MyVoice: Views of our readers 4th February 2023

Immeasurable loss to film industry

K Viswanath was the last of the triumvirate of the second generation directors in the Tollywood along with late Bapu and K Balachandar. He directed more than 50 movies in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi languages and almost all his movies are musical hits, known for a fine story line with subtle twists and turns, latent humour, and cultural nuances. He was one of the few South Indian movie directors who made Pan Indian movies in 80s and 90s. So very early in his career, Viswanath teamed up with singer SBP and musician K V Mahadevan who together gave the industry classics like Siri Siri Muvva, Shankarabaranam and Sirivennela, among other hits. The death of such a multi-talented director, actor and screen writer with many awards to his credit is a great loss to the entire Indian film industry.

M Somasekhar Prasad, Hyderabad

Each film of Viswanath was a classic and the songs in each film remain etched for posterity in golden letters. His contribution to cinema is far greater than anybody probably acknowledged and he stands right at the top along with other giants like Satyajit Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Adoor Gopalkrishnan, and V Shantaram. His packaging of serious messages in a popular format which a person of any age could enjoy and appreciate is perhaps his unique contribution to the cause of Indian cinema with few parallels. It is a remarkable achievement that he could combine the so called 'art' and 'commercial' formats of cinema into a single mould.

Dr Pingali Gopal, Hanamkonda

The veteran director K Viswanath was a class by himself where there is no room for anyone else. He infused life of characters into actors who in turn became the characters they enacted. Nobody could have shown Chiranjeevi as a cobbler on the footpath and yet win laurels. His roles needed no glamour and shone on the character's caliber. His magnum opus Shankarabharanam had no hero to name. He was best in extracting the best out of the artist and each movie directed by him bears witness to this fact. His movies had aesthetic appeal and were devoid of fights, double meaning dialogues or any hype that have become hallmarks of the present-day movies.

Vinay Bhushan Bhagwaty, Hyderabad

K Viswanath who is popularly known as Kalathapasvi was a rare director who could create wonderful films from common things. The director elevated the Telugu cinema to pan India. He had woven the films in and around themes like music, gender, caste,disability etc. His films like Sankharabharanam, Sirisirimuvva, Swathimutyam etc earned name and fame to him. With his demise, the Tollyhood lost a director who could make films on Telugu culture, customs and traditions.

Pratapa Reddy Y, Tiruvuru, AP

With the physical exit of K Viswanath, Tollywood lost a veteran director. KV entered as a technician in sound engineering department, converted into direction mode under the then famous director Adurti Subbarao who groomed him as full-fledged director with Atma Gowravam, a super hit movie. He was also encouraged by ANR and Dukkipati Madhusudana Rao in their later productions. KV became a noted filmographer and sculpted several other marvellous movies especially from Siri Siri Muvva to a number of films depicting Indian culture and music to dizzy heights imbibing the spirit of yesteryear musical hits like Jayabheri, Jagadekaveeruni Kadha, Vipranarayana, Anaarkali, Suvarna Sundari etc. KV introduced lyricist (late) Sirivennela Sitarama Sastry, a short lived bright moon to film industry.

N Ramalakshmi, Secunderabad

The demise of veteran filmmaker and actor also a thinker K Vishwanath is a great loss to not only film world and arts as well. If ace filmmakers like Rajamouli and many others made fillms to entertain the masses, Vishwanath made films to create awareness about life and learning both for old and younger generation. When filmmakers like KV and KB were making films, it didn't get the status of industry, but still it took the risk of making serious films which far ahead of their time. May his soul rest in peace and let the young film makers learn from him to make films that sends good message.

N Nagarajan, Secunderabad

In the modern day world, when movie buffs get to view only films which are do not have much social relevance, by making socially relevant yet eminently watchable, K Viswanath brought in some degree and level of decency and made watching Telugu films entertaining and enjoyable. The fusion of artistic elements with filmmaking is a skill which he blended well to present films like Shankarabharanam, Swathi Muthyam, Saptapadi and the Hindi film Sargam to name a few, which went on to become all- time hits.

N R Raghuram, Hyderabad