57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
Kasinathuni Viswanath
Born on February 19-1930(currently active)
Telugu Film Writer & Director
“There is at least 3 people in 100 audience who wants to watch
my films. I will make movies for them “-K.Viswanath (while
local channel interview after his movie "Shubhapradam"
released-2010)
These are the words he said during an interview but he was
wrong, 100 people who watch his movie, they will wait to watch
another film from him. Only three among them will express that
but the rest of 97 will wait for that moment. He is currently
85 years old and has stopped creating any movies but all
Telugu film lovers are interested in seeing one more movie
from him. I am the one among them.
INTRODUCTION
In 85 years of Telugu Film History, the first official entry
in to Oscars, film is "SWATHI MUTHYAM (released in1985)
directed by Viswanath. This film exposed the potential of the
great artist Kamal Hasan to the world of film industry. This
is one of clip from Swathi Muthyam, which has the capability
of expressing many things through music.
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
Bollywood doesn't represent whole Indian cinema as many people
thinks. It is a one of the regional film industry in India.
There are plenty other languages that create movies which are
not covered by international media. One among them is
TOLLYWOOD (Telugu Film Industry), which is a Telugu speaking
regional film industry where they produce more than 100 films
every year. It is unfortunate that this language film is
becoming more popular nowadays however, is having trouble
entering the international film market. Tollywood has produced
wonderful filmmakers
Hollywood, India would receive National awards (film fare
awards) which is the best recognition to the technicians where
they compete with all other language (more than 18 regional
language films) including Bollywood filmmakers. Kamalhasan is
one of the finest actors in India who is also an inspiration
to all other actors. There are quite a number of actors who
are also well known by international filmmakers, but there is
only one person who brought out these people out from language
barriers that is only Director. For example people like
Kamalhasan are widely known as universal actor in India, he is
from Kollywood (Tamil film Industry), but he is known to every
film lover in India who watch film (there is more than 60
languages in India).There are couple of directors who have
brought out his hidden potential as much as they can, allowing
him to become a sharp and fine artist that he is now. One
among them is Director K.Viswanath from Telugu film industry.
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
Telugu is an ancient language which is widely spoken in South
India, especially in Telangana and Andhra states. In India,
after Bollywood (Hindi film industry) only two other languages
will make more number of films which are technically high
standard film. There is around 80 million Telugu people in
both States. One can imagine the entertainment market range.
It is widely stretchable without any boundaries. The only
problem is that the maximum number of audience will only
accept movie as entertainment, so there is no guarantee for
specific genre films, movie should have commercial elements to
get the maximum business. However, only one director who had
extreme success rate with specific genre filmmaking is
K.Viswanth, and the genre he touched is musical films. He
created a few movies in 1960's which are focused on social
discriminations such race and gender discriminations within
society. In 1970's he started making completely music oriented
music which talks about social issues with music and, which
also represented people's psychology and human relationships
during those days. He is the only director who has been widely
spreading the beauty of Indian classical music through his
movies and proved that there are so many unspoken languages
like music, which is also an effective medium to express
emotions. Viswanth is the Director who always made films with
social responsibility and has never shown anything
inappropriate in his films. He always guides his films very
well without losing content and pace of the film. He is
popularly known for films like Shankarabharanam, Sagara
Sangamam, Swarna kamalam, Swayam Krrushi, and Swathi Kiranam.
All other movies also as popular as these as they were able to
enter the International film festivals. His movie
Shankarabharanam ran for more than a year in theatres.
REASON
When I was conducting my research on this director through
Google, such as his history, I was not able to get much
information except through Wikipedia. Somehow I am quite
disappointed as there may be lots of reasons like , he made
the movies when there is lack of technology available in
India. Current generation may not have any idea about films to
spend much time on Internet about him. This reason led me to
considering about writing something about him. I will be very
honoured to be able to write about him.
