Satyajit Ray with cameraman Subrata Mitra,both novices, and actress Karuna Banerjee on the location of Pather Panchali. Shot outdoors on a shoestring budget, it stuns Cannes in 1955. A legend is born.
Satyajit Ray with cameraman Subrata Mitra,both novices, and actress Karuna Banerjee on the location of Pather Panchali. Shot outdoors on a shoestring budget, it stuns Cannes in 1955. A legend is born.
In the romantic 50s,they set the silver screen ablaze. Raj Kapoor-Nargis,Dev Anand-Suraiya,Dilip Kumar-Madhubala and Guru Dutt-Waheeda Rehman are the hottest celluloid pairs of the era and their off-screen liaisons add to their larger-than-life mystique.When their real life romances end, so do their reel pairing.
Ritwik Ghatak debuts in 1952 with Nagarik, and with his subsequent films, Ajantrik,Meghe Dhaka Tara,Subarnarekhaand Jukti Takko aar Gappo (his last), he creates an idiom all his own, marked by a degree of intensity unmatched in Indian cinema.
May 1954:Bimal Roys Do Bigha Zameen, with its Indianised strains of Italian neo-realism, receives a Special Mention at the Cannes film festival. The film catapults Balraj Sahni,playing an uprooted peasant caught in the vicious cycle of rural exploitation, into the big league.
Sivaji Ganesan shoots to stardom with Parasakthi (1952),the Tamil film that also launches Karunanidhis career as a scriptwriter.
M.S. Subbalakshmi becomes the face and voice of Meerabai. From then on,the name becomes legend, synonymous with bhakti music.
Italian director Roberto Rossellini, in India to work on a film in 56-57, dumps companion Ingrid Bergman to elope with Sonali Dasgupta, wife of a filmmaker. The scandal offends the government so much that it refuses to renew his visa.