Baburao Painter
Encyclopedia
Baburao Painter; (born 3 June 1890 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra
; died 16 January 1954) was an Indian film
director.
and derives its name "Painter". (hence the name) and sculpt in academic art
school style. He and his artist cousin Anandrao Painter between 1910 and 1916 were the leading painters of stage backdrops in Western India doing several famous curtains for Sangeet Natak troupes and also for Gujarati Parsee theatres. They became avid filmgoers following Raja Harishchandra
.
Baburao and his cousin Anandarao bought a movie projector from the Bombay flea market
and proceeded to exhibit films, studying the art of movies all the while. Anandarao was busy with assembling a camera
for their maiden venture, and his untimely death at this juncture compelled Baburao to go it alone
They turned to cinema first as exhibitors while trying to assemble their own camera. Anadrao however died in 1916 and Painter and his main disciple V.G. Damle eventually put together a working camera in 1918.
theatres. He was the film enthusiast and founded 1918 The Maharashtra Film Company
, from 1929 before the advent of sound film in India Prabhat Film Company was born.
With financial support from local nobility, he set up the Maharashtra Film Company in Kolhapur in 1919. Baburao had borrowed from Tanibai Kagolkar, a long-time admirer, for the purpose and he also created his own movie camera
. The studio itself had a family feel and many artistes lived there, in particular, his leading ladies - Gulab Bai (renamed Kamaladevi) and Anusuya Bai (renamed Sushiladevi).
Painter gathered around him old colleagues among them Damle and S. Fatehlal joined a little later by V. Shantaram
- the group that later left to set up The Prabhat Film Company. Since acting was looked down upon, the two ladies were excommunicated by their community and had to find refuge in the studio premises. As well as acting in films, they would often cook and serve food to the entire unit.
Baburaos first feature film was Sairandri (1920), which was heavily censored board for its graphic depiction of the slaying of Keechak by Bhima. , however, critics and audience attention and Finally it had to be deleted but the film won both critical and commercial acclaim spurring Painter on to more ambitious projects. He wrote his own screenplays, and led the three-dimensional space rather than stage-painting in the Indian movie. 1921/22, he published the first Indian films and programs designed to even the movie poster
s. Publicity was not alien to Painter's many talents - in 1921-22, he distributed programme booklets complete with photographs and film details.
Baburao was a man of many talents - he wrote his own screenplays and he was also the first filmmaker to adopt the method Eisenstein
had described as `stenographic` - he sketched the costumes, movements, and characters. [This was the method Satyajit Ray
adopted for Pather Panchali
- there was no written script, just a book full of sketches. This 'script' is with Cinematheque Francaise
, Paris.] He changed the concept of set designing from painted curtains to solid multi-dimensional lived in spaces, he introduced artificial lighting and understood the importance of publicity. As early as 1921-22 he was the first to issue programme booklets, complete with details of the film and photographs. He also painted himself tasteful, eye-catching posters of his films.
A perfectionist, he insisted upon any number of rehearsals. As Zunzarrao Pawar, a cast member
, said `` He would take umpteen rehearsals before actual shooting....but he was very slow in film-making. That was why we used to get annoyed with him sometimes. ``
The advent of sound in 1931 did not excite Painter. However after a few more silent film
s, the Maharashtra Film Company pulled down its shutters with the advent of sound. Baburao was not particularly keen on the talkies for he believed that they would destroy the visual culture so painfully evolved over the years.
He returned to painting and sculpture, his original vocation barring sporadic ventures like remaking Savkari Pash in sound in 1936, Pratibha (1937), one of his few preserved films which is a good illustration of Painter's control over big sets, lighting and crowd scenes and Lokshahir Ramjoshi (1947) on Shantaram's invitation.
The beautiful posters that Baburao painted for his films prompted the advice of not wasting his talent on dirty walls, that an art gallery
was the correct destination! Prophetic words indeed, because later his posters were up at J.J. School of Art, Bombay and much admired by the principal, Gladstone Solomon.
Together, Sinhagad and Kalyan Khajina won a medal at the Wembley Exhibition, London. One newspaper, Daily Express, described the films as full of strangely wistful beauty, and acted with extraordinary grace.
