K. Vishwanath, A Telugu Legendary Director Options

[swarapriya]

K. Vishwanath - A Telugu Legendary Director

Vishwanath is a distinguished director of Telugu film industry who also made himself name with several good Hindi movies. For a long time, he was an assistant to the Telugu film director Adurti Subba Rao (director of “Doli” starring Rajesh Khanna). He got a major break with Annapurna Studio’s home production in 1965 as a director for the film “Aatma Gowravam”. Even though the movie was not a money spinner, it didn’t loose its investments.

From that time onwards Vishwanath started making movies on a regular basis, some of them big hits. But not until 1980’s his full potential was realized. This started with “Shankarabharanam” which dealt with disappearing classical music of India. This movie fetched him President’s Gold Medal as the best picture for that year. In 1985 he made “Saptapadi” which dealt with intercast marriage issues. He also made “Swati Mutyam” the same year that dealt with an adult with a child’s mind and how he deals with struggles in his life. He made a movie in 1986, “Sirivennela”, that dealt with a deaf woman’s relationship with a blind man. The film “Swayam Krishi” made in 1987 dealt with issues related to work attitudes. He continued to make other fine movies through rest of the 80’s and into 90’s. Currently he only makes movies occasionally. Instead he has diverted his efforts into acting.

Some of Vishwanath’s Hindi movies include “Sargam”, “Kaam Chor”, and “Eeshwar”. Altogether he directed 55 movies. Of these 44 were in Telugu, one was in Tamil, and ten were in Hindi. In 1985 alone, he made three Hindi movies and two Telugu movies! His complete filmography as a director is shown below (H is for Hindi and T is for Tamil in the table).

Most of the albums from the period when Vishwanath found his groove and hit the stride are currently available in the marketplace in one form or another. It is the early albums that everyone has problems procuring them. Recently a friend of mine gave several albums including now “never to be found again” LPs that cover some of this early work. I will try to share as much of this music as possible through this thread provided there is enough interest.

Because of the popularity it has gained, and being considered to be a landmark achievement in Telugu cinema history, I will start with uploading songs of “Shankarabharanam” first.

[swarapriya]

Shankarabharanam (1981)

This was the movie that started director Vishwanath rolling. It had a bold theme where the main character, superbly portrayed by Somayajulu, is deeply tormented with the declining popularity of Indian classical music and the attitude of youth towards such music and the influence of western music. Anyway one can look at it, a movie concieved and made so appealingly based on such idea in itself is worth appreciating. Interesting enough the movie was a huge boxoffice hit!

The movie earned the much coveted President's Gold Medal, first ever to a Telugu movie, for that year. Its music became very popular and even after nearly 28 years, its freshness hasn't diminished a bit. There are so many great songs composed by the maestro K.V. Mahadevan in this movie that one can write in deatil on each one of them. Janaki, Vani Jairam, and Balu (S.P. Balasubrahmanyam) are the principal singers. Many of Janaki's songs take your breath away. But my favorite is Balu's "Shankara". Everytime I listen to this song I get goosebumps. I have been fortunate enough to see Balu perform many times on stage. When he sings this particular song it lets the pondemonium loose. He brings down the entire crowd to their feet with unprecedented appreciative uproar. Such is the power of the great and sweet sound of music ...

Because of the number of songs, I will post these in two separate but back-to-back posts. Here is the first set of songs ...

This post has been edited by swarapriya: Jun 3 2009, 12:43 AM