'''A. P. Nagarajan'''


Tamil director and scenarist. Considered one of
the pioneering new generation of scenarists in
the mid-50s in context of the anti-religious
thrust of the DMK Film. Playwright and actor
associated with the TKS Brothers; début in
film adapting the play Nalvar into a script
(1953; he also acted in the film). Like the DMK
writers and directors, he tried to go beyond
what film-maker and critic K. Hariharan calls
the ‘Therukoothu vaudeville’. A crucial political
shift, accompanying the forming of the
Thamizharasu Party, which rejected the DMK’s
emphasis on atheism, informs his revival of the
discredited mythological genre with K. Somu’s
hit Sampoorna Ramayanam (1958) which
Nagarajan scripted. The film had a major
impact on Sivaji Ganesan’s political career,
helping the star to overcome his earlier
association with the atheist DMK. Also edited
the Thamizharasu journal Sattai. Started his
own production company with actor V.K.
Ramaswamy, scripting and producing Somu’s
Nalla Idathu Sambandham (1958). His early
films as director are melodramas often
bewailing, like the DMK films, the loss of
‘tradition’ and the ‘decadence’ of modern times.
e.g. in Navarathri, a woman runs away from
home and meets nine different men on nine
consecutive nights, apparently experiencing
each of the nine rasas of Indian aesthetic
theory in the process; in Vaa Raja Vaa, a boy
ekes out a living as a tourist guide in
Mahabalipuram; Thillana Mohanambal, one
of his bigger hits, is set in Thanjavur and
features a dancer and musician. Best known for
a series of 60s mythologicals: Thiruvillaiyadal,
Saraswathi Sabatham, Kandan Karunai,
Thirumal Perumai, etc., reinvoking the stagederived
conventions he had earlier opposed,
mobilising their kitschy inventiveness as in
Saraswathi Sabatham where Shiva is dressed
as a Greek general, and hiring retired stage
actors from the 50s. His films often starred
Ganesan.


'''FILMOGRAPHY:''' 1962: Vadivukku Valai
Kappu; 1963: Kulamagal Radhai; 1964:
Navarathri; 1965: Thiruvillaiyadal; 1966:
Saraswathi Sabatham; 1967: Kandan
Karunai; Seeta; Thiruvarut Selvar; 1968:
Thillana Mohanambal; Thirumal Perumai;
1969: Gurudakshinai; Vaa Raja Vaa; 1970:
Thirumalai Thenkumari; Vilayattu Pillai;
1971: Kankatchi; 1972: Agathiar; Tirupati
Kanyakumari Yatra; 1973: Karaikkal
Ammaiyar; Raja Raja Chozhan; Thirumalai
Daivam; 1974: Gumastavin Magal; 1975:
Melnattu Marumagal; 1977: Navarathnam;
Shri Krishna Leela.

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