This episode from the Mahabharata dealt with the slaying of Keechak by Bhima (one of the Pandava princes), and the film was based on the play Keechak Wadh by K.P. Khadilkar. [The play itself was banned because of the perceived criticism of Lord Curzon.] The intense realism of the killing was horrifying to the audience, and the scenes were deleted. At the time, censor boards had been set up!
In 1921 - Surekha Haran.
This was the debut film of V. Shantaram, one of the giants of Indian cinema. He played lord Krishna
in the film.
Bhagwata Bhakta Damaji (1922)
Damaji (1922)
Vatsalaharan (1923)
In 1923 - Sinhagad. - a landmark film. For one, Baburao shifted from painted curtains to multi-dimensional sets. Another first - he used artificial lighting to create the effect of fog and of moonlight. The film was based on Hari Narayan Apte's novel Gad Aala Pan Sinha Gela. The protagonist Tanaji was a follower of Shivaji Maratha and died while capturing Kondana Fort.While filming Sinhagad, Baburao fell off a horse, the injury causing a lifelong speech defect. Sinhagad proved so popular that it attracted the Revenue Department's attention to bring about introduction of Entertainment Tax.
Sati Padmini (1924)
Shri Krishna Avatar (1924)
In 1925 -
- Shahala Shah.
- Rana Hamir.
- Maya Bazaar
- Savkari Pash.
Savkari Pash dealt with money lending and the plight of poor farmers. However the audience long fed on mythological fantasy and historical love was just not prepared for so strong a dose of realism and the film did not do well. Baburao returned to costume dramas. The film failed. Baburao Painter returned to the tried-and-true subject-matter.Painter's artistic masterpiece remains Savkari Pash. Often described as - Savakari Pash (1925) dealing with money lending, a problem that blighted the lives of countless illiterate, poor farmers.
J.H.Wadia on the two versions of Savkari Pash :
I faintly remember the silent Savkari Pash...But it was only when I saw the talkie version that I realized what a great creative artist he (Baburao) was. I go into a trance when I recollect the long shot of a dreary hut photographed in low key, highlighted only by the howl of a dog.
Bhakta Pralhad (1926/I)
Gaj Gauri (1926)
Muraliwala (1927)
Sati Savitri (1927) ... aka Savitri Satyavan (India: Hindi title)
In 1927 - Netaji Palkar
.
Directed by V. Shantaram, the film was about Shivaji Maratha (a revered warrior-ruler who fought the Mughal emperors) and Karna (1928).
Keechaka Vadha (1928/I) ... aka Sairandhri (India: Hindi title)
Baji Prabhu Deshpande
(1929) ... aka Valley of the Immortals (India: English title)
In 1928 - Karna. Directed by Damle and Fatehlal were huge hits
The film was inspired by the MGM masterpiece Ben Hur.
Prem Sangam (1931) ... aka When Lovers Unite (India: English title)
Lanka (1930) ... aka The Land of Lust (India: English title)
In 1935 - Usha.
The film (a talkie) was directed by Painter for the film company Shalini Cinetone, Kolhapur.
In 1936 - remake of Savkari Pash (as a talkie).
In 1937
- Pratibha.
- Sadhvi Meerabai
Rukmini Swayamvar (1946/I)
Rukmini Swayamvar (1946/II) ... aka The Marriage of Rukmini (India: English title)
In 1947
- Matwala Shair Ramjoshi. A highly successful film.
- Lok Shahir Ram Joshi (1947)
In 1952
- Vishwamitra
In 1953
- Mahajan
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
; died 16 January 1954) was an Indian film
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
director.
Life
He was born Baburao Krishnarao Mestri in 1890 in Kolhapur. He taught himself to paintPaint
Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...
and derives its name "Painter". (hence the name) and sculpt in academic art
Academic art
Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...
school style. He and his artist cousin Anandrao Painter between 1910 and 1916 were the leading painters of stage backdrops in Western India doing several famous curtains for Sangeet Natak troupes and also for Gujarati Parsee theatres. They became avid filmgoers following Raja Harishchandra
Raja Harishchandra
Raja Harishchandra , is a 1913 silent Indian film directed and produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, and is the first full-length Indian feature film...
.
