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Gyan Mukherjee
Indian film director and screenwriter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Gyan Mukherjee (30 September 1909 – 13 November 1956) was an Indian film director and screenwriter, who worked in Hindi cinema, best known for the hits Jhoola (1941) and Kismet (1943).
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Early life
Mukherjee was born on 30 September 1909 in Benares, United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), British India.
Career
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Early career
Mukherjee started his career with New Theatres in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and subsequently joined Bombay Talkies as a supervising technician. Soon became a trendsetter of "formula film" starting with first directorial venture Geeta (1940) based on the theme, "Crime-doesn't-pay", "Boy meets girl" was used in Jhoola (1941).[1]
1943—1956
In 1943, he reused the formula of Geeta to direct the biggest hit of his career, Kismet (1943), which also add another formula of "lost-and-found", which remained popular for several decades in Hindi films.[1] The film had Ashok Kumar, the leading star of the era, playing an anti-hero and also appearing in a double role. The film had a strong-anti British sentiment and also featured the noted patriotic song, "Door hato O Duniya walon, Hindustan Hamara Hai" (Leave People of World, India is Ours) by Kavi Pradeep,[2][3] and went on to run at Roxy Cinema in Calcutta for 3 years and 8 months.[4][5][6] Subhash K. Jha has called Kismet as one of the most influential films of all times" in Indian cinema.[7]
After death of Himanshu Rai, founder of Bombay Talkies Studio in 1940, a group led by producer Sashadhar Mukherjee along with production controller Rai Bahadur Chunilal,[8] actor Ashok Kumar and Mukherjee, broke away to establish the Filmistan studio in March 1943 at the premises of old Sharada Movietone studios in Goregaon, Mumbai.[9][10] He retouched the concept of anti-hero in Sangram (1950), today his works are seen as early depictions of the underworld and the anti-hero in Indian cinema.[1]
While working at Bombay Talkies, auteur Guru Dutt trained under him, though he also assisted Amiya Chakravarty, Dutt emulated Mukherjee's formula-based film style in his early films and eventually dedicated his classic, Pyaasa (1957) to Mukherjee,[1][6] Another noted director, who assisted him at Bombay Talkies, was Shakti Samanta, who later made Aradhana (1969) and Amar Prem (1972).[11]
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Death
Mujherjee died on 13 November 1956 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), at the age of 47. Guru Dutt's Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) is considered to be an homage to Mukherjee.[12]
Filmography
References
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