| Madhumati | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Bimal Roy |
| Produced by | Bimal Roy Productions |
| Screenplay by | Ritwik Ghatak |
| Story by | Ritwik Ghatak |
| Starring |
Dilip Kumar Vyjayanthimala Pran Johnny Walker |
| Music by | Salil Choudhury |
| Cinematography | Dilip Gupta |
| Edited by | Hrishikesh Mukherjee |
Production company |
Bimal Roy Productions |
Release date | 12 September 1958 |
Running time | 166 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi-Urdu |
| Box office | est.?40 million |
Madhumati is a 1958 Indian paranormal romance film directed and produced by Bimal Roy, and written by Ritwik Ghatak and Rajinder Singh Bedi. The film stars Dilip Kumar and Vyjayantimala in the lead roles, with Pran and Johnny Walker in supporting roles. The plot focuses on Anand, a modern man who falls in love with a tribal woman named Madhumati. They are unable to have a relationship during their lifetimes and are reincarnated.
Madhumati was filmed in various Indian locations, including Ranikhet, Ghorakhal, Vaitarna Dam and Aarey Milk Colony. The soundtrack album was composed by Salil Chowdhury and the lyrics were written by Shailendra. The film was released on 12 September 1958. It earned ?40 million in India and became the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, and one of the most commercially successful and influential Indian films of all time. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised the soundtrack and the acting of the lead actors.
Madhumati was one of the earliest films to deal with reincarnation, and was described by analysts as a potboiler that has a gothic and noir feel to it. It inspired later regional and international films that have reincarnation-based themes. It won nine Filmfare Awards; including Best Film, Best Director, Best Music Director, Best Female Playback Singer, Best Dialogue, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematographer—the most awards for a single film at that time. It also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi.
Contents
Plot
On a stormy night, engineer Devinder drives down a hill road with his friend to fetch his wife and child from a railway station. A landslide blocks their path and the friends take shelter in an old mansion. Devinder finds the house uncannily familiar. In the large front room he finds an old portrait, which he recognises. His friend and the old caretaker join him and Devinder, amid flashes of memory from another life, sits down to tell his story while the storm rages outside.
Anand is the new manager of Shyamnagar Timber Estate. An artist in his spare time, he roamed the hills and fell in love with Madhumati, a tribal woman whose songs have haunted him from a distance. Anand's employer, Raja Ugranarain is a ruthless, arrogant man; Anand, who refuses to bend down to him like others, incurs his wrath. Anand has enemies among his staff; he is sent away on an errand and returns to find that Madhumati has disappeared. He learns that she has been taken to Ugranarain and confronts him, but Ugranarain's men beat him unconscious. While the men are taking Anand's body out of the palace, they meet Madhumati's father, who had to fight to stop his own daughter's death. He had won, but died on the road, while Charandas hides and takes Anand's body to a hospital.
Anand's life is saved but his mind wanders. One day, he meets a woman who looks exactly like Madhumati. She says she is Madhvi but Anand refuses to believe her; her companions beat him when he tries to plead with her. Madhvi finds a sketch of Madhumati and realises he was speaking the truth. She takes the sketch and learns his story. Meanwhile, Anand is haunted by the spirit of Madhumati, who tells him Ugranarain is responsible for her death. He appeals to Madhvi, who agrees to pose as Madhumati before Ugranarain and make him confess to being responsible for her death.
Returning to Ugranarain's palace, Anand asks permission to paint a portrait of him, which he does the next evening. At the stroke of eight, Ugranarain sees Madhvi posing as Madhumati in front of him. Ugranarain is shaken; he confesses his part in her death and is arrested by police waiting outside the room. Anand realises the questions Madhvi asked Ugranarain, such as Madhumati 's burial place, were things she could not have known; even Anand did not know. Madhvi smiles and moves towards the stairs. The real Madhvi, dressed as Madhumati, then rushes into the room. She is late because her car broke down on the way. Anand realises he saw Madhumati's ghost, not Madhvi. He runs to the terrace, where the ghost beckons to him. Madhumati had fallen from the same terrace, trying to escape Ugranarain. Anand follows the ghost and falls to his death.
After telling the story of Amand and Madhumati, Devinder receives news that the train in which his wife was travelling has met with an accident. The road is cleared and they rush to the station. Devinder's wife, Radha appears unhurt, with her baby.
Cast
- Dilip Kumar as Devinder/Anand
- Vyjayanthimala as Madhumati/Madhvi/Radha
- Pran as Raja Ugranarain
- Johnny Walker as Charandas
- Jayant as Pawan Raja
- Tiwari as Bir Singh
- Tarun Bose as Devinder's colleague
Production
Bengali filmmaker Bimal Roy's 1955 film Devdas was commercially unsuccessful, jeopardising his company Bimal Roy Productions; he needed a commercial success to survive. The story of Madhumati was written by the Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. He shared the story with Roy, who immediately liked it and started developing the film with Debu Sen as the assistant director. The dialogues were written by Rajinder Singh Bedi in the Urdu script. Manohari Singh was selected for composing the film's music after Roy heard him playing in Kolkata.
