ACF 1306: Raj Kapoor's MY NAME IS JOKER screening tonight and tomorrow at MoMA

Imaga courtesy Indian International Film Academy

 My Name Is Joker / Meera Nam Joker

Directed by Raj Kapoor

India, 1970, 224 minutes

When: Friday, January 13, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

and Saturday, January 14, 2012, 2:00 p.m.

Where: The Museum of Modern Art

Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater), mezzanine

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building 

4 West Fifty-fourth Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, NYC

In Hindi with English subtitles

Kapoor’s legendary film maudit was condemned throughout the Indian film world as an exercise in self-pity. A colossal failure, its reputation has been gradually revived by Western critics, who saw in it echoes of Chaplin’s Limelight and proclaimed it a self-reflexive masterwork.

Here Kapoor completely undermines the tramp persona he had so carefully evolved over two decades, removing from it all traces of heroism and social justice: this tramp is a saccharine, mopey, love-obsessed clown whose one goal in life is to follow in his father’s footsteps as a trapeze artist so he can “make Jesus laugh.”

Joker mirrors the three-story, three-ages structure of Kapoor’s first film, Fire, tracing the clown’s trio of pathetically failed relationships. As a sign of love, he sends each a sad clown doll and, later in life, gathers them all together at a circus performance for a kind of send-off monologue that begins and ends the film. This is a compulsively watchable, astonishing train wreck of a film. 

These screenings of My Name Is Joker are part of MoMA's Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema film series, which runs through Sunday January 15th.

ACF 1302: Raj Kapoor's SHREE 420 at MoMA tomorrow and Sunday

Nargis (left) and Raj Kapoor (right). Image courtesy of University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.

 SHREE 420

Directed by Raj Kapoor

India, 1955, 169 minutes

When: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 4:00 p.m.

and Sunday, January 15, 2012, 2:00 p.m.

Where: The Museum of Modern Art

Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater), mezzanine

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building 

4 West Fifty-fourth Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, NYC

In Hindi with English subtitles

 
 "The film’s first half is decidedly Chaplin-esque: Raju is a wise fool, a variation on Chaplin’s underdog tramp. Its second half emphasizes the plight of the jolly have-nots, contrasted with the misdeeds of the evil rich, and is clearly influenced by Frank Capra’s social comedies of the 1930s” (Elliott Stein). Referring to the Indian penal code statute for fraud, Shree 420 is perhaps Kapoor’s most famous incarnation of his tramp persona.

Arriving in the big city to make his fortune, country bumpkin Raju (Kapoor) is soon introduced to the urban underworld. Wooing the honest schoolteacher Vidya (Nargis) while secretly dipping into a life of gambling and petty fraud, Raju is inexorably drawn into more dangerous criminal territory, and Vidya rejects him. As he finally rouses the poor into action against the rich parasites who prey off them, he reveals to Vidya that “he wears the mask of an entertainer to conceal his nerve endings, his pain and disappointments.”

The post-Partition changes to the major Indian cities loom large over the film’s tragicomic situations, with the teeming city streets a vivid backdrop for the film’s legendary musical numbers.

These screenings of SHREE 420 are part of MoMA's Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema film series, which runs through Sunday January 15th.

ACF 1300: WHERE THE GANGES FLOWS at MoMA

 Where the Ganges Flows /  Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai

Directed by Radhu Karmakar

India, 1951, 167 minutes

When: Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 4:00 p.m.

and Saturday, January 14, 2012, 6:45 p.m.

Where: The Museum of Modern Art

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building 

4 West Fifty-fourth Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, NYC

In Hindi with English subtitles

A controversial entry in the Kapoor canon, this film (nominally directed by Karmakar, the studio’s cinematographer-in-residence) marked Kapoor’s final direct incarnation of his tramp character, and the first time he was not paired with the actress Nargis. Raju, a pilgrim to the river Ganges, is lured from his religious observances by a tomboyish (yet scantily clad) female bandit. Ardently pursuing her, he bumbles into a bandit encampment, where he attempts to convert the brigands into latter-day Robin Hoods. Kapoor’s performance is a constant question mark: Is he indeed a fool or is it a put-on, an act to win the lady through charm? While expressed in borderline simplistic terms, Raju’s homilies reflect Gandhi’s teachings on bringing nonviolent change to the countryside. In any event, the film is hilarious, and it is Kapoor’s cleverest use of (often charmingly raunchy) double entendres.

ACF 1298: BOOT POLISH at MoMA

Bhola (left) and Belu

 Boot Polish

Directed by Prakash Arora

India, 1953, 149 minutes

When: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 7:45 PM

Where: The Museum of Modern Art

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
4 West Fifty-fourth Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, NYC

Today's second film in MoMA's Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema film series is Boot Polish. (Note that their are separate admission for Boot Polish and Barsaat, which is being shown at 4:00.) Prakash Arora, who was the second unit or assistant director on three earlier Kapoor films, is the director of record, but the film is widely thought of as having been primarily directed by Kapoor himself. (It is the only film listed at IMDb as having been directed by Arora.)

Whatever the case, the film is a real tear-jerker. Bhola (Rattan Kumar) and Belu (Kumari Naaz, billed as Baby Naaz) are left in the care of a heartless aunt after their mother has died and their father gone to prison. Forced by her to beg, they are encouraged to instead work for money by shining shoes.

