Puttanna Kanagal
Puttanna Kanagal (1 December 1933–5 June 1985) was one of the most prominent Kannada film directors of the 1960s and the 1970s. Although the majority of his films were on offbeat or taboo subjects, he endeared himself to both the critics and ordinary film goers alike. He also directed a handful of films in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi movies. He had won three National Film Awards, three Southern Filmfare Awards and numerous Karnataka State Film Awards.Often credited as a movie-maker, much ahead of his times, Puttanna's first break directorial venture was Bellimoda (Silver Clouds). Starring Kalpana and Kalyan Kumar, this movie was a critical and commercial success. Legend has it that Puttanna scouted for a week to find the perfect location for the mellifluous song "mooDala maneyaa". He has directed many masterpieces like Gejje Pooje, Sharapanjara, Naagarahaavu etc. His first directorial venture in Malayalam was the movie Poocha kanni (Cat eyed/Hazel eyed lady) based on the Kannada novel by Triveni[disambiguation needed] Bekkina Kannu. In Kannada his last film was Savira Mettilu, which was never released during his lifetime. He also provided a platform for many actors and actresses such as Kalpana, Aarathi?, Leelavathi, Jayanthi, Padma Vasanthi, Srinath, Rajinikanth, Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish, Jai Jagadish, Chandra Shekhar, Gangadhar, Shivaram, Vajramuni, Sridhar, Ramakrishna, Aparna - TV and Radio Anchor to showcase their talents. In devotion to Puttanna, Indian Super Star Dr.Vishnuvardhan said, "Puttanna Kanagal Sir was the God-sent teacher for me! I have been made as an actor. I am indebted to guru Puttanaji. He used to conceptualize scenes, narrate them to me, inspire me and extract the potential till then unknown to myself. Acting in just one movie under Puttanna’s expertise is an experience of a lifetime." Puttanna introduced most of the actors in the Kannada film industry. Tamil director Bharathiraja worked under him. Each of Kanagal's 24 Kannada movies had strong themes filled with unprecedented direction. Tamil legendary film maker K.Balachander, winner of the 2010 Dadasaheb Phalke Award had great regard for Puttanna. In many of his interviews to the media, Balachandar has stated that he considered a much younger, Puttanna Kanagal, a director from Kannada(Karnataka) film industry to be his guru in film making. An excerpt from one such interview [1]... Q) You have stated in many interviews that you consider Puttanna Kanagal (Kannada filmmaker), though younger than you, as your guru in filmmaking. What is it that you learnt from him? A) Age has got nothing to do with learning. You can learn from anybody and everybody. I liked and admired Puttanna Kanagal, because, at the time when many of our filmmakers lacked the vision of filmmaking in terms of visuals he was the one who insisted on films being visual than oral. Apart from that his ability to churn out the human emotions from his actors was one of his kind. In fact Balachander, for most of the remakes of his Tamil films in Kannada (Benkiyalli Aralida Hoo, Mauna Geethe) has gone on to cast many of the talents like Ashwath, Sridhar, Jai Jagadesh, Ramakrishna, Srinath, developed in Puttanna's camp. Also, both Puttanna's and Balachander's films dealt with the issues of women - more so in Puttanna's films.