Director’s Chair, ‘Sui Generis’: A Book in a Class of Its Own

Director’s Chair – Hindi Cinema’s Golden Age

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested,” wrote Francis Bacon. In the case of Manek Premchand’s Director’s Chair: Hindi Cinema’s Golden Age, I would like to add that it also needs to be relished, savoured and valued.

The book offers a delightful ringside view of the ‘Director’s Chair’ and its truly amazing occupants who helmed the most incredible films from the silent era to the eighties.

To me it was a perfect serving of delicious filmy cuisine covering the oeuvre of my all-time favourite directors including Guru Dutt, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Raj Kapoor and Vijay Anand.

Each profile is garnished with important milestones of the individual’s journey, the crests and troughs, vignettes from personal life and filmographies. The unique facets which made the work of each artist stand out are also brought to the fore. For instance, in the section on Guru Dutt, Manek Premchand talks about the lighting technique called chiaroscuro, which the filmmaker used in the song Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam (Kagaz Ke Phool)! “The song with its evocative poetry underscores an existential crisis that identifies Time as the central culprit of their (the protagonists’) once beautiful relationship, with the stark setting and lighting combining to create an electric effect!” Touche!

While writing about Hrishikesh Mukherjee, the author emphasises how the director championed the cause of the common man, which made him win the title ‘God of middle-class cinema’. “His films give us views of his mind, showing us that the poor very simply need to be given a context in which they can express their predicament. Perhaps Mukherjee took inspiration from the writings of the French philosopher Albert Camus whose stories looked at poverty in much the same way as Mukherjee’s films did.”

My slight complaint against Manek Premchand here is that he has mentioned Anand, one of the greatest movies ever made, in passing. It deserved the author’s keen analysis a lot more.

Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Sumita Sanyal in Anand (1971)

In the segment on Raj Kapoor, Manek Premchand writes about the showman’s obsession with music and how one had to forget looking at the watch and even the calendar while collaborating with him. To underscore another key element of the icon’s filmmaking the author quotes Bunny Reuben, well-known film journalist, “Somebody once said that it was Raj Kapoor who invented love on the Indian screen. There is a great deal of truth in this. What Raj Kapoor actually achieved when he first stormed the gates of ‘Follywood’ in the late forties was this: he kicked open the gates of prudery and let in a gust  of fresh air which visualised the art and technique of filmmaking in general and the art of filming the love scene in particular, both of which had for years suffered from an overdose of dialogue.”

Manek Premchand’s tribute to Vijay Anand, too, is bang on —“The world remembers him through his films, most of them great value for money, some exceptional, and one, Guide, sui generis, meaning in a class of its own.”

The book offers priceless nuggets, delicious trivia as well as an empathetic gaze at the hearts, minds and souls of the colossuses of Hindi cinema. The quality of printing and production, as in the case of every book published by Blue Pencil,  is par excellence.

To borrow from the author’s own words Director’s Chair is sui generis – a must read for the dilettante as well as the aficionado!

Genre : Non-Fiction/Cinema
Binding : Paperback (6.14″ x 9.25″)
Pages : 572 pages
Published : January 2024
ISBN: 978-81-956660-8-9

Available on Amazon | Flipkart | Blue Pencil | Kunzum Books | UN Dhur (Kolkata)

More Must Read in Silhouette

Book Review: Amitabh Bachchan as the Other

Guide, The Film: Perspectives – A Very Well-Crafted Treasure of a Book

Murmurs: Silent Steals with Soumitra Chatterjee – Two Reviews

Bimal Roy: The Man Who Spoke in Pictures