(KAAGAZ KE PHOOL)
Directed by Guru Dutt • 1959 • India
Starring Waheeda Rehman, Guru Dutt, Kumari Naaz
Prefiguring Fellini’s 8 1/2, Guru Dutt’s deeply personal, poetic drama draws on his own experiences within the film industry to express an artist’s increasing disillusionment with the world. Playing a version of himself, Dutt stars as a famous film director who turns a young woman (the filmmaker’s real-life protege Waheeda Rehman) into a star but who sees his own career begin to wane as hers ascends. The first Indian film shot in CinemaScope, the majestically melancholic PAPER FLOWERS was met with indifference by contemporary audiences—bombing at the box office and effectively ending Dutt’s directorial career—but has since been reclaimed as one of the filmmaker-star’s supreme achievements.
Up Next in The World of Guru Dutt
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Chaudhvin ka chand
(“Full Moon”)
Directed by M. Sadiq • 1960 • India
Starring Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, RehmanProduced by Guru Dutt in the hopes of making a commercial comeback following the box office disaster of his now-classic PAPER FLOWERS, this megahit romance traces the love triangle that forms between two...
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Sahib bibi aur ghulam
(“Master, Mistress, and Servant”)
Directed by Abrar Alvi • 1962 • India
Starring Guru Dutt, Meena Kumari, Waheeda RehmanIn nineteenth-century India, a decadent zamindar neglects his wife (Meena Kumari) in favor of alcohol and other women. When a poor young man (Guru Dutt, who also produced and,...
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In Search of Guru Dutt
Directed by Nasreen Munni Kabir • 1989 • United Kingdom
Produced for British television’s Channel 4, this three-part documentary examines the influential life and career of Guru Dutt, one of Indian cinema’s most revered auteurs. Through interviews with those who knew and worked with the director...