Baburao and his cousin Anandarao bought a movie projector from the Bombay flea market
Flea market
A flea market or swap meet is a type of bazaar where inexpensive or secondhand goods are sold or bartered. It may be indoors, such as in a warehouse or school gymnasium; or it may be outdoors, such as in a field or under a tent...
and proceeded to exhibit films, studying the art of movies all the while. Anandarao was busy with assembling a camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
for their maiden venture, and his untimely death at this juncture compelled Baburao to go it alone
They turned to cinema first as exhibitors while trying to assemble their own camera. Anadrao however died in 1916 and Painter and his main disciple V.G. Damle eventually put together a working camera in 1918.
Works
Between 1910 and 1916 he was one of the leading painters stage on West IndianCaribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
theatres. He was the film enthusiast and founded 1918 The Maharashtra Film Company
Maharashtra Film Company
Maharashtra Film Company was an Indian film production company, established by Baburao Painter in Kolhapur. Established in 1919, it was a silent film studio, which was a pioneer in Maharashtra and Marathi cinema, under the patronage of the Sahu Maharaj, the Maharaja of Kolhapur. It released the...
, from 1929 before the advent of sound film in India Prabhat Film Company was born.
With financial support from local nobility, he set up the Maharashtra Film Company in Kolhapur in 1919. Baburao had borrowed from Tanibai Kagolkar, a long-time admirer, for the purpose and he also created his own movie camera
Movie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
. The studio itself had a family feel and many artistes lived there, in particular, his leading ladies - Gulab Bai (renamed Kamaladevi) and Anusuya Bai (renamed Sushiladevi).
Painter gathered around him old colleagues among them Damle and S. Fatehlal joined a little later by V. Shantaram
V. Shantaram
V. Shantaram is a renowned Indian filmmaker, film producer and actor. He is most known for his films like Dr...
- the group that later left to set up The Prabhat Film Company. Since acting was looked down upon, the two ladies were excommunicated by their community and had to find refuge in the studio premises. As well as acting in films, they would often cook and serve food to the entire unit.
Baburaos first feature film was Sairandri (1920), which was heavily censored board for its graphic depiction of the slaying of Keechak by Bhima. , however, critics and audience attention and Finally it had to be deleted but the film won both critical and commercial acclaim spurring Painter on to more ambitious projects. He wrote his own screenplays, and led the three-dimensional space rather than stage-painting in the Indian movie. 1921/22, he published the first Indian films and programs designed to even the movie poster
Movie poster
A movie poster is a poster used to advertise a film. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. They normally contain an image with text. Today's posters often feature photographs of the main actors. Prior to the 1990s,...
s. Publicity was not alien to Painter's many talents - in 1921-22, he distributed programme booklets complete with photographs and film details.
Baburao was a man of many talents - he wrote his own screenplays and he was also the first filmmaker to adopt the method Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
had described as `stenographic` - he sketched the costumes, movements, and characters. [This was the method Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
adopted for Pather Panchali
Pather Panchali
Pather Panchali is a 1955 Bengali drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of the Indian state of West Bengal. Based on Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name, the film was the directorial debut of Ray...
- there was no written script, just a book full of sketches. This 'script' is with Cinematheque Francaise
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
, Paris.] He changed the concept of set designing from painted curtains to solid multi-dimensional lived in spaces, he introduced artificial lighting and understood the importance of publicity. As early as 1921-22 he was the first to issue programme booklets, complete with details of the film and photographs. He also painted himself tasteful, eye-catching posters of his films.
A perfectionist, he insisted upon any number of rehearsals. As Zunzarrao Pawar, a cast member
Cast member
A cast member is:* An actor who performs in a theatrical production, motion picture, or television program. The actors who perform in the show are collectively referred to as the cast....
, said `` He would take umpteen rehearsals before actual shooting....but he was very slow in film-making. That was why we used to get annoyed with him sometimes. ``
The advent of sound in 1931 did not excite Painter. However after a few more silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s, the Maharashtra Film Company pulled down its shutters with the advent of sound. Baburao was not particularly keen on the talkies for he believed that they would destroy the visual culture so painfully evolved over the years.
He returned to painting and sculpture, his original vocation barring sporadic ventures like remaking Savkari Pash in sound in 1936, Pratibha (1937), one of his few preserved films which is a good illustration of Painter's control over big sets, lighting and crowd scenes and Lokshahir Ramjoshi (1947) on Shantaram's invitation.
The beautiful posters that Baburao painted for his films prompted the advice of not wasting his talent on dirty walls, that an art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
was the correct destination! Prophetic words indeed, because later his posters were up at J.J. School of Art, Bombay and much admired by the principal, Gladstone Solomon.
Filmography as Actor
- Kalyan Khajina (1924)
- Sinhagad (1923) - Emperor Shivaji
Together, Sinhagad and Kalyan Khajina won a medal at the Wembley Exhibition, London. One newspaper, Daily Express, described the films as full of strangely wistful beauty, and acted with extraordinary grace.
Cinematographer
In 1920 - Sairandhri.This episode from the Mahabharata dealt with the slaying of Keechak by Bhima (one of the Pandava princes), and the film was based on the play Keechak Wadh by K.P. Khadilkar. [The play itself was banned because of the perceived criticism of Lord Curzon.] The intense realism of the killing was horrifying to the audience, and the scenes were deleted. At the time, censor boards had been set up!
In 1921 - Surekha Haran.
This was the debut film of V. Shantaram, one of the giants of Indian cinema. He played lord Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...
in the film.
Bhagwata Bhakta Damaji (1922)
Damaji (1922)
Vatsalaharan (1923)
In 1923 - Sinhagad. - a landmark film. For one, Baburao shifted from painted curtains to multi-dimensional sets. Another first - he used artificial lighting to create the effect of fog and of moonlight. The film was based on Hari Narayan Apte's novel Gad Aala Pan Sinha Gela. The protagonist Tanaji was a follower of Shivaji Maratha and died while capturing Kondana Fort.While filming Sinhagad, Baburao fell off a horse, the injury causing a lifelong speech defect. Sinhagad proved so popular that it attracted the Revenue Department's attention to bring about introduction of Entertainment Tax.
Sati Padmini (1924)
Shri Krishna Avatar (1924)
In 1925 -
- Shahala Shah.
- Rana Hamir.
- Maya Bazaar
- Savkari Pash.
Savkari Pash dealt with money lending and the plight of poor farmers. However the audience long fed on mythological fantasy and historical love was just not prepared for so strong a dose of realism and the film did not do well. Baburao returned to costume dramas. The film failed. Baburao Painter returned to the tried-and-true subject-matter.Painter's artistic masterpiece remains Savkari Pash. Often described as - Savakari Pash (1925) dealing with money lending, a problem that blighted the lives of countless illiterate, poor farmers.
J.H.Wadia on the two versions of Savkari Pash :
I faintly remember the silent Savkari Pash...But it was only when I saw the talkie version that I realized what a great creative artist he (Baburao) was. I go into a trance when I recollect the long shot of a dreary hut photographed in low key, highlighted only by the howl of a dog.
Bhakta Pralhad (1926/I)
Gaj Gauri (1926)
Muraliwala (1927)
Sati Savitri (1927) ... aka Savitri Satyavan (India: Hindi title)
In 1927 - Netaji Palkar
Netaji Palkar
Netaji Palkar was the second Sarnaubat in the army of Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha empire in western India.-Family history:...
.
Directed by V. Shantaram, the film was about Shivaji Maratha (a revered warrior-ruler who fought the Mughal emperors) and Karna (1928).
Keechaka Vadha (1928/I) ... aka Sairandhri (India: Hindi title)
Baji Prabhu Deshpande
Baji Prabhu Deshpande
Baji Prabhu Deshpande was one of the lieutenants of Chattrapati Shivaji, founder of the Maratha empire...
(1929) ... aka Valley of the Immortals (India: English title)
In 1928 - Karna. Directed by Damle and Fatehlal were huge hits
The film was inspired by the MGM masterpiece Ben Hur.
Prem Sangam (1931) ... aka When Lovers Unite (India: English title)
Lanka (1930) ... aka The Land of Lust (India: English title)
In 1935 - Usha.
The film (a talkie) was directed by Painter for the film company Shalini Cinetone, Kolhapur.
In 1936 - remake of Savkari Pash (as a talkie).
In 1937
- Pratibha.
- Sadhvi Meerabai
Rukmini Swayamvar (1946/I)
Rukmini Swayamvar (1946/II) ... aka The Marriage of Rukmini (India: English title)
In 1947
- Matwala Shair Ramjoshi. A highly successful film.
- Lok Shahir Ram Joshi (1947)
In 1952
- Vishwamitra
In 1953
- Mahajan