Kaghaz ke phool ~ Dutt's Paper FLowers Is Pure Gold ... Guru Dutt, the troubled genius who committed suicide in 1964 at the age of 39 is a legend in India but little known outside of the subcontinent. In several other films films Dutt as actor/director played a semi-loser from the wrong side of the tracks who finally wins out against all odds to get the hand of a beautiful woman, but In "KAGAZ KE PHOOL" ("Paper Flowers") , now generally regarded as Dutt's masterpiece, he plays the role of a gigantic loser, a famous film director --something like a Bombay Cecil B. DeMille -- who junks his career and loses the great love of his life due to his own self-destructive tendencies, falling all the way to the bottom in a morbid tale with many echoes of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane".
The parallels with Kane" are more in the feeling, the overarching tragedy of the film told in flashback, and in certain visuals (eg. Shafts of heavenly light falling upon figures in a darkened room) than the actual story line, but also in Dutt's restrained flamboyance and versatility as an actor. Just as nobody but Welles could have been Kane, nobody but Dutt could have been "Suresh Sinha" the star director of Paper Flowers. In the film within the film Sinha is directing the famous Indian tragedy "Devdas", itself the story of a precipitous alcoholic fall from grace by a self-destructive lover.
Everything is set when the actress for the key role of the heroine "Paro" drops out. In a driving rainstorm at a bus stop Suresh offers his coat to a drenched young lady (Waheeda Rehman) who turns up a few days later on the set to return the coat and inadvertently walks across the set while shooting is in progress. Viewing the rushes of this accidental exposure Suresh has an epiphany and realizes that he has found his Paro. He has also found a fantastic beauty who will soon outshine him with her own light -- exactly what happened in real life when the actress Waheeda Rehman, discovered by Dutt, went on to become a superstar as Dutt's own career plummeted in the wake of their shattered love affair. Much of what was actually going on in Dutt's private life is woven into the fabric of the film as it practically prophecies his own doom five years later. Dutt was evidently a driven and bedeviled man when Paper Flowers was being made and his personal pain pervades the picture, which was a great box office flop when it came out despite its compelling star power. (Note: Kane was also not a hit when it came out, although it is now regularly cited as "The greatest motion picture ever made"). The commercial failure of the film so discouraged Dutt that he stopped directing although he continued to appear as an actor in other films, notably "Sahib, Bibi, aur Gulam" (Master, Wife, and Slave), which was a big hit and won all kinds of awards in1963 including a Best Actor nomination for Dutt himself in the role of the servant in love with his master's wife.
As for "Paper Flowers" which has finally found its place in the pantheon of great Indian films, Philip Lutgendorf, of the University of Iowa sums it all up in his extensive review as follows: "Flaws and all, KAAGAZ KE PHOOL deserves to rank-with Fellini's '8 and a Half'. among the all-time great films about filmmaking and life".
The parallels with Kane" are more in the feeling, the overarching tragedy of the film told in flashback, and in certain visuals (eg. Shafts of heavenly light falling upon figures in a darkened room) than the actual story line, but also in Dutt's restrained flamboyance and versatility as an actor. Just as nobody but Welles could have been Kane, nobody but Dutt could have been "Suresh Sinha" the star director of Paper Flowers. In the film within the film Sinha is directing the famous Indian tragedy "Devdas", itself the story of a precipitous alcoholic fall from grace by a self-destructive lover.
Everything is set when the actress for the key role of the heroine "Paro" drops out. In a driving rainstorm at a bus stop Suresh offers his coat to a drenched young lady (Waheeda Rehman) who turns up a few days later on the set to return the coat and inadvertently walks across the set while shooting is in progress. Viewing the rushes of this accidental exposure Suresh has an epiphany and realizes that he has found his Paro. He has also found a fantastic beauty who will soon outshine him with her own light -- exactly what happened in real life when the actress Waheeda Rehman, discovered by Dutt, went on to become a superstar as Dutt's own career plummeted in the wake of their shattered love affair. Much of what was actually going on in Dutt's private life is woven into the fabric of the film as it practically prophecies his own doom five years later. Dutt was evidently a driven and bedeviled man when Paper Flowers was being made and his personal pain pervades the picture, which was a great box office flop when it came out despite its compelling star power. (Note: Kane was also not a hit when it came out, although it is now regularly cited as "The greatest motion picture ever made"). The commercial failure of the film so discouraged Dutt that he stopped directing although he continued to appear as an actor in other films, notably "Sahib, Bibi, aur Gulam" (Master, Wife, and Slave), which was a big hit and won all kinds of awards in1963 including a Best Actor nomination for Dutt himself in the role of the servant in love with his master's wife.
As for "Paper Flowers" which has finally found its place in the pantheon of great Indian films, Philip Lutgendorf, of the University of Iowa sums it all up in his extensive review as follows: "Flaws and all, KAAGAZ KE PHOOL deserves to rank-with Fellini's '8 and a Half'. among the all-time great films about filmmaking and life".