Top 10 directors in Indian Cinema

Cinema, the stars notwithstanding, is the media of the director. As the master of the crew, he also casts the cast in perceptive and gets the most ordinary to do the extra ordinary. They constitute the crux of cinema and often determine the texture and quality of a film. We decide to salute ten top directors of our cinema. First the apology: 100 years of our cinema and to list only ten film makers is obviously a very difficult choice and thus it is best to state this as an inclusive list and not the real best ten.

1. V Shantaram: A true movie Moghul who made films with strong thematic relevance and some technically wonderful films. They would include the like of ‘Navrang’, ‘Do Aankhe’, Dr. Kotniski Amar Kahani. This man of many seasons was a cinematographer, editor and held charge of many aspects of his films. The man who got India’s its first golden globe at the Berlin film festival has left his indelible mark in combining cinema with social cause.

2. Mehboob Khan: Grandiose was his middle name. To this date his magnum opus ‘Mother India’ is seen as a watershed in our cinema and a yardstick not just for the art of storytelling. Nargis bowed out of an illustrious career with the film and obviously with the satisfaction that never again will a film of this kind be made again. Films like ‘Aan’, ‘Amar’, ‘Anmolghadi’ and ‘Andaz’ showed that the filmmaker had great class and made cinema that defied the times he made them in. His ‘tukahe agar mein geet sonata jaon’ was a promise that he failed to keep up when death stole him. Time got the better of his promise.

3. Bimal Roy: He was all of 65 when death snatched him but by then this master had contributed to Indian cinema some unforgettable masterpieces lapped up by the connoisseur and the common man. Probably the first of the genre that came to be known as “middle stream cinema” his filmography is a treat and no film goer worth his salt would have not seen a few of his films: ‘Do Bigha Zameen’ and ‘Bandini’, included. When he passed away the entire nation seemed to have asked: ‘Wahan kaun hai tera musafir jayega kahan’.

4. BR Chopra: Another colossus of our cinema. He always had his hands on the social causes of the times. He institutionalised a whole school of cinema well before he gave India the masterpiece: ‘Mahabharath’ that brought a nation to a grinding halt every Sunday morning. From the first film that had no songs (‘Kanoon’) to a thriller that was filled with Ravi melodies (‘Humraaz’), he gave us unforgettable films like ‘Dhool Ka Phool’, ‘Insaaf KaTarazu’, ‘Nikaah’, ‘Naya Daur’ and ‘Gumraah’) made stars out of Sunil Dutt and Mala Sinha and above all defined clean cinema in his own terms.

5. Raj Kapoor: When a man at 24 sets his own production house and goes to direct his films, people are bound to sit up and watch him and the world of cinema (Russia included!!) exactly that. The ultimate showman of our cinema was as if born for cinema. What films, what music. Today we complain: ‘Jane kahan gaye woh din’ thinking of his many wonderful films. Both technically and in terms of content he made some of our greatest musicals. With a team that had Hasrat, Shailendra and SJ, Mukesh and Lata, and from Nargis to Zeba a clan of beaus, he gave us film with soul and music with haunt.

6. Guru Dutt: India’s Orson Welles. Rated by CNN as among Asia’s 25 greatest directors, he was not only born ahead of his time but died well before he reached his prime. He was on his way to 40 when he invited death with the haunt of the melody from the mehfil: Ajaoajao. In a brief period he gave us some froth filled fun in ‘Baaz’, ‘Baazi’,’ C.I.D’. And some great films like ‘Pyasa’, ‘Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam’ and the classic ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’. His cinema is what legends still talk of in awe and his Waqt ne kiya a motif of the brilliance that he is.

7.Hrishikesh Mukherjee: The heir to the aura of Bimal Da. The man who revelled in making some of the best ‘middle stream films’,he was comfortable making films with the greats Dilip, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, till he made some great cinema with Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan. His cinema displayed an amazing capacity to convert stars into actors and simple scripts into lasting tales. If ‘Satyakam’ and ‘Anand’ were tales of poignancy, 'Chupke Chupke’ and Rang Birangi comedies with a Woodhouseian flavour.

8. Vijay Anand: What a craftsman!! Just ‘Jewel Thief ’, ‘Guide’ and ‘Teesri Manzil’ are enough to talk volumes of the man as a genius. In his closing hours he made some horrendous films (‘Ram Balram,’ ‘Chuppa Rustum’ etc.), but was a film maker who was just racy and understood commercial cinema like few of his peers did. His filmography truly does not do justice to his brilliance but the named films and a few more than reflect his genius. His was a case of ‘Rulake gaya sapna’.

9.Manmohan Desai: The Mad Magic Wand with the Midas touch. This man defied the transfusion but lost his way to the BO with ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’. Before he made ‘Ganga Jamuna Saraswati,’ everything he touched turned gold. Many would believe that his wand was Bachchan, but not true. Remember he delivered hits with Raj Kapoor and Ravi Kapoor too. May not find place or approval with the intellectual approach to cinema, but nothing like sheer madness for entertainment was his school

10. Yash Chopra: The Master of Romance. He made his pretty women look gorgeous. Read the pulse of his audience correctly over four decades. His cinema was an amazing pulsometer of audience taste and he truly made films with a passion. Not ‘Kabhi Kabhi’ but ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’!! The tribute is restricted to men who have left us but have left their works behind. Of those masters who are still engaged in the art of cinema and the business of entertainment, an other day on other count.