The film is frequently compared to Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine (1946), because both films center on two youngsters (both boys in Shoeshine) living in poverty who earn their keep by shining shoes. But that's really about as far as it goes. De Sica's film comes to focus on a mistaken belief of betrayal, while Boot Polish is a melodrama that centers on Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru's campaign to help the poor find work, thereby not only improving their lot in life, but also their self-respect.

Raj Kapoor, whose R.K. Films studio produced the movie, has a brief cameo as himself in which he's asleep on a train that the children have boarded to ply their trade. Naaz, who was seven years old at the time of filming is a marvel to behold. Talented beyond her years, she is utterly guileless, a total delight to behold.

ACF 1297: BARSAAT at MoMA

Raj Kapoor and Nargis

Barsaat / Monsoon (a.k.a. The Monsoons)

Directed by Raj Kapoor

India, 1949, 171 minutes

When: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Where: The Museum of Modern Art

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
4 West Fifty-fourth Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, NYC

The Raj Kapoor film series at MoMA continues today with the second -- and final -- screenings of two films. (All screenings will be of newly struck 35 mm prints.) The first to be shown is Barsaat, Kapoor's first really big hit. In it he stars as Pran, a composer, musician and romantic idealist. Prem Nath is Gopal, his best friend who regards women solely as means to his own sensual gratification.

Kapoor at the piano in one of the many backlit scenes

The two travel through Kashmir in a huge American convertible. (Ah, for the good old days when the U.S. auto industry was the envy of the world. A remake today would almost certainly use an upscale Japanese or German car.) They become involved with two young local women, Pran with Reshma (single monikered actress Nargis), Gopal with Neela, who is played by 17-year-old Nimmi (again, just a single-named actress) in her first film role.

Nargis (left) and Prem Nath

The movie is historically significant for introducing the "whisper" to Indian commercial cinema, "a type of intimacy and emotional depth unknown at the time." The cinematography is marvelous, with dramatic lighting, often high-contrast and/or backlit. Editing utilizes well-thought out dissolves and cross-cutting. And the music is quite eclectic, including a variety of non-Indian sources.

The second film of the day will be Boot Polish, which I'll review in my next post, ACF 1298.

ACF 1277: Full info about RAJ KAPOOR retrospective now available

Aag (Fire). 1948. India. Directed by Raj Kapoor. Pictured: Kamini Kaushal (left) and Raj Kapoor (right).  Image courtesy of Indian International Film Academy.

As I indicated in Monday's post, MoMA will be hosting an eight film retrospective of the works of Indian actor, director, and mogul Raj Kapoor (1924–1988) from January 6 - 16, 2012. I was just notified that there is information available about the series at MoMA's website. For the schedule of the films to be shown, descriptions of each, and links to purchase tickets online, click here.

Largely unknown in North America—except, of course, to millions of fans of South Asian descent— Kapoor is revered not only in India but throughout the former Soviet world, the Middle East, and beyond for the films he made during the Golden Age of Indian cinema. This exhibition of eight legendary Kapoor films, presented in newly struck 35mm prints, offers an introduction to one of the most ravishing and influential periods of world cinema. Kapoor founded RK Films in 1948, and it became the most important Hindi studio of the post-Independence era—and the one most commonly associated with that nebulous and often misunderstood expression, “Bollywood.”

Fire (1948), Kapoor’s first film as producer and director, reflects German Expressionist influences, and established the modern-day, hyper-romantic style that would become his trademark—combining contemporary Hollywood melodrama with the moral lessons and metaphors of the “mythologicals”: special-effects-laden versions of tales from the Indian epics the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Kapoor took the latent romanticism of prewar Indian commercial cinema and made it frank, intense, and personal, creating a new idiom for the expression of emotion that had little place in traditional Indian literature and drama.

As Elliot Stein writes in Raj Kapoor: The Showman Auteur of Indian Cinema, “Kapoor’s singular and gargantuan talent subsumes a variety of influences and affinities—[Charles] Chaplin, Frank Capra, Orson Welles—with even a touch of Russ Meyer apparent in the later work. At times, his oeuvre recalls the work of a 19th-century European literary giant whose sympathy for the underdog, protean activity, inexhaustible energy and penchant for excess earned him fame and a national reputation as early in life as Kapoor. Yes, Raj Kapoor is—to a degree—the Victor Hugo of Indian cinema.”

ACF 1275: RAJ KAPOOR and the GOLDEN AGE of INDIAN CINEMA coming to MoMA in January 2012

Shree 420. 1955. India. Directed by Raj Kapoor. Pictured: Nargis (left) and Raj Kapoor (right). Image courtesy of University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.

The Museum of Modern Art will be presenting Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema. This film series, which will run from from January 6 through 16, 2012, reveals through eight legendary films the work of actor, director, and mogul Raj Kapoor (1924-1988). Largely unknown in North America—except to filmgoers of South Asian descent—Kapoor is revered not only in India but also throughout the former Soviet world, the Middle East, and beyond for the films he made during the Golden Age of Indian cinema.

Presented in newly struck 35mm prints, Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema offers an introduction to one of the most ravishing and influential periods of world cinema. Kapoor founded RK Films in 1948, and it became the most important Hindi studio of the post-Independence era—and the one most commonly associated with the nebulous and often misunderstood expression "Bollywood."

The exhibition is curated by Noah Cowan, Artistic Director, TIFF Bell Lightbox, and organized by TIFF, IIFA, and RK Films, with the support of the Government of Ontario. It is organized for MoMA by Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

ACF will provide further information, including film descriptions, the complete schedule, and purchasing tickets, as soon as it's available in the near future.