A journey through films

Filmmaker ‘Kalatapswi’ K Viswanath in all his movies, irrespective of their themes, dealt with choice and its consequences

Tears trickle down Meenakshi’s face, as she realises for the first time Chandrasekhar’s love. She, who is about to board a plane to leave abroad, is faced with a choice, whether go back to city and confess love to a man, who supported her or go ahead in career, which she managed to create after making a series of difficult choices.

As the final call for passengers is made, she makes yet another hard choice and leaves the airport. She finds Chandrasekhar, a small time publicity designer, designing an ad with her signature dance move, confesses her love and the titles roll.

In the roughly three-minute sequence in the movie ‘Swarnakamalam’ (1987), Bhanu Priya superbly portrays the inner conflict that brews in a person, when he or she is about to make a choice. Choice essentially decides what a person can be and legendary director and Dada Saheb Phalke awardee K Viswanath in all his movies, irrespective of their themes, always dealt with choice and its consequences.
The director’s insistence on lead actor’s choice deciding the direction of story is perhaps derived from his choice to turn to direction from being a successful sound engineer.

It was on suggestion of his uncle T Kameswara Rao, who said that future would be bright for those joining the technical stream of films, Viswanath joined Vauhini Studios founded by great director B N Reddy, as an audiographer in 1967.

In ‘Swayamkrushi’ (1987), 10-year-old Chinna turns to vices due to his acquaintance with his father Govind (Charan Raj), which irks Sambayya (Chiranjeevi), who raised his sister’s son as his own. During the climax of the film, Chinna makes a choice of leaving his father and vices and turns a cobbler to join his uncle.

In a strange parallel albeit a small twist, Viswanath who was acquainted with the likes of Adurti Subba Rao, KV Reddy, BN Reddy, Tatineni Prakasa Rao and Bhanumati, developed interest in creative side of films – direction.

He often credited Adurti Subba Rao with not only treating him as sound recordist but allowing him to involve in all aspects of film making. It was actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao along with his partner Dukkipati Madhusudhana Rao, who asked Viswanath to join as associate director in Annapurna banner.

As his interests were now towards creative side of film making, thanks to his association with Adurti Subba Rao, he lapped up the offer and joined Annapurna Pictures and assisted Adurti for many films under the banner.

He was associate director for ‘Muga Manasulu’ (1963). When the concept of casting director was barely heard of in Telugu cinema, he along with ace writer Mullapudi Venkata Ramana donned the role, when Adurti announced that he would be making a film with entire cast of new comers.

The movie was ‘Tene Manasulu’ (1965) and the duo of Viswanath and Ramana auditioned several actors and actresses, before finalising Krishna, Ram Mohan, Sandhya Rani and Sukanya as the main leads. Actress and MP Hema Malini attended the auditions but couldn’t make to the final cut, as she was deemed too thin.

He turned a director for Annapurna in 1965 and made ‘Aatma Gowravam’ based on eponymous novel by ace writer Yeddanapudi Sulochana Rani. Viswanath also won Nandi award for Best Director for the movie.

He followed it with ‘Private Master’ (1967), which remains actor Krishna’s only film in which he played a negative role. In the same year, he penned story for the film ‘Sudigundalu’ directed by Adurti Subba Rao.

The Nageswara Rao starrer not only won Nandi and Filmfare south awards for best picture but also won laurels at Tashkent Film Festival. Till date the film remains a cult classic and it also has then 8-year-old Nagarjuna in a cameo role.

Vishwanath’s tryst with music is legendary. All his movies have songs that turned out to be classics that have great lyrical value. “Preminchi Pelli Chesuko...” from ‘Aatma Gowravam’ saw audience swaying to the melody. In his musical drama ‘Undamma Bottu Pedatha’, the song “Ravamma Mahalakshi...” was a rage and is still heard on radio.

It was C Narayana Reddy’s “Charana Kinkinulu...” for ‘Chelleli Kaapuram’ (1971) that made audience to wait for Viswanath’s movies, just to listen to songs. Goosebumps are guaranteed for the listeners, in the stanzas, which are laced with complex Telugu and Sanskrit words.

It is believed that Viswanath was trained in classical music and hence his insistence on melodies with lyrical values. However, many a times, the director stated that he doesn’t know anything about music and lyrics, and hence he gives a lot of freedom to music directors and lyricists to show their talent.

