By RAY KELLY
Jagat Murari’s internship on Orson Welles’ Macbeth profoundly shaped his cinematic sensibilities, instilling in him the blend of creativity and discipline that would define his influential work in Indian film and education, according to a biography by Murari’s daughter.
Murari was a distinguished documentary filmmaker and educator. He played a pivotal role in building and leading the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), nurturing generations of influential Indian filmmakers and actors. Murari also helped establish key film institutions like the National Film Archive of India and the Directorate of Film Festivals, leaving a lasting legacy on Indian cinema.
In her illuminating new book, The Maker of Filmmakers: How Jagat Murari and FTII Changed Indian Cinema Forever, Radha Chadha recalls how her father’s internship on Macbeth in the summer of 1947 made a lasting impact on him.
“If a creative genius like Welles could complete a complex film like MacBeth on schedule and on budget, then so could the Institute’s students. Production planning techniques were taught; sticking to schedules and working within this resource allotted, however limited, were the rule,” Chadha writes.
Murari, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 85, had always intended to write his autobiography, according to his daughter. He left behind diaries and three file cabinets full of personal papers organized by subject.
In the 534-page biography, Chadha chronicles her father’s childhood and subsequent rise in Indian cinema. She traces the unlikely path of Murari, who once seemed destined for a scientific career after studying physics in his native India. However, wanderlust and a scholarship from the then British Government of India led him to the University of Southern California, where he studied and fell in love with cinema.
A four-month internship at RCA’s film recording department was followed by a three-film assignment at Republic Pictures, where Murari worked on Welles’ Macbeth – a production filmed in just 23 days on a budget of only $700,000.
Murari was keenly aware of the rare opportunity to watch Welles at work and took incredibly detailed notes of the experience.
“Went straight to the Macbeth set. Welles was shooting the scene where the forest (Birnan wood) moves. This scene had hundred or more extras and the set gave the impression of exterior. The effect of fog was created by squirting a jet of Nujol (crystal oil) on a hot plate. Three regular cameras and one Eyemo was grinding. One camera was on floor level behind little rock on the ground to frame the composition. Another camera was on a platform about 12 ft high.”
Over the course of three weeks, Murari came to admire not only Welles’ “choice of uncanny camera angles,” but also his meticulous planning, which helped produce a memorable film on a modest budget.
The Maker of Filmmakers recounts Murari’s take on the filming of various scenes, Welles’ decision to concentrate on the audio in pre-production, and Republic founder Herbert Yates enthusiastic reaction to Welles success in meeting a tight filming schedule. Sadly, Macbeth was not a critical nor commercial success at the time of its release in 1948, though it gained critical respect decades later.
Besides Macbeth, Murari worked on The Red Pony, directed by Lewis Milestone, and a Roy Rogers feature, The Gay Ranchero, helmed by William Whitney. But, as Chadha writes, “nothing could quite match the high of watching Orson Welles at work.”
Following USC and interning at Republic Pictures, Murari went back to a newly independent India, and became a celebrated documentary filmmaker, winning India’s first President’s Gold Medal for his 1952 documentary Mahabalipuram, which focused on the monuments and sculptural heritage in that coastal town in Tamil Nadu, India.
Mahabalipuram lifted Jagat Murari to new heights.
“On the wings of Mahabalipuram, Jagat was sent to China on what turned out to be a historic trip not only for Indian filmdom but for Jagat personally, culminating in unforgettable meetings with Chairman Mao Zedong and President Zhou Enlai,” Chadha writes. “Having looked at life as it unfolded on the ground, he would suddenly be privy to the view from the top.”
His greatest accomplishment was still to come – launching the Film & Television Institute of India, which opened in 1961. It rapidly grew into an iconic film school.
As the FTII principal for a decade, Murari taught and mentored young filmmakers, who went on to establish Indian New Wave Cinema, Bollywood and beyond. He is widely credited with putting Indian cinema on the path to becoming the powerhouse it is today – deservedly earning him the title “the maker of filmmakers.”
(The Maker of Filmmakers, published by Penguin Random House India, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers.)
__________
Post your comments on the Wellesnet Message Board.