Readers Write In #733: Favorites from a Century

By Aman Basha

Big timespan to choose from, but let’s make do

In the early 1970s, 74 to be precise, an Indian movie star admitted himself to an American hospital for an operation. The star himself was of a moderate age, just turning 50 but the operation was a major one: an open heart surgery. Even after the surgery was successfully performed, doctors gave this movie star a decade more at best. The star in question, Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR), defied expectations and lived to a ripe old age of 90.

For a star who was the most prominent remnant of an earlier generation in the 21st century, many of his contemporaries were not forthcoming in their esteem for him. Bhanumathi once downplayed ANR by attributing his success to a combination of luck and discipline, Satyanarayana even wondered that ANR’s success was a miracle considering his limitations. In a sense, defying expectations was the mainstay of ANR’s life.

This defiance extended to his performances, his decisions, sometimes defying his circumstances in films and sometimes defying conventions in life, the irony of his performances, the legacy of his decisions elaborated better in this piece here, also authored by yours truly.

ANR was, in a sense, the proverbial tortoise who started out slow but really showed how ahead he was, only in the last leg of the race. He finished his life with a flourish that is rare among the breed of actors and filmmakers, a beloved curtains-down film like Manam. Credit goes to his self awareness and discipline no doubt, but ANR certainly had a taste and vision that made him and his work age well for future generations. Here’s a list of five ANR favorites:

5. Seetaramayya Gari Manavaralu:

Telugu cinema has, for a while, been cursed with witnessing the decline of its finest talents to time from Chittor Nagaiah’s penury to the abysmal penultimate works of NTR, Krishna and today Chiranjeevi. In complete contrast to this was ANR, and I’m not just talking about scoring a massive blockbuster from a romantic melodrama like Premabhishekam at 58. Premabhishekam was a last hurrah for ANR the hero and he moved to playing supporting parts just a few years later.

Amidst the churn of boring roles, Seetaramayya seems like a gift from heaven. The part of a patriarch who is all haughty with his distant granddaughter but has been secretly brushing on Keats to converse with her, inspired the purest performance from ANR in years which elevated a flawed film to a good one. This good film perhaps acquired a reputation of a great one with erstwhile joint Telugu households being spread across continents, and the film’s theme gained greater resonance.

4. Buddhimanthudu:

Beware any recommendations of a movie as any filmmaker’s finest, was a lesson I learnt after the disappointment of watching Andala Ramudu. While the fabulous Gorantha Deepam finally instilled for me the greatness of Bapu, Buddhimantudu waved away Andala Ramudu’s disappointment by being a great Bapu-ANR film. The reason I mention ANR alongside Bapu is that the film mixes ANR’s star image as the hedonist, the devout and his own personal atheism for interesting results. 

The two characters ANR plays are lost in the highs of religion and opium, and come into conflict over a school vs temple election. The high concept plot is interesting enough, but the real mainstay is in the climax and the breakdown ANR’s priest character suffers, that famous laugh never more terrifying and fanatic.

3. Mooga Manasulu:

The high acclaim for Andala Ramudu and Godavari has often left me baffled. Godavari is a superior film, no doubt, but like Andala Ramudu, the theme is stated too obviously. Some apply these films’ appeal to the magnificent Godavari vistas as setting. This explanation too fails for me, as another earlier film of ANR’s had already represented the Godavari in all its glory. Mooga Manasulu marked the commercial peak of one of Telugu cinema’s greatest directors, Adurti Subba Rao. Adurti pushed the style, staging and storylines in Telugu cinema in newer directions, forming a collaboration of the ages with Akkineni. 

Mooga Manasulu is acclaimed for its legendary album, unconventional reincarnation subject, the love story, the character arc of Jamuna, the first for its time shooting entirely on location at the Godavari banks but what is little spoken about is how skillfully the flowing Godavari is present in every scene, the river marking the beginning, growth and end of a love story, constantly moving on life itself replete with its share of smooth rides, songs and whirlpools.

2. Sudigundalu/Maro Prapancham:

Buoyed by Mooga Manasulu’s massive success in Telugu and Hindi (as Milan), the Adurti-Akkineni duo were sucked into a whirlpool of creative ambition and social aspiration, coming out with two underappreciated gems, Sudigundalu and Maro Prapancham.

Sudigundalu, the first and better, was based on the Leopold Loeb trail and Maro Prapancham inspired by Plato’s Republic.Despite their differences, both films are about children, a visible concern for Adurti, who made a massy Krishna film around the ethical dilemma of a child.  The two films were loyal to their unconventional genres, with barely a song or two. 

In the absence of these songs, we witness some extraordinary craft from Adurti who went a bit too fast in redefining cinema for his audiences here, resulting in two genuinely great films that were sadly forgotten by the audience and only gained prominence to a newer generation by virtue of Kamal Haasan including Sudigundalu in his fascinating 70 Indian film list.

1. Devadasu:

The appearance of Devadasu in anything about ANR was not exactly inevitable. While films like Prem Nagar had great music and some good moments, I took little discomfort in considering them overrated and these too were ANR canon. But when it comes to ANR’s Devadasu, one cannot help but be blown by the sheer honesty in ANR’s work, shorn of any alcoholic affectation he would later enact. As he sits under a streetlight, dog by his side, musing “Jagame Maya”, one cannot help but despise and sympathize with this fellow who is not strong enough for defiance and chooses self destruction instead. 

A greatest contrast could not exist between ANR and Devadas: the rich foreign educated fauntleroy versus the poor uneducated stage boy, the man who chose to self destruct versus the artist who did his best to defy, even cancer for a final page and whose defiance led to a long life and legacy that is relevant even longer.