It was Chandra Mohan and Jayaprada starrer ‘Siri Siri Muvva’ (1976) that changed the fortunes of Vishwanath. He, who made movies on social and women issues until then began to be viewed as an auteur.

He remade ‘Siri Siri Muvva’ into Hindi as ‘Sargam’ starring Rishi Kapoor, who gave one of his finest performances in the film. The song “Dafli Waale...” was such a huge hit that ace director Karan Johar gave a tribute to it by including the lines of Mukhuda in a song “Radha on the Dance Floor..” in his movie ‘Student of the Year’.

His ‘Sankarabharanam’ (1980) is one of the few films that changed the face of Telugu cinema. Produced by Edida Nageswara Rao, the film failed to find buyers at the time of release. The makers had to sell it for a pittance to a buyer, who had a tie-up with very few theatres across the state and the agreement was to run it only for a week.

Viswanath, who has close association with legendary actress Bhanumati, invited her for a special screening. The actress was completely floored by the movie and predicted that it will rule the roost. Her prediction came true; word of mouth spread as wild fire and people thronged theatres to see the film.

Not only was the film a huge hit, it revived Carnatic music scenario, which until the point of time lay dormant. Prior to that, Viswanath approached producer of his film ‘Siri Siri Muvva’ to produce ‘Sankarabharanam’; while Edida Nageswara Rao wanted Akkineni Nageswara Rao to play the role of Sankara Sastry, he wanted Sivaji Ganesan for the part. The casting choices did not happen and they zeroed in on JV Somayajulu - a theatre actor.

The movie accorded Somayajulu a saintly status and when the team toured the state to celebrate the success of the film, he found it hard to even smoke, as people couldn’t fathom Sankara Sastry smoking.

With ‘Sankarabharanam’ and ‘Siri Siri Muvva’ started Vishwanath’s association with producer Edida Nageswara Rao that saw four more classics including, ‘Saagara Sangamam’ (1983), ‘Swati Mutyam’ (1986), ‘Swayam Krushi’ (1987) and ‘Aapadbhandavudu’ (1992).

‘Swati Mutyam’ earned international laurels for Viswanath, the story of plight of autistic man moved audiences across the world. It is said that the movie inspired Hollywood movies like ‘Rain Man’ and ‘Forrest Gump’.

The movie also marked acting debut of Allu Arjun, who was seen in a small cameo as one of the grand sons of Kamal Haasan in the film’s opening and climax scenes. With Sankarabhranam, started Viswanath’s fixation with letter ‘S’ and most of his films made since invariably had titles starting with letter ‘S’.

While it is believed that Viswanath directed only social dramas, it wasn’t the case. He has handful of films that are of thriller genre. These include Sobhan Babu starrer ‘Kalantakulu’ (1978) a whodunit flick and much-delayed Hindi film ‘Aurat Aurat Aurat’, which is a court room drama. Though the movie started shooting in 1981-82, it got delayed for various reasons and was released only in 1994.

He was one of the very few south Indian film makers who saw success in Bollywood. He directed as many as seven films, including remakes and originals. The likes of Rishi Kapoor (‘Sargam’), Mithun Chakravarty (‘Jag Utha Insaan’), Anil Kapoor (‘Eeshwar’) and Ajay Devgn (‘Dhanwan’) acted in his films.

Rakesh Roshan in an emotional interview admitted that he learnt film making from Viswanath. “If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably have not directed by first film ‘Khudgarz’ and then all the others including ‘Krissh’,” he said reacting to news of Viswanath being conferred with Dada Saheb Phalke award.

While Chandra Mohan starrer ‘Subhodyam’ (1980) with lilting melodies like “Kanchiki Potava Krishnamma...” was a treat to music lovers, it fared poorly at box office. Rakesh Roshan, who was then shooting ‘Aurat...’ liked the concept of lazy man, who doesn’t like to work and suggested few changes to the script and it was later made as ‘Kaam Chor’ (1982). It launched Rakesh Roshan as an independent producer.

The director, who is on a well deserved leave, says he is not satisfied. “I don’t think I am satisfied with what I did so far. Not only me, you can ask any artiste - no one will say that they are satisfied. Art, music, and poetry are vast subjects, just like an ocean. Even though I made ‘Sankarabharanam’, I still think there is something left and I have to make a film on it.”