrate this milestone.

The question was, how? Do I write about him under ‘The Masters’? Do I curate a list of songs, given that he was an accomplished song director? Or do I review one of his films? (I have reviewed two of my favourite Guru Dutt films before – Mr & Mrs 55, which is a guilty pleasure, and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam, which, though not directed by him, had his fingerprints all over it.)

After much dithering, I decided to write about his directorial swansong, Kaagaz ke Phool, the last film he directed, the film whose failure destroyed Dutt in more ways than one.

The film unfolds in flashback. An old, bedraggled man sits on an empty set in Ajanta Studios as his past flashes by to the operatic notes of Dekhi zamaane ki yaari…  the old man was once the highly acclaimed director, Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt). He is wealthy, successful and powerful. So powerful, in fact, that he can override both a successful actress (who’s been signed on as the lead in his upcoming film), and the producer who has a penchant for his heroine.

But Sinha has one hidden sorrow – his daughter, Pammi (Baby Naaz) has been sent away to boarding school by his estranged wife, Beena (Veena). Sinha is forbidden from meeting her, though he does sneak off to Dehradun where his daughter is very pleased indeed to meet him.

It’s a touching reunion but it is tragically cut short by a teacher who informs Sinha that he is not permitted to meet his daughter. Her mother is her guardian, and she has not given permission for Sinha to visit.

Furious, Sinha goes to Delhi to meet Beena. Her very Westernised parents give him short shrift – if Beena had known Sinha would join films, she would never have married him. They make it obvious that they despise the film industry and, by association, Sinha as well. Beena simply slams the door in his face and Sinha is forced to take his leave.

Caught in a thunderstorm, Sinha takes shelter under a tree, where he runs into a young woman. Assuming that he will, like many men, seize his chance to flirt with her, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman) tells him off in no uncertain terms. 

Charmed by her simplicity, and seeing that she’s cold and wet, Sinha hands his overcoat over and, hailing a taxi, leaves for the railway station.

Soon, Shanti, an orphan who is struggling to earn her living, comes to Bombay. She still has Sinha’s overcoat, and having found his card inside its pocket, comes to the studio to return it to him. Unwittingly, she wanders onto his set, disturbing the shoot. Later, when Sinha is viewing the rushes, he’s transfixed by Shanti’s face; it had been captured on film. 

This is his Paro, the simple girl of his imagination. He offers Shanti the role and the huge sum – to her – of Rs1000 as her fee. Reluctantly, Shanti agrees.  

The resulting relationship soon traverses the boundaries between professional and personal. There’s nothing spoken – Sinha is still married, after all – but the attraction between two people thrown together by circumstances is evident in their fleeting glances and spontaneous gestures. But when Shanti stays over to take care of a wounded Sinha, the latter sends her away much to her chagrin. It's only later that she realises why. 

They both know they have no future together, but gossip magazines have a field day speculating about the affair between the director and his heroine. The gossip takes its toll on Pammi, who’s teased unmercifully by her schoolmates. Upset and angry, Pammi runs away to Bombay to live with her father.

Sinha is glad to see his daughter, of course, but Pammi has other plans up her sleeve. The most important of which is to bring her estranged parents together. 

And for that, Shanti must be removed from the picture – both personally and professionally.

Released in 1959, Kaagaz ke Phool was a box-office failure. However, unlike what most articles about the film would have you believe, the film was not autobiographical – Dutt had not had a single failure until this film, even if they were not all blockbusters. The films he produced after the debacle of Kaagaz ke Phool weren’t failures either. Both Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (directed by longtime associate Abrar Alvi) and Chaudhvin ka Chaand (directed by his assistant, M Sadiq) were commercially successful. Whether Kaagaz ke Phool mirrored his personal disillusionment with the film industry, the breakdown of his marriage and his relationship with his heroine, Waheeda Rehman, and whether he meant it to be a reflection of his life is a moot point.

Kaagaz ke Phool falls back upon the story of Saratchandra Chatterjee’s Devdas, the story that Dutt’s character is filming, the story of a man who drank himself to death. The parallel track highlights the relationship between the self-destructive filmmaker and his muse, the beautiful Shanti. 

 

The film, steeped in melancholy and bound by a morose, regressive script, was not very well-received by audiences who wanted something more hopeful and entertaining. The rejection of his magnum opus hastened Dutt’s descent into depression, alcoholism, and his suicide a mere five years later. To that extent, the film was almost prophetic. So, whether art mirrored life or vice versa is a matter of speculation and beyond the capacity of this blog.

What is outstanding, of course, is the cinematography. VK Murthy, known as 'Guru Dutt’s eyes’, created magic on celluloid. 

He used light and shade (the beam of light shot in Waqt ne kiya, for instance) to maximum effect and deservedly won the Filmfare Award for Best Cinematography for the film. Shammi Kapoor rightly lauded him as the ‘hero of the film’. The music in this film has also stood the test of time. Under SD Burman’s baton, Kaifi Azmi (and Shailendra – for one song) penned the lyrics for some of the best philosophical musings in verse. 

Waheeda Rehman. She's luminous. And as Shanti, she's a strange mixture of forthright commonsense and naïveté. When asked why she doesn't have a warm coat: "Sardi zukham muft milte hai. Garm coat ke liye paise lagte hain", she quips. But she's both resilient and independent. Despite having been brought up in an orphanage, she's educated herself by knitting sweaters. And when Sinha tells her she'll be paid Rs1000 to be an actress, she demurs. After all, to live a decent life, all one needs is Rs150. Little wonder then that Sinha is charmed by her simplicity and courage. 

The two of them have a nice chemistry between them and play off each other very well, both through their dialogues and through their silences. 

In fact, Guru Dutt is strangely likeable (I'm not a fan of his acting). Especially in the first half, where he is well able to portray his character's complexities. 

He's a perfectionist; he will not give in to market demands if it means going against his vision. That's made clear when he does not give in to his leading lady's demands to be a more glamorous Paro. Or when he steadfastly stands by Shanti when the studio bosses reject her as an actress. He's compassionate – allowing an extra to put her baby to sleep before coming on set – and loving; losing custody of his daughter is the final nail in his coffin. Sinha's attraction to Shanti only finds voice when he realises how much she understands him. 

What didn’t work as well was Johnny Walker’s track – Dutt was allegedly forced to incorporate the scenes to leaven the stark tragedy unfolding on screen. Johnny Walker plays Rakesh, Veena’s brother, a flighty young man with a penchant for the races.

His romance with Juliet (Minoo Mumtaz), while light and frothy, is not well-integrated into the plot and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Neither does the character of Beena – she’s aristocratic, wealthy, and snobbish. But why and how did her relationship with Sinha crumble? Parental pressure? (Her parents obviously despise Sinha but how did they permit their daughter’s marriage in the first place?) When Sinha comes to talk to her, she shuts the door. But as he walks away, she watches him from behind the slightly open door. 

Does she still harbour feelings for him? The film doesn’t explore her motivations at all. In the absence of any narrative arc, Beena comes across as a stereotype rather than a flesh-and-blood person.

Kaagaz ke Phool, viewed against the mystique that Dutt’s name still generates, has become somewhat of a cult classic. So, is it worth a watch? Definitely. There are very few films that talk about the underbelly of the film industry, the vagaries of film-making, the exploitation of the vulnerable and the ephemerality of fame with such insight. Kaagaz ke Phool, despite uneven scripting and an overarching sense of tragedy, is an important film for any cinephile.

You can watch a clean print of this film at Tom Daniels' YouTube channel, here. 

p.s. It’s been a while since I’ve visited my blog. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my readers who continue to read my old posts and post comments, thus ensuring that the blog isn’t completely moribund. Thank you.