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
If we consider awards as parameters to show the talent, he
will be one of the best directors in the world. He has
successfully made 50 films as a director. In that, about 12
films that won Telugu State Nandi awards which is equal to
Oscars in the regional level, 9 film fare awards from south
Indian film association and 5 Indian National awards in
different categories.
JOURNEY TOWARDS DIRECTION
Viswanath was born on 19 February 1930, when India was still
under the rule of British. He was born in a small village
called PeddaPulivarru in Guntur District of Andhra State.
However, he spent most of his childhood in Repalle village
next to the KRISHNA River. This could be one of the reasons
that most of his movies are set up on the banks of rivers,
which showed the beauty of village atmosphere and the cultural
traditional backgrounds.
Viswanath studied Bachelor of Science and started working as a
sound recorder on set and also song recorder at Vahini Studios.
He worked as sound technician for 10 years before entering the
directing stream. Soon after, he worked as an assistant
director for 4 films with Director Adurthi Subba rao. He made
his first film as a director, Atma Gowravam with Dr. Akkineni
Nageswar rao.
He worked as a sound technician for quite some time and that
allowed him to understand the full grip on sounds and music.
He used to sit with different music directors when they are
recording music which helped him to learn more about Indian
classical music, but surprisingly he never learned anything
about Classical music. He is the only one who touched music
genre within films and added more value to Indian classical
music. When his movies like Siri Siri muvva, Sagarasangaman,
Shankarabaranam was released in India, hundreds of people
became more educated about classical music and classical dance.
In 1990's, some colleges even started providing music classes
to their students. That's how his movies influenced society.
FILM TECHNIQUES
Viswanath has strong command on society. All of his movies
represent social issues in a particular way and he also
resolves the problems with his peaceful way. The main elements
we will find in his movies include: story, screenplay, social
Pradeep Maduri
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57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
issues which mainly affect the common people in society, music
and camera techniques.
STORY
He chooses stories which are very commonly known for every
individual in society and realistic things which are ignored
by people because of hopelessness of thinking about them. The
story in his movies will be focused on only one problem. He
has never shown multiple issues at one time, so the audience
will have the clear vision what the movie is about. He also
develops the characters from economical classes and their
association with the problem. This is one of the best
techniques I loved in his films; when you’re talking about a
problem whether it is small or big no matter, as soon as you
connected with that subject, the story will be more
interesting. This is the one reason audience from all social
class will love his films and like to watch them because
somehow they will see themselves portrayed in the film. The
main characters always are connected with the music combined
with instrumental players or dancers or teachers.
Every scene in the movie has its own identity and clearly
expresses the subtext of the film. And each scene in the movie
functions to support the central idea of his film and theme.
He makes his final twists unexpected to the audience but
perfectly acceptable.
SCREENPLAY/ACTION
The story narration plays very important role in his films,
especially when he is talking about the problem, he will go
soft and gentle way which will not hurt anyone. Even a small
character in his movie shows the high standards of values. For
example if someone is walking in the background when a scene
is running, that character will also have the as importance as
the main lead in scene and that's how he plays the screenplay.
Each and every character in his film lives with some kind of
values and stick with them throughout the narration. In his
screenplays, the dialogue speaks the text and an action
elevates the subtext of the film.
CHARACTER & DIALOGUE
The characters in his movies are closed characters which
always have the logic and acceptable actions. They always wear
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
what suits to the character but not to the person playing to
the character. Furthermore, the characters’ physiology
involves with every action they do. By looking at the clips
where we can see the characters will show more than what they
say. The two actors in the song are played by famous Telugu
hero Chiranjeevi and Vijayashanti. They were very popular at
that time but Viswanth showed them accruing to the characters.
The dialogue in the movie is simple and understandable as he
uses the words, which we normally hear and talk with in our
day-to-day life. As soon as his characters starts playing, as
an audience we feel that someone talking to us and we are
talking to them, which makes us to feel the pain and struggle.
Viswanath will not give lengthy dialogue but gives them small
dialogue and more action thus, the dialogue will be very clear.