Roy had previously signed Vyajanthimala and Dilip Kumar for two films. The first, Devdas, based on the eponymous novel, received much critical acclaim and a National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi despite being commercially unsuccessful. Kumar and Vyajanthimala were selected to play the lead roles in Madhumati. The former was eager to work again with Roy after their previous film Devdas and accepted the role. Vyjayanthimala agreed to work on the film after learning that Pran was a part of the cast.
Unlike other films noir, which were mostly filmed indoors, Roy decided to film Madhumati outdoors and at a hill station. It had a six-week schedule at a location in Ranikhet, Nainital. Some scenes were filmed in Ghorakhal near Nainital. When the negatives were developed, most of the footage was found to be fogged. Since a reshoot in far-away Uttarakhand was not possible, sets were created near Vaitarna Dam, Igatpuri. The art direction team, led by Sudhendu Roy, created fake pine trees, which were planted to match the location in Nainital. A large part of the film was filmed in Aarey Milk Colony, a small forested area in Mumbai. A scene in which Dilip Kumar looks for Vyjayanthimala in the woods was filmed in Igatpuri. The foggy effect was recreated using gas bombs. The costumes of the film were designed by Yadugiri Devi, Vyjayanthimala's mother; these were later approved by the art director Sudhendu Roy. Vyjayanthimala wore silver jewellery from her personal collection in the film. The actress had also hurt her foot while dancing.
Due to Madhumati's extensive outdoor shooting, the film went over budget by ?8.1 million, adding to the troubles of Bimal Roy Productions, which organised a film preview and lunch for the distributors. Roy told them about the company's financial problems and that he had decided to forego ?70,000 of his director's fee to make up for the loss. All of the distributors pitched in with money and made up for the deficit.
Analysis
Film critics and academics have analysed Madhumati in several ways. In the book The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation, Indologist Wendy Doniger said reviewers of the late 1950s had described the film's theme as "a conventional plot, a typical Hindi ilm otboiler, in which the hero experiences a sense of déjà vu leading to his flashback of a former life". In the book Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, Vijay Mishra states that the film has a "gothic noir" feel. According to Mishra, there is a more direct relationship between rebirth, spirits and ghosts, which naturalises the Indian gothic.
Analysts from the University of Iowa compare the initial meeting of the main characters, stating that it resembles the meeting in Raj Kapoor’s film Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1984), where the woman "stands in for nature and unspoiled folk tradition and the villain for exploitative (capitalist) culture, with the hero as intermediary". They also write, "Anand's own egalitarian progressivism, coupled with his sympathy for Madhumati and her family, soon sets him on a collision course with the Raja, who takes revenge through a malevolent scheme".
According to Jayson Beaster-Jones and Natalie Sarrazin, Madhumati was one of the first Hindi films to use the now-common "narrative of the plain-based hero entering the mountains and being seduced by a tribal girl." Rajadhyaksha said the imagery is similar to that of the film Ajantrik (1957), writing that Madhumati links "the beautiful Madhumati with nature and tribal cultures beyond the grasp of capitalist appropriation". Film critic Bharati Pradhan said Madhumati stepped away from "the standard Roy themes of social realism as seen in his Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Biraj Bahu (1954) and Devdas (1955)".
Music
| Madhumati | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Salil Chowdhury | |
| Released | 14 March 1958 |
| Genre | Feature Film Soundtrack |
| Label | Saregama |
| Producer | Bimal Roy Productions |
The Madhumati soundtrack features eleven songs composed by Salil Chowdhury. Shailendra wrote the lyrics and Mukesh, Lata Mangeshkar, Manna Dey, Mohammed Rafi, Mubarak Begum, Asha Bhosle, Sabita Chowdhury, Ghulam Mohammed and Dwijen Mukhopadhyay provided the vocals. The music was composed before the lyrics were written. Folk music sung in tea gardens of Assam was used in the soundtrack and Hungarian folk music was used for the song "Dil Tadap Tadap Ke Kah Raha Hai". The song Aaj Re Pardesi was adapted from the background score of Jagte Raho (1956). Dinesh Raheja, writing for Rediff.com, said, "The music and the tonal correctness of the performances hold us in thrall".
The soundtrack of Madhumati became the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of 1958. Salil Chowdhury won his first Filmfare Award for Best Music Director. Suhana safar aur yeh mausam haseen is one of the most popular songs by recording artist Mukesh and is regularly played at dandiya functions.
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