Raj Kapoor

Biography

Whereas it is hardly five years old, the family of Raj Kapoor leaves Peshawar and settles with Mumbai. Wire of the actor Prithviraj Kapoor, it makes its beginnings in the cinema like boy with do everything before becoming the assistant of the actor and realizer Kidar Sharma. In front of the determination of the young man who achieves without balking all the tasks which are entrusted to him on the plates, Kidar Sharma offers to him, in 1947, its first great role in the film Neel Kamal .

The following year, at the 24 years age, it creates its production company, R.K. Films and carries out its first film, Aag , in which it also holds a role, making of him the youngest realizer of the time. It is during this turning that it meets the actress Nargis with whom it will form one of the most popular couples of the Indian cinema of the Années 1950.

But it is in 1949, with the films Andaaz , carried out by Mehboob Khan, and Barsaat , which it carries out and interprets, that it reaches the statute of star uncontested. Impassioned music, it chooses Lata Mangeshkar to also interpret the songs of Barsaat which will be a considerable success and will lead it, it, with the row of star.

In 1951, it carries out Awaara , an allegory of the frame of mind good-child which reigned in India after independence and in which it interprets a vagrant, who in spite of the adversity, remains always merry and honest. Moreover, the majority of the characters of its films are of the naive and simple heroes, handled by a cruel and corrupted company. It always took care to make cinema popular, able to move the man by the people, which was worth to him the nickname of “Charlie Chaplin Indian”. In several of its films, it calls also upon the patriotic feeling of each one, nicely illustrated in the words of one of its songs:

Mera joota hai Japani ( My shoes are Japanese )

Ye pataloon hai inglistani ( And my pants, English )

Sar EP lal topi roosi ( My hat is Russian )

By bhi dil hai hindustani ( But my heart is Indian. )

The songs of its films, always very attaching, were a considerable success, not only in India, but also in certain countries of Africa, the the Middle East and in ex the USSR where its films triumphed. The success of its films was often due to a subtle marriage between the music and an elaborate photograph. He did not hesitate to use light effects very contrasted in order to accentuate the feelings played by the actors.

In 1970, it carries out an ambitious film, Mera Naam Joker , which tells the history of an unhappy clown. In spite of very brilliant scenes, this film is a commercial failure which breaks Raj Kapoor.

But in 1973, it joins again with success while turning Bobby , a sentimental comedy in which young people in love fight against the opposition of their family, omnipresent topic in the Indian cinema of today. It opens also the way with a more sensual cinema where sexuality is always implicit, putting in scene superb actresses filmed in suggestive installations.

Suffering from a chronic asthma, Raj Kapoor dies prematurely in 1988, at the 64 years age. At the time of its death, he worked on Henna , a film putting in scene a history of love between a Pakistanaise young person and an Indian. It is his/her son Randhir Kapoor who will finish the realization of it.

The Kapoor dynasty still has beautiful days in front of it because its three sons (Randhir, Rishi and Rajeev, two of its grand-daughters (Kareena and Karisma) as well as many nephews and nieces work today with Bollywood.

Catalog of films

Actor

Realizer

1948: Aag ( Fire )
1949: Barsaat ( Monsoon )
1951: Awaara
1955 : Shree 420
1964 : Sangam
1970 : Mera Naam Joker
1973: Bobby
1978 : Satyam Shivam Sundaram
1982 : Prem Rog
1985 : RAM Teri Ganga Maili

See too

External bonds

Raj Kapoor (Biography on fantastikasia )
Raj Kapoor on IMDb

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