Happy Birthday Guru Dutt: The Pyaasa star was the master of gloom and doom

On Guru Dutt's 91st birthday anniversary, we go back in time and revisit his oeuvre, style, and influence on contemporary filmmakers.

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Guru Dutt in a still from Pyaasa
Guru Dutt in a still from Pyaasa

Guru Dutt was probably the closest thing India had to Orson Welles. Like Welles, Dutt's oeuvre was given its due recognition after he died in 1964, sadly, at his own hands. Like Welles, Dutt was an amazing writer, director and actor, who could shift between these roles with great control and elan. Like Welles's works, Dutt's films were also visually rich, thematically daring, always staying true to their stories without glossing over their tragic elements to make them palatable; in fact, they were way ahead of their time.

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Looking back, Dutt, perhaps, was the first example among Indian actors and directors whose films straddled the fine line between "art" cinema and mainstream fare.

ALSO READ: Five best works of Guru Dutt

Dutt's pioneering achievement in cinema has not only been lauded in the country but also internationally. His Pyaasa is in the list of TIME Magazine's "All-Time" 100 Best Movies. In a 2002 directors and critics' poll by Sight and Sound magazine, both Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool were in the list of 160 greatest films of all time while Dutt himself was ranked 73 in the list of greatest directors of all time. In 2005, he made it to the list of CNN's Top 25 Asian actors of all time.

A still from Pyaasa
A still from Pyaasa

His films today are often seen or referred to as "dark". What is this "dark"? This myth of Guru Dutt has its roots in the now-household stories of his disorganized and tragic personal life, the mood and feel of his later day tragedies like Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, and that his personal life often seeped into his films, such as in the case of Saheb, Bibi Aur Ghulam.


On top of that, Dutt, together with long-time partner, the ace-cinematographer V.K. Murthy, introduced and developed a very luscious and moody kind of look in their films - evocative of German black-and-white noir cinematography - the pinnacle of which we see in Kaagaz Ke Phool. That might be another reason for associating Dutt with gloom and doom in Indian cinema.

A still from Kaagaz Ke Phool
A still from Kaagaz Ke Phool

In fact, Dutt's flirtations with the noir ethos started with his very first directorial Baazi starring Dev Anand, where the stylish actor played a small-time gambler who unwittingly gets involved in a larger criminal conspiracy in authentic film noir style. Anand (who became known for his city slicker roles in our desi versions of film noir made by Raj Khosla, Dutt, and Dev's older brother Chetan Anand) and Dutt's collaboration produced two really good crime films together; Baazi and Jaal, but sadly, they did not work after that.

A running theme in Dutt's films is how society chokes the voice of the underprivileged, and often, artistically inclined (cartoonist in Mr. and Mrs. '55, poet in Pyaasa, etc.) outsider. This perhaps stemmed from Dutt's constant anguish of feeling creatively misunderstood all his life. Kaagaz Ke Phool, today considered a classic, was, in fact, that biggest testament to this theory. Dutt put in a lot of love, sweat, and investment in the film which was the story of a self-obsessed filmmaker (Dutt) who falls in love with a young starlet (Rehman, his real-life love, outside of his marriage with Geeta Dutt), and his subsequent fall from grace. The film, however, that went on to become renowned for its cinematic excellence was a big box office flop and it is said that Dutt never recovered from that film's failure.

Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman
Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman

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Today, Dutt is spoken of with great regard and reverence by the top filmmakers and stars of the industry. Oscar Wilde said that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness"; nothing could be truer than that in the case of Dutt. His iconic crucification pose during Yeh Duniya Agar from Pyaasa has been replicated and parodied in numerous films and advertisements. His use of light and shadows, inspired by noir cinematography, to serve his stories of great passion and inner turmoil, have inspired some of the industry's top lensmen like the late Ashok Mehta and director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Perhaps, the best cinematic tribute to Dutt has come from Anurag Kashyap. His version of Yeh Duniya Agar, with lyrics and vocals by Piyush Mishra, in 2009's Gulaal is a visual tour-de-force. Recently, Kashyap remade Jata Kahan Hai Deewane from Dutt-produced C.I.D (1956) in Bombay Velvet.

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Today is his 91st birthday anniversary. As long as passionate filmmakers with an uncompromising, singular vision continue to make films in India, without considering to pander to whatever is the trending taste in the country, Guru Dutt and his legacy will always stay relevant. Happy Birthday, maestro.