Dilip Kumar: An Auteur Actor

Dilip Kumar has been praised for his sublime dialog delivery, for his restrained gestures, and for his measured and controlled underplay of emotions in tragic stories as well as in light-hearted comedies. His debut in 1944 with Jwar Bhata (Ebb and Tide) met with less-than-flattering reviews. So did the next three films until his 1948 film, Jugnu (Firefly),which brought him recognition and success. Unlike his contemporaries such as Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand, who propelled their careers by launching their own production companies, Dilip Kumar relied on his talent, his unique approach to characterization, and his immersion in the projects he undertook. In the course of his career that spanned six decades, Kumar made only 62 films. However, his work is a textbook for other actors that followed. Not only did he bring respectability to a profession that had been shunned by the upper classes in India as a profession for “pimps and prostitutes,” but he also elevated film-acting and filmmaking to an academic discipline, making him worthy of the title ‘Professor Emeritus of Acting’. Rooted in the theoretical framework of Howard S. Becker’s work on the “production of culture” and “doing things together,” this paper discusses Kumar’s approach to acting, character development, and the level of his involvement and commitment to each of his projects. The author of this article argues that more than the creative control as a producer or a director, it is the artistic involvement and commitment of the main actors that shape great works of art in cinema. Dilip Kumar demonstrated it repeatedly.

Kong, yet most European and North American movie audiences would be hard-pressed to name an Indian or African movie director or movie actor. As is commonly the case for the distant and developing countries, their achievements and accomplishments go unnoticed. The same is true of film artists and filmmakers from those countries; they remain unrecognized and unnoticed by the Western audience.
As Ernest Hemingway commented, "Chekhov wrote about 6 good stories…. But he was an amateur writer" (cited in Chung 2010). Despite Hemingway's labeling, Anton Chekhov redefined the short story and playwriting. Chekhov's characters were not driven by their circumstances (the plot), but by their innermost desires and fears. It was Chekhov's plays that became the foundation of method acting. Sim-1 These came in the form of screen-time quotas, restriction on the number of films that could be imported, and the profits that could be taken out of the county. See Guback 1969. ilarly, it was an untrained (amateur) actor in India, Dilip Kumar, who laid the groundwork for a style of film acting that became the reference point for actors in the subcontinent. An acclaimed screenwriter and social critic Javed Akhtar has argued that Dilip Kumar employed "method acting" before Marlon Brando did in the 50s (Ahmad 2019). Indian film director Satyajit Ray credited Dilip Kumar with being the ultimate method actor, who influenced generations of actors in India, Pakistan, and Bangladeshthree countries that account for nearly one-fourth of the world population.
This paper is an effort to draw the readers' attention to the work and contributions of the Indian film actor Dilip Kumar, who holds the Guinness World Record for winning the most (seven) Best Actor Filmfare Awards 2 and one for Lifetime Achievement in a career spanning more than fifty years. In his career that ran nearly sixty years (from 1944 to 1998), Kumar appeared in sixty-two movies. In itself, the quantity is not impressive, as his contemporaries such as Raj Kapoor or Dev Anand had much greater output. 3 However, it was Kumar's approach to filmmaking as a collaborative art -and his involvement in all aspects of a project -that helped him leave his special stamp both on his films and the Indian cinema as a whole. His scrupulous attention to detail and the desire to immerse himself in his characters have both been his trademarks. This paper is limited to the elaboration on Kumar's early films, i.e. from 1944Kumar's early films, i.e. from to 1961 Filmfare is a popular English-language tabloid-sized magazine about the Bollywood cinema. Established in 1952, the magazine is published by the Worldwide Media, a subsidiary of The Times Group. Filmfare Awards are the Indian equivalent of the Oscars, i.e. the annual Academy Awards given to individuals in recognition of their work in cinema. 3 During the 1950s and the 1960s, Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, and Dilip Kumar were the three top leading actors.  (Lent 1990). The Bombay Talkies had established itself with light comedies (Chakravarty 1993:42). Rani was impressed with Khan's command of English and Urdu, and encouraged him to work as a dialog writer. Soon after, she offered him a contract as an actor and suggested he should change his name to Dilip Kumar -a name that was much easier for Indian movie audiences to remember, and short enough to fit on the movie marquees.  Kumar and Bose would also partner on two important projects in the years that followed.

