During this part of the conversation, Nair said Indian cinema is “all about the cow”. In this regard, Gopal Krishna preempted Peter Brook’s 1988 National Theatre’s production of Mahabharata by five decades. Specifically, he shared with us what he recalled about the missing print of Gopal Krishna (Krishna the Cow Herd, 1937), one of the first Indian films to represent Hindu gods as having the same problems as mortals. In 2014, he talked to us about films depicting village life, which was the dominant theme in the immediate post-Independence era. Again, the term ‘nonentity’ comes up: Nair could be very caustic. #Old telugu movies list 1940 tv#Chauhan is a celebrity and sometime Hindi adult film actor noted for his role in the much-admired 80s TV version of Mahabharata and for being close to the ruling BJP. In this footage, Nair is talking intently with current student protesters about the controversial selection as chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) of seasoned TV and film actor Gajendra Chauhan. On YouTube you can find some of the last video of him: sitting in a chair at home in the same spot where we spent many hours interviewing him. Nair remained intellectually and politically engaged up until the last months of his life. “He said, ‘Take the print and study.’” According to author and film scholar Suresh Chabria, NFAI director from 1992 to 1998: “For students of the film institute in the 1970s and 80s, he was a cult figure because he freely showed them films from the archive.” In Celluloid Man, director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, a film student in the mid-1970s, recalls Nair loaning him the precious NFAI print of Godard’s Breathless (1960). He was also generous in sharing his knowledge with students and visitors. He described one Bollywood megastar for posterity as a ‘nonentity’, for example… she may not be too happy when we air that soundbite. The Nair whom we met and became friends with in his final years was often wickedly funny in his devastating putdowns. Nair watched Lang’s flickering ancestor to Indiana Jones projected on his living room wall for more than an hour, absolutely contented throughout. #Old telugu movies list 1940 serial#With him, we watched the first part of Fritz Lang’s adventure serial The Spiders on a handheld digital projector (we happened to have the film on the hard drive, and he’d not seen it before). In bearing witness to one small vignette in Nair’s life we must report the warmth and kindness with which the elderly gentleman invited two film fans and would-be scholars off the street and into his small apartment. #Old telugu movies list 1940 professional#It’s no surprise that on his passing, many things about his personal and professional relationships seem unresolved, and in some ways saddening. Nair’s life’s work was always going to remain unfinished. While at 80 years old, Nair was sometimes slow in gathering his thoughts and in replying, what he had to say was expressed in dignified, precise paragraphs of intense and deeply humane insight – not only observations about cinema but about Indian history and culture, and about the human condition. #Old telugu movies list 1940 series#We could easily have made an entire series of radio programmes from this material. We edited over five hours of conversation over several days down to a 25-minute sequence aired last year on London’s arts radio station Resonance FM. We find now that we’re in the unexpected, and in some ways unwelcome, situation of having recorded the last long interview with Nair, on films and on his legacy. Three years ago, Nair discussed his thoughts about cinema with us, a conversation that we also recorded and broadcast with his permission. He became the face of Indian cinema for the West, but did not use it for the advancement of his career.” I only hope he has transmitted some of his passion to the younger generation.”įilmmaker and writer Nasreen Munni Kabir told Scroll.in: “He was preserving the legacy of the country, not his own. And it is more remarkable that he is single-handedly responsible for conserving India’s rich cinematic heritage. Nair, Yesterday’s Films for Tomorrow, on the anniversary of his birth in April 2017.įilm director Shyam Benegal told the Hindu newspaper: “No one before him had shown any interest in preserving cinema. India’s Film Heritage Foundation will publish a compilation of the writings of P.K. Celluloid Man is available in the UK on DVD from Second Run.
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