One of India's most respected film personalities, Baldev Raj Chopra
(better known as B.R. Chopra) has been an architect of what is now
known as the golden era of the Bollywood industry. Having converted
offbeat stories into immortal classics like
Waqt (1965) and
Naya Daur (1957), he commands high
regard in the world film fraternity.
B.R. Chopra was born in Lahore, 1914, to an accountant in the PWD
administration of the British Punjab administration. After graduating,
he did his M.A. degree in English Literature from Lahore University. .
Having a deep-rooted fascination for films, he switched over from a
higher education to film journalism, surprising his family. He began
his celluloid career writing and editing film reviews for the Cine
Herald journal.
When the partition of India occurred in 1947, B.R. became a victim of
communal riots. His house having been burnt down, he migrated to Bombay
to live up to his dreams. In 1949, he produced his first film
Karwat (1949). Unfortunately, it turned
out to be a flop. In 1951, he tried again as the producer and director
of the film Afsana (1951) and hit gold.
His movie, a tale of mistaken identity with
Ashok Kumar in a double role, was a
runaway hit and went on to celebrate its silver jubilee.
Encouraged by this success, B.R. formed his production company, B.R.
Films, in 1955, and started off on a roll with the release of
Ek-Hi-Rasta (1956), a drama about
widow remarriage. He churned out a string of successful films, the most
notable being Naya Daur (1957),
Sadhna (1958),
Kanoon (1960),
Gumrah (1963) and
Hamraaz (1967). He also gave his younger
brother, Yash Chopra, his first directorial
opportunity with the box-office hit
Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and in the
subsequent years Yash made four more films for B.R., including
Waqt (1965) and
Ittefaq (1969).
B.R. has always endeavored to make socially relevant films, which at
the same time try to cater to popular sentiment. For instance,
Naya Daur (1957) told the story of a
traditional rural community threatened with modernism and mechanism;
B.R. perceives mechanism as evil and has the protagonist, a horse
carriage rider, defeat an automobile in a race! B.R. has also made
films that were regarded as ahead of their time -
Kanoon (1960) was a courtroom drama
without any songs at all (music being essential of all Hindi films,
this was a novel technique); _Gumrah (1963)_qv told the tale of a woman
resuming her affair after marriage; and
Ittefaq (1969) showed the heroine as a
murderess of her own husband!
B.R. continued to make films into the 1970s and 1980s, and met success
with Insaf Ka Tarazu (1980),
focusing on the issue of rape, and
Nikaah (1982), a Muslim love triangle. His
son Ravi did try to keep the banner going but none of the films did
well except for Aaj Ki Awaz (1984),
another courtroom tale, and the family epic
Baghban - Und am Abend wartet das Glück (2003). However, B.R. Films
turned to television in 1985 and made several successful television
programs, the most successful of the being the serial
Mahabharat (1988), based on the
Hindu epic. Perhaps the most popular serial in the history of Indian
cinema, it entered the Guinness Book of World Records by registering
96% world viewer ship. The 1988 Mahabharat won awards for Best Supporting Role to Nitish Bharadwaja for lord Krishna along with Pankaj Dheer who was nominated for Best Actor Award. In 1999, B.R. was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke
Award for his contribution to Indian Cinema.
It was another triumph for the movie mogul...
