In Focus

The Dada Saheb Phalke Award includes a Rs 10 lakh cheque,the “swarna kamal” and a shawl. “I would not like to take away from the achievements of the past awardees but efforts of a cinematographer are just a small part of what constitutes a film,” he says modestly,having also won the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 at the IIFA in Amsterdam . Dressed smartly in a grey suit and tie,Murthy relaxes backstage in Vigyan Bhavan after the National Film Awards ceremony,and thinks back. In the late 1940s,a 16-year-old boy from a middle-class Kannada family in Mysore ,packed his bags during his school vacations and set off to Bombay in search of a glamorous acting assignment. Though he didn’t get an acting break,the camera did beckon him.

He decided to settle for the “next best thing in cinema”,handling a camera. “It was only later that I realised that the next best thing was actually direction,” he laughs.

An active participant in the Quit India Movement during his high school,he now took up the cause of films. “After a three-month course in cinematography from the Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic in Bangalore ,I visited Mumbai again. This time I found work,” he says. “I was an admirer of Fali Mistry’s work and was on the sets when he was shooting for Amrapali. Next day,I received a call from a cameraman on his team telling me that Mistry wanted to see me,” says Murthy. This was Murthy’s big break in Bollywood— in the following years,Mistry and he would work together in five films.

Over the decades,Murthy’s deft camera handling gave Indian cinema several memorable frames,be it the play of light and shade in the song Waqt ne kiya kya hasein sitam from Kagaz Ke Phool (1959),where light streams in through the roof onto the studio floor,or the softly focussed head shots of Waheeda Rehman in CID (1956). “I was sharp and quick enough to understand the vision of the director. If I didn’t make the actresses look pretty and desirable,I would have lost my job immediately,” he adds with a chuckle.

But it was a chance encounter with Guru Dutt on the sets of Baazi (1951) that set the ball rolling for an inseparable working relationship. Dutt was picturising a song in Baazi,in which Murthy was the assistant cameraman. “I suggested a change of frame for the song. Since I was just an assistant on the project,I could not take that shot. But Dutt encouraged me to go ahead and liked the outcome.” Bollywood rumour-mills say that Murthy didn’t work with any other filmmaker as long as Dutt was alive. The cinematographer denies this vehemently: “Nobody else asked me. I would not have refused anyone.”

Murthy has worked with directors like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani but he adds that it was with Dutt’s creative style and temperamental nature that he was perfectly attuned. “He normally didn’t listen to anybody’s suggestions. But at times,I would rearrange the furniture to my liking or tweak a certain dialogue of the actor and I found that Dutt was flexible enough to accommodate my inputs,” he adds,explaining how he changed a dialogue in Kaagaz Ke Phool ,for which he received a Filmfare Award in 1959.

It was a passion for music and foreign cinema that developed Murthy’s keen sense of vision. “I pictured scenes like musical notes and arranged the dance between light and shades in various sequences like a musical raga. I would play with shade to bring in depth to the shot,” explains Murthy,who trained as a violinist in Carnatic music. Murthy retired in 1998 and currently lives at his home in Bangalore,where he spends time conducting workshops at film institutes. In the evenings,the violin still gives him company.