His frameworks are very brilliant according to the scene. In
his movie, the dialogues will give the impression of the
characters’ social and mind status. The dialogue will move the
story forward. From the below scene, he showed the jealousy of
a teacher on his student who is more talented than him in
music. He used simple dialogue but powerful and brilliant
camera techniques, which make the scene more powerful.
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
As Swedish Director Henrik Dyfevrman said about dialogue,
Viswanth's dialogue will touch us, provoke us and affect us.
The characters in his movies will not speak the writer's words,
but the dialogue will come out from the character's emotional
actions.
MUSIC
This is the biggest asset of his films; he is the only one who
used Indian music at his best to tell his stories. In India,
people learning music or any other music related things belong
to only a particular group of peoples because of its virtue or
traditional system. Even I still have no idea but as far as I
am concerned, people had no knowledge about it at that time.
When he frat started his movie called "Shankarabharanam", his
fellow filmmakers were surprised because at that time,
industry is running with formula based films and only with
commercial focused. The producers of the movie came out to
make that movie without expecting anything. Basically the
story deals with music conflict where western music starts
dominating and gives problems to a classical singer as he
becomes poor without any job for him. But eventually he proves
the importance of traditional music. Look at the clip from the
movie Sagara Sangamam. In this movie the character Balu is
very good dancer he wants to show his live performance on
stage to his mother but he is not rich enough to save his
mother from her illness. And he don’t want to dance for silly
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
commercials like movies and others who wants to mix classical
music with western music, he will end up with nothing. In this
particular clip he is teaching a real dance to one popular
stage performer who made mistakes in her stage show. Kamal
hasan played Balu character in the movie.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Viswanath’s movies have very effective camera techniques
allowing us to get to the point in his movies. He will not
show unnecessary things on screen and shows exactly what we
are looking in the movie. He uses the basic techniques of
camera settings like medium long shots and close up (medium
and extreme close up) shots. He also uses the camera tracking
and zoom shots where the most effective situations like a
twist or when revealing something. See the below clip from the
film Suthradharulu, connecting the relation ship between a
lower caste girl with upper caste priest who starts his
morning puja with praying god and the girl connects with him
music by synching the tune in her illiterate language. The
camera techniques elevates the meaning extraordinarily. The
girl character played by great actress Ramyakrishna. She is
one of the best actress ever produced by Telugu film Industry.
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
THEMES
Viswanth touched most of the social issues with in the Indian
society with his films where he showed them in the form of
music. He touched about love in all of his movies. But some of
the most famous themes he touched in his movies are,
JEALOUS&EGO
:
INNOCENCE
LOYALTY
Swathi Kiranam(1992)
: Swathi Muthyam(1985)
: Apadbhandavudu(1992), Shubhasankalpam(1995)
WOMEN DISCRIMINATION
jyoti(1975)
: O Sitha Katha(1975),Jeevana
DOWRY SYSTEM
: Shubhalekha(1982)
RACIAL/CASTE DISCRIMINATION : Sapthapadi (1981)
HARD WORK AND HONESTY :SwayamKrushi(1987)
CHEATING
:Suthradharulu(1989)
BETRAYAL
: Shruthilayalu(1987),Chinnabbayi(1997)
FRIENDSHIP&GUILTY
: Sirivennela(1986)
DEVOTION TO ARTS
: Shankharabharanam(1979)
Swarnakamalam(1988),Sagara Sangamam(1983)
INJUSTICE
: Neramu Shiksha(1973)
Pradeep Maduri
11747966
57176 Assessment task 2
Essay on Director Kasinathuni Viswanath
Viswanath as Actor
Viswanath is also a very well know character artist in Telugu
and Tamil languages, He played in 32 films where he won
Andhrapradesh state award for best supporting character in
2000 for the movie "Kalisundam Raa". He is s natural artist
who lives in his character.
Extrenal links for K.Viswanath.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasinathuni_Viswanath
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0899649/
Pradeep Maduri
11747966