Raj Kapoor: His Life and His Films by Ritu Nanda (Color Illustrated Hardcover)

Description

Raj Kapoor is many things to many people: producer, director, actor, editor, musician, storyteller, a man of many moods, an acknowledged patriarch of Indian film making industry. He is also known to the world as an extraordinary showman, lover, idealist, sage and reformer. Raj Kapoor has always been a controversial figure. Although his films always evoked extreme reactions, he knew that mass audience had made him, and he never deserted them. There will be endless debates about his exact contributions to the art of cinema, but few can deny that he was the greatest entertainer known to Indian films.

Raj Kapoor worked within the cinematic tradition he inherited, made modifications and added new elements to it, and thus created a popular art form that was consonant with his temperament and view of life. He infused a distinctive mode of popular romantic sensibility into Indian cinema. Raj Kapoor was the last true movie mogul of Indian cinema. He was imperious and majestic, a dreamer of big dreams, his creations were clearly several times larger than the R.K. Studios, which remains a living monument to one man’s vision, energy and enterprise.