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Basu Chatterji
And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema
Anirudha Bhattacharjee
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AmazonA behind-the scenes look at Basu Chatterji’s most loved films
This is the enigma of Basu Chatterji. His films did not have the box-office ingredients that could make them a distributor’s hot pick, nor were they art house cinema that needed unravelling over many cups of tea. He was the quintessential ‘middle-of-the-road’ film-maker, a genre that he founded in Bollywood. His films, whether it beChhoti Si Baat orRajnigandha orChitchor, were about common people and common problems, such as employment and love, social and economic inequalities, and joint family conflicts. Like fellow cartoonist R.K. Laxman, who created the ‘common man’, Chatterji too was an auteur of the common man, whose journey he portrayed with charm, delicate warmth and humour.
As a person, Basu was much like his common man: mild, unobtrusive and media-shy. He preferred not to scout for stars and mostly made his films with rookies, giving them respectability as artists. And today, names like Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha, Pearl Padamsee, Zarina Wahab, Nandita Thakur, Girish Karnad, Rakesh Pandey, Bindiya Goswami and Ranjit Chowdhry have become central to the history of Indian cinema, thanks to Basu.
Basu Chatterji: And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema, anecdotal in nature, goes behind the scenes of his films. It places Basu’s cinema and television work in the context of the changing times, like the emergence of Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan, the Emergency, the return of Sarat Chandra’s stories, the introduction of disco and the decadent phase of Hindi cinema in the 1980s. The book celebrates the work of one of the most underrated, yet successful, film-makers in Hindi cinema.
Imprint: Vintage Books
Published: Mar/2023
ISBN: 9780670096251
Length : 320 Pages
MRP : ₹699.00
Imprint: Penguin Audio
Published:
ISBN:
Imprint: Vintage Books
Published: Mar/2023
ISBN:
Length : 320 Pages
MRP : ₹699.00
Basu Chatterji
And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema
Anirudha Bhattacharjee
A behind-the scenes look at Basu Chatterji’s most loved films
This is the enigma of Basu Chatterji. His films did not have the box-office ingredients that could make them a distributor’s hot pick, nor were they art house cinema that needed unravelling over many cups of tea. He was the quintessential ‘middle-of-the-road’ film-maker, a genre that he founded in Bollywood. His films, whether it beChhoti Si Baat orRajnigandha orChitchor, were about common people and common problems, such as employment and love, social and economic inequalities, and joint family conflicts. Like fellow cartoonist R.K. Laxman, who created the ‘common man’, Chatterji too was an auteur of the common man, whose journey he portrayed with charm, delicate warmth and humour.
As a person, Basu was much like his common man: mild, unobtrusive and media-shy. He preferred not to scout for stars and mostly made his films with rookies, giving them respectability as artists. And today, names like Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha, Pearl Padamsee, Zarina Wahab, Nandita Thakur, Girish Karnad, Rakesh Pandey, Bindiya Goswami and Ranjit Chowdhry have become central to the history of Indian cinema, thanks to Basu.
Basu Chatterji: And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema, anecdotal in nature, goes behind the scenes of his films. It places Basu’s cinema and television work in the context of the changing times, like the emergence of Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan, the Emergency, the return of Sarat Chandra’s stories, the introduction of disco and the decadent phase of Hindi cinema in the 1980s. The book celebrates the work of one of the most underrated, yet successful, film-makers in Hindi cinema.
Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback
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Anirudha Bhattacharjee (Author)
An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Anirudha Bhattacharjee is an SAP consultant by profession, a musician by passion and a chronicler of music and cinema by avocation.R.D. Burman: The Man, The Music, his first book (co-written with Balaji Vittal), won the National Award for best book on cinema in 2012.Gaata Rahe Mera Dil (also co-written with Balaji Vittal) won the MAMI Award in its inaugural year, 2015. His other books include the critically acclaimedS.D. Burman: The Prince-Musician (2018, co-written with Balaji Vittal) and the bestsellerKishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography (2022, co-written with Parthiv Dhar).
Anirudha lives with his family in Calcutta, India, where he spends time watching films with his wife when not pretending to work or watching football matches.Basu Chatterji: And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema is his first book on a film-maker.
Balaji Vittal grew up in Kolkata and graduated from Jadavpur University. He has
worked with Wipro, Standard Chartered Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, and
is an avid follower of Indian cinema. He writes for Metro Plus, the Quint and
Scroll. Balaji shuttles between Bengaluru, where he now works for Concentrix,
and Hyderabad, where his family lives.
More By The Author
S.D. Burman
Anirudha Bhattacharjee, Balaji Vittal
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