Cinema -a partnership of collaborative arts
Cinema is a medium of convergence. It brings together music, literature, architecture, design, theater, and dance. Many musicians perform together to produce a piece of music that can then be used as the theme or background music for a movie. Visually, what is seen and heard on the screen is the work of the writer, cinematographer, editor, a host of performers, and countless technicians as well as their director. The work of a cinematographer depends on his/her lighting crew, the crane and camera operators, and the laboratory that develops and prints the movie. An actor's performance, in turn, is the outcome of a collaborative effort of the actor, the writer, the director, the sound recordist, and the editor. Similarly, a dance sequence in a movie is not only the work of a dancer or a group of dancers, but a collaboration of the choreographer, the music composer, and the entire crew that films and edits the sequence. 4 This is how various art forms converge in cinema, making it a hyper-collaborative art. It is, therefore, a misstatement to credit an individual for the creation of a movie or any other work of art, e.g. when auteur theorists claim that a movie is the expression of its director's vision.
Howard S. Becker (1986), who advanced the idea of "doing things together," approached art as a "collective action" and studied it as an occupation, arguing that a work of art is formed through the coordination of many individuals, and without each of the individuals who produce materials necessary to construct art, it becomes difficult if not impossible to create art. Becker emphasized how the division of labor played a role in the creation of works of art, i.e. that it is the work of many individuals which results in the production of the tools and routines of the artist. The list of credits that ends a typical Hollywood feature movie grants explicit recogni-tion to such a finely divided set of activities (Becker 1986:21). Through the cooperation of a large numbers of persons, any work of art one can eventually see or hear comes into being and remains in existence (Becker 1982). Using a 1978 American movie, Hurricane, as an illustration, Becker elaborated: The film employed a director of photography, but Sven Nykvist did not actually operate the camera; Edward Lachman did that. Lachman, however, did not do all the jobs associated with operating the camera; Dan Myhram loaded it and, when the focus had to be shifted in the course of filming a scene, Lars Karlsson "pulled" the focus. If something went wrong with a camera, camera mechanic Gerhard Hentschel fixed it. The work of clothing and making up the actors, preparing and taking care of the script, preparing scenery and props, seeing to the continuity of the dialogue and the visual appearance of the film, even the management of financial matters during filming-all these jobs were similarly divided among a number of people whose names appeared on the screen. (1982:7-9) Becker also pointed to the importance of shared meaning ascribed to the value of a work of art. In addition to doing things together, the sociologist believed that all participants in the creation of a work of art had to share a common understanding of the worth and value of that work. In the introduction to Dilip Kumar's autobiography, his coauthor, Udayatara Nayar, describes how Dilip Kumar went beyond being merely an actor, highlighting his management skills in particular. She writes:

Howard S. Becker's "sociology of work" and the Indian cinema
As the young actor progressed from Jwar Bhata (1944), his first film, to Jugnu (1947), his first hit at the box office, he began to grasp the essential secret of making a successful film. By his own study and observation of the process of film making and marketing of the end product, he arrived at the conclusion that an actor's responsibility did not end with his work as an actor.
The actor had as much of a stake in the quality and finesse of a film, which ensured its commercial success.
It meant an efficient and dedicated management of the infrastructure and resources of the production as well as creative management, which started with the writing of the script and the screenplay. (Kumar 2014) The writer, producer, and music composer Naushad Ali, who produced two of Kumar's movies-Babul On his own, Kumar made a study of the production process of American movie studios and learned about the division of labor, streamlining the process, and managing all aