Mani Kaul

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Mani R. Kaul ( Hindi : मणि कौल, Maṇi Kaul; born December 25, 1944 in Jodhpur , Rajasthan , † July 6, 2011 in Gurgaon , Haryana ) was an Indian film director , screenwriter and university lecturer .

Life

Mani Kaul was born Rabindranath Kaul into a Kashmiri family. He is a nephew of the Hindi film director Mahesh Kaul (1911–1972). In 1963 he graduated from the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur . He then studied acting at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune until 1966 , but then switched to directing training, where Ritwik Ghatak was one of his teachers. In the mid-1960s he appeared in several student films at the Film Institute; In 1969 he played Sara Akash in Basu Chatterjee's directorial debut .

His first own feature film direction after a series of short and documentary films was Uski Roti in 1969 , the adaptation of a short story by the Hindi author Mohan Rakesh . With Uski Roti, Kaul broke through the usual norms of Indian film in terms of narrative structure, sound design and image composition. It brought the mainstream press against it, but won the approval of intellectual film critics. The film marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration with cameraman KK Mahajan , whom he knew from film school. It marks an important contribution to the New Indian Cinema movement of the 1970s. Mani Kaul was a member of the jury at the 1971 Berlinale .

His second feature film Ashad Ka Ek Din (1971) is a film adaptation of a play by Mohan Rakesh about the Sanskrit poet Kalidasa and further explores the possibilities of innovative camera work. Kaul's first color film Duvidha (1973) depicts the fate of a woman from a short story by Vijaydan Detha and has also been shown several times in Europe. Since the mid-1970s, Mani Kaul worked as a university lecturer at the FTII alongside his film work. For his documentary Historical Sketch of Indian Women (1975), which was made during the time of the emergency legislation under Indira Gandhi , he refused to take over the authorship after he was forced to change the commentary and some settings.

Ghashiram Kotwal (1977) based on a play by Vijay Tendulkar , Kaul is filming with the directors K. Hariharan , Kamal Swaroop and Saeed Akhtar Mirza . The beginning and the end of the film quote Glauber Rochas Antonio das Mortes from 1969. Due to legal disputes with the financing bank, Ghashiram Kotwal was only shown two years later after its premiere in Madras in January 1977.

In the 1980s, the fictional parts of Kaul's feature films were withdrawn in favor of more poetic and documentary elements. After his film Satah Se Uthata Admi (1980) about the author Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh (1917–1969), Kaul began to be interested in Dhrupad music of the North Indian classical music . In 1982 he portrayed the musicians Zia Mohiuddin Dagar ( Rudra Vina ) and Zia Fariduddin Dagar (vocals) in the film Dhrupad in search of the artistic core and origins of Dhrupad. Mati Manas (1984) is an episode film about the tradition of terracotta sculpture and pottery in India. The film uses legends to draw parallels between Harappa and Mesopotamia . Kaul returned to classical music with his portrait of the Thumri singer of the Benares - Gharana Siddheshwari Devi (1903–1977). The film Siddheshwari , produced by the Films Division , won a National Film Award for best documentary . Towards the end of the singer's life story, re-enacted with actors, he also used archive material from the singer's only television appearance. With the Dostoevsky adaptations Nazar (1989) and Idiot (1991), Kaul returned to fictional subjects.

His sophisticated theory of contemporary aesthetic practice, entitled Seen from Nowhere , was presented in the Inner space, Outer Space seminar by cultural historian Kapila Vatsyayan at the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts and published in the book Concepts of Space: Ancient and Modern . In the 2000s he also held teaching positions in the USA and the Netherlands.

Mani Kaul died of cancer on July 6, 2011 at his home in Gurgaon near Delhi .

Awards

Filmography

  • 1967: Yatrik - short film
  • 1967: 6.40 pm - short film
  • 1967: Homage to the Teacher - short film
  • 1968: Forms and Designs - Documentary
  • 1969: Uski Roti
  • 1970: During and after Air Raid - documentary
  • 1971: Ashad Ka Ek Din
  • 1973: Duvidha
  • 1974: The Nomad Puppeteer - documentary
  • 1975: Historical Sketch of Indian Women - documentary
  • 1976: Chitrakathi - documentary
  • 1977: Ghashiram Kotwal
  • 1979: Arrival - documentary
  • 1980: Satah Se Uthata Admi
  • 1981: Desert of a Thousand Lines - short film
  • 1982: Dhrupad
  • 1984: Mati Manas
  • 1988: Before My Eyes - documentary
  • 1989: Siddheshwari
  • 1989: Nazar
  • 1991: idiot
  • 1994: The Cloud Door - short film
  • 1999: Naukar Ki Kameez
  • 2000: Bojh
  • 2002: Ik Ben Geen Ander - Netherlands
  • 2005: Een Aaps Regenjas - Netherlands
  • 2006: 'Signature Film' for Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema

literature

  • Mani Kaul. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. OUP, New Delhi 1999, ISBN 0-85170-669-X , p. 123 f. (2nd edition 2002)
  • Mani Kaul: Exploration in New Film Techniques. In: Indian Film Culture. No. 8, Fall 1974. (Article)
  • Mani Kaul: Seen from Nowhere. In: Kapila Vatsyayan (ed.): Concepts of Space: Ancient an Modern. New Delhi 1991, ISBN 81-7017-252-7 . (Essay)
  • Mani Kaul: Beneath the surface: Cinematography and Time. In: Indian Horizons. March 2008. (essay)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biography at upperstall.com
  2. ↑ Uski Roti. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 402.
  3. ^ Jury of the Berlinale 1971
  4. ↑ Ashad Ka Ek Din. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 408.
  5. ↑ Duvidha. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 417.
  6. ↑ a b Mani Kaul. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 124.
  7. ↑ Ghashiram Kotwal. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 428.
  8. ↑ Satah Se Uthata Admi. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 448.
  9. ↑ Dhrupad. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 454.
  10. ↑ Mati Manas. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 465 f.
  11. ↑ Siddheshwari. In: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. P. 492 f.
  12. ^ Mani Kaul (1944–2011) - A different filmmaker, a different man. In: The Hindu . July 6, 2011.
  13. ↑ Arrival
  14. ↑ Satah Se Uthata Admi (excerpts)
  15. ↑ Dhrupad
personal data
SURNAME Kaul, Mani
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaul, Mani R .; Kaul, Rabindranath
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian film director, screenwriter and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Jodhpur , Rajasthan, India
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 2011
Place of death Gurgaon , Haryana, India