Mani Kaul (English: Mani Kaul, born: 25 December 1944 – died: 6 July 2011) was a famous film director. Renowned film director Mani Kaul, who made offbeat films based on reality like Uski Roti, Ashadh Ka Ek Din and Surface Se Utha Aadmi, is considered one of the pioneers of new Indian cinema. Soon he established his image as a great filmmaker in the world. He used to watch the films of all the best filmmakers of the world and could talk about them for hours. He also taught cinema students at the University of Berkeley.
Mani Kaul was born on 25 December 1944 in Jodhpur city of Rajasthan state. Mani Kaul was a student of Ritwik Ghatak at the Film Institute of Pune. He first did a course in acting and then direction and made direction his creative passion. People associated with Mumbai films were never able to appreciate his work in the same way. Along with Ritwik Ghatak, Mani Kaul was also influenced by the films of Russian filmmaker Tarkovsky. He created a new grammar of cinema, while his technique and narrative are also used in a new way. In his cinema the line between documentary and feature film becomes blurred, but this is the strength of his films, not a weakness.
Just as good literature endows you with a new sense of reality and aesthetics, Mani Kaul’s cinema also does the same, but this does not mean that his films merely transform that sense of literature. Cinema has its own autonomous world, hence coming here the realism and aesthetic sense of literature shines with a completely new light. It is this brilliance that transcends the virtual world. But Mani Kaul is not only a filmmaker of art films, his cinema is the cinema of the new stream of Indian cinema, which is also known as parallel cinema or new wave cinema. A film named ‘Duvidha’ was made based on the ghost’s married life, in which the ghost gives a gold coin to the businessman’s father every day. But the film did not work. But the film was highly appreciated by serious cinema lovers in India and at international film festivals. This has generally been the case with almost all Mani Kaul’s films, be it “Uski Roti”, “Ashadh Ka Ek Din”, “Sate Se Uthta Aadmi”, “Idiot” or “Servant’s Shirt”. . This does not apply only to them. This also applies to great Indian filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, who got a lot of international fame, but like the films of Guru Dutt or Raj Kapoor, they could not do much in India.
Mani Kaul chooses classic literature for his films, be it “Naukar Ki Kameez” (Vinod Kumar Shukla), “Satha Se Uttha Aadmi” (Muktibodh), “Ashadh Ka Ek Din” (Mohan Rakesh) or “Idiot”. ” (Fyodor Dostoevsky). Coming here, the familiar characters of literature get a new form, new meaning and new brilliance, but only to the extent that Mani Kaul’s aesthetic sense remains intact. Mani Kaul was also a music lover. He also made a documentary on Dhrupad. His film “Siddeshwari” received the National Award. “Uski Roti” was a completely new kind of film, through which he broke the prevailing form of the film for the first time. This film received the Filmfare Critics Award.
major films
Uski Roti (1969) Ashadh Ka Ek Din (1971) Duvidha (1973) Ghashiram Kotwal (1979) The Man Rising from the Surface (1980) Dhrupad (1982) Mati Manas (1984) Siddheshwari (1989) Idiot (1992) The Cloud Door (1995) ) Servant Shirt (1999) Burden (2000)
Honors and Awards
National Film Award 1974- Best Director (Film- Duvidha) 1989- Best Documentary (Film- Siddheshwari)
Filmfare Award (for Best Film)
1971- Uski Roti (1970) 1972: Ashadh Ka Ek Din (1971) 1974: Dulvidha (1973) 1993: Idiot (1992)
Mani Kaul died on 6 July 2011 in Gurgaon, Haryana. He also lived in the Netherlands for several years, where he made some films and documentaries. With his demise, a truly great filmmaker has left us. But his contribution to the development of the Indian film genre is of a completely different kind, which lovers of serious cinema will always remember.
