Thread: @karanjohar mentioned Dadasaheb Phalke awardee K. Vishwanath’s “Shankarabharanam” in his interview with @baradwajrangan. I can’t think of any other director whose filmography used the backdrop of classical music and dance so often in a “commercial” movie format

As movies these were very well-made, with excellent filmmaking craft, and the stories had classic human drama and emotion. But they were also excellent in how well they depicted the classical arts, and how it impacts the practitioners and rasikas

In “Shankarabharanam” the deep, almost spiritual connection that two exponents of two different classical art forms (the Brahmin Carnatic singer and the Devadasi Kuchipudi dancer) is very well depicted

One other aspect that Vishwanath depicts very well in several movies including “Shankarabharanam” is the guru-shishya tradition; the apprenticeship and devotion to a guru that is the fulcrum of learning

He explores this dynamic in multiple movies- Shankarabharanam, Swathi Kiranam, Swarna Kamalan, Sruthi Layalu and Sagara Sangamam

In “Swathi Kiranam” the human drama shows the flip side of this, where the guru, Mammooty, is jealous of his child prodigy shishya.

A lasting image for me though from “Swathi Kiranam” is the way the character played by Radhika gets moved to tears when she hears the child prodigy sing. The transcendental emotion felt by rasikas on hearing great music has rarely been better depicted

One of the deepest explorations of the nature of classical arts was in “Sagara Sangamam”. Most memorably when the vain Bharatanatyam dancer (S.P.Sailaja) gets her comeuppance from the alcoholic, but incredibly talented art critic dancer (Kamal Haasan)

She is angry that he is the only one who has written a critical, rather than a laudatory review and demands an apology. When he demonstrates the error of her depiction it has two key insights on the nature of classical performing arts

Firstly on the inextricable link between the sahithya (the lyrics) and the abhinaya (symbolic gestures) in classical dance. It is not that the SP Sailaja character does not dance gracefully, it is that she has fundamentally not understood the lyric and hence depicts it wrongly

Secondly that though it is a performing art, it is actually practiced as a deeply personal and introspective one. As the Natya Shastra verse he quotes goes: “Yatho Hasta Thatho Drishti; Yatho Drishti Thatho Manah; Yatho Manah Thatho Bhava; Yatho Bhava Thatho Rasa”

The implication is that to evoke an emotion in an audience one must paradoxically not focus on that; rather the mind and eyes should manifest ones own emotion with singular focus

In contrast the SP Sailaja character is focused only on the appreciation and applause of the audience. Rasikas experience transcendental emotion when the artist performs blissfully ignoring them and manifesting their own emotion

Classical music and dance is hence a personal spiritual exploration of the artist that may just happen to be communally experienced by the audience

But to experience that personal spiritual journey through art may not happen immediately, it requires dedicated, disciplined, sometimes painstaking effort. This is explored well in “Swarna Kamalam”

In “ Swarna Kamalam” the protagonist (Bhanupriya) is the talented, but uninterested Kuchipudi dancer and daughter of a Kuchipudi doyen. Her only personality growth is a necessary precondition before she is able to appreciate her art form

I watched these movies when I was growing up two decades ago, so it’s likely I have got some things wrong. But in all, would say that these are not just cinematically compelling, but actually have deep insight on the experience of classical arts, as an artist and audience