TRIBUTE V.K. Murthy, the man who bestowed upon Indian cinema the greatest images, was a quiet celebrity. With great faith in his artistry, he gave visuals an inner depth G.S. Bhaskar
The Dadasaheb Phalke award is the highest honour of the country in the field of Motion Picture arts and is named after the cinematographer who pioneered the Indian film industry. After more than four decades of its inception, the award was conferred upon the genius of an artist who principally used light and shadow in his compositions to deliver a blissful experience. In 2008, the honour was bestowed upon Kannada’s own V. K. Murthy for his meritorious contribution to the art form. He became the first cinematographer and in that sense, the first technician to be honoured so. Most deservingly, it had been accorded to the labour of love that a cinematographer indulges in with the help of his fellow-workers and signalled the coming of age of Indian cinematography. V.K’s concern for his fellow-workers, be it a light-man or a carpenter, had also found an expression there-in. The prestigious award made a profound statement that was long overdue. It recognised the contribution of the cinematographer - the Master Key of the process, to the evolution of the art-form of cinema.
Apart from being a personal triumph for VK, it was also that much more about the recognition being accorded to the fraternity, the commune of cinematographers as a whole. It was an acknowledgement of the immense sacrifices that each one had made, of the contribution of the entire fraternity not only in India, but worldwide to the evolution of the art-form of cinema. Murthy had emerged as an icon that represented the cinematographers world-wide. What Gandhiji became to every Indian, Murthy had become to all the cinematographers. Sunny Joseph, Secretary of The Indian Society of Cinematographers aptly worded this joyous occasion. He termed it as a unified PAN-INDIAN voice of the fraternity .
Secondly, it symbolised the fulfilment of a vision – that of Dewan Sir M. Visvesvaraiah whose visionary approach created the first film institute of the country, Sri Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic in Bangalore. The greatest honour in the field of cinema presented to V. K. Murthy, an alumnus of the renowned institute which since has produced many illustrious cinematographers is a vindication of the faith that Sir M.V. had in his plan that pioneered the vocational training institute.
It was also a tribute to the generosity of Srinivasan, the childhood friend of Murthy . Since he didn’t even have a penny in his pocket, Murthy was about to abandon his seat at the institute and it was Srinivasan who shouldered the responsibility of paying for his technical education at SJP. It was a vindication of Srinivasan’s faith in the passion of the young lad who aspired to become a cinematographer.
The art of cinematography is all about articulating the subliminal. And none exemplified this better on the Indian screen than the stupendous combinations of Satyajit Ray-Subroto Mitra and Gurudutt-V.K. Murthy . While Subrotoda chose classical realism as his forte, Murthy, with his immaculate artistry chose enhanced realism and served the cause of sensitising the mainstream and heralded an era of visual aesthetics there-in. Whereas Subroto chose a more research and study-oriented approach, Murthy was intuitive and let the moment articulate his genius. If Subroto invented indigenous soft-light box to structure realism of the inner court-yard in Charulata, Murthy had to invent clip-light and Murthy-Ka-Ghoda to realise the unforgettable close-up imagery in Gurudutt’s films. The impact of these two masters has been so great that the entire gamut of motion picture photography in contemporary Indian cinema has its origin in either of the styles that these two masters pioneered. Thereby, these two were recognised as institutions in their own life-time. If Subroto has been the Sven Nykvist, Haskell Wexler & Conrad Hall of Indian cinema, Murthy is Arthur Miller, Leon Shamroy & Jack Cardiff rolled into one. A vibrant art form of the day, Indian cinematography is a confluence of the individual styles of two legendary cinematographers. Murthy’s skill in articulating the close-up image with his ingenuity took the Indian motion picture photography tantalisingly close to classical Hollywood. His artistic genius founded the equivalents of Hedy Lamarr, Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh in the angelic close-ups he created of Madhubala, Waheeda Rehman and Meena Kumari .
Much as in the highest form of poetry where the word transcends itself, the light in the images of Murthy transcends physicality and articulates an inner world. Be it the visual composition of the frame in Jaal , the very first movie of Gurudutt-V. K. Murthy duo or the sub-text he wrote with light in creating the image of the poet crucified on the cross of popularity in Pyasa , it was the realisation of the inner self and the successful articulation of the subliminal that raised Murthy’s work to the level of the highest art form.
A master of the classical monochrome, he also pioneered the wide-screen for Indian cinema. His penchant for lighting found an altogether new expression, a classical one at that in Kagaz Ke Phool , India’s first wide-screen motion picture. His articulation of the heavenly beam of light where-in, longing souls unite even as their mortal frames watch the unison, rendered the song picturisation of ‘waqt ne kiya…’, an immortal sequence of Indian cinema. When colour invaded the territory ruled by the visual artist of the monochrome, Murthy was not the one to lose heart. He went on as if nothing had changed and much to the dismay of the manufacturers of colour film, flouted the norms of colour photography of the time and emerged victorious. He proved that any advancement of technology is only an additional tool in the hands of a true artist to help him articulate himself with more panache. The title song of Chaudavin Ka Chand picturised in colour, bears ample testimony to the consummate artistry he displayed and the unshakeable faith he had in the understanding of the photographic emulsion behaviour.
When the small-screen beckoned him, he didn’t even bat an eye-lid. With his one-time lieutenant, Govind Nihalani wielding the megaphone as the director for the classic Tamas , he captured the images of horror from the pages of Indian history in telling detail. The sequence of mothers marching to the well of death with babies in their arms is an image that stands on par with the greatest of images of a holocaust recreated on the screen world-wide. And working along with the genius of Shyam Benegal, Murthy wrote the Indian history visually, through Bharat Ek Khoj . It is all the more significant that the art of Murthy was not aimed at the intellect closeted in ivory towers but was a joyous sharing of his expression and articulation with the common man. He ushered in an era of visual aesthetics in the mainstream cinema of the country, which he served gloriously over the years. This is a solemn moment. Murthy has departed the physical world. On behalf of the entire fraternity of cinematographers across the country and all the students of cinema worldwide, I salute and celebrate the genius of the master- cinematographer, V.K. Murthy.
(The author is a national-award winning cinematographer.)
Courtesy- http://www.thehindu.com
