Samskara

Samskara (1970)

ಸಂಸ್ಕಾರ

Narayanappa, a Madhwa Brahmin man, dies in the Agrahara of the village Durvasapura. As per Madhwa customs, his last rites must be performed at the earliest. However, due to Narayanappa's rebellious actions in life, which included eating meat, consuming liquor and marrying a prostitute, there is disagreement amongst the Brahmins of the village as to who will perform his rites.

Date of release
1970-05-13
TMDB
7.7 / 10 (7)
Runtime
1h 53m
Genres
Drama
Director
Pattabhirama Reddy

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 0. Including: National Film Award for Best Feature Film

Samskara is a 1970 Indian Kannada-language film written by U. R. Ananthamurthy based on his eponymous novel, and directed and produced by Pattabhirama Reddy. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao was executive director for the film. It is considered a path-breaking film that pioneered the parallel cinema movement in Kannada. Samskara won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film (1970).

Production

The story was written by U. R. Ananthamurthy in 1965, while a student at the University of Birmingham for his Ph.D. He saw the film The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman and was deeply moved by it. His tutor Malcolm Bradbury suggested he write about his experiences in India concerning the multilayered structure of time in Indian society.

After completing the story, he sent the manuscript to Girish Karnad in India who got in touch with Pattabhirami Reddy and S. G. Vasudev, a painter, both with Madras Players, a Madras-based amateur acting group. Impressed by the theme of the story, Reddy decided to produce and direct it. Vasudev became the art director and also brought in Tom Cowan, a photographer with the Commonwealth Documentation Division, Australia, as the cinematographer.

The film required a localized dwelling of Brahmins as the setting and Vasudev found one in Vaikunthapura, near Sringeri in Mysore State (now Karnataka). Despite intervention from the Sringeri Sharada Peetham, the makers received cooperation from the locals during filming. In an interview with The Times of India in 2014, Ananthamurthy said, "Vaikunthapura had a population of pure Brahmins.

Samskara was the first Kannada film to be directed and produced by Pattabhirami Reddy who had mainly dealt with Telugu films. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao was the executive director of the film. The film was also notable for it was the first Kannada film to not use excessive use of cosmetics for the artistes, music and dance, and for being made entirely with an amateur cast, most of whom were poets, writers and journalists.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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