Continued from Telugu Cinema in the 70s – 2.
A director is the most important person behind a movie. It is a director’s judgment and taste that reflects on the screen. A successful director’s choice of actors, writers, musicians, and many other roles can become a trend for the future. During the 70s a few directors left their indelible impressions on Telugu Cinema.
Bapu (1967): Bapu-Ramana would be more appropriate. The duo are the masters of mythology. In stark contrast, the realism and our nativity portrayed in their social movies is striking. Understandably, they often drew analogies from mythology in real life and dabbled with magic realism.
Dasari Narayana Rao (1972): Dasari’s movies are possibly filled with more words than movies of any other filmmaker. His background in journalism is perceptible in most of his movies: sensationalism, verbosity, and a lack of subtlety especially in his dialogues. These are also the traits that have garnered all the attention from the masses in his message-oriented movies. He frequently took several social and political issues with gusto.
Kailasam Balachander (196?): Characterization is Balachander’s strength. In his movies, (female) protagonists often land in extraordinary situations that seem to challenge the norms of society. He also introduced a number of talented actors: Jayaprada, Jayasudha, Kamal Haasan, Madhavi, Prakash Raj, Rajnikanth, Sarita, Srividya. A movie that might not be easily identified with him is the classic Bomma Borusa.
K Raghavendra Rao (1975): KRR will be remembered as one of our most successful directors in terms of number of movies, box office returns, and boosting careers. He isthe earliest to have commercialized movies to the greatest extent possible, to have made formulaic movies, and to have extensively used props in his songs. He may also be credited for thriving the fruit industry, if not held responsible for fruit shortage. IIRC, he is also the first to have appended his degree to his name.
Kasinadhuni Viswanath (1965): Though Viswanath started directing movies in the previous decade itself, it took him over ten years to have become the director he will be remembered and respected as. During his earlier movies too, his taste for themes and arts is noteworthy. By the late 70s, he seemed to have learnt his craft and established his relations (KV Mahadevan and later Illayaraja, Veturi, SPB) enough to start churning out classics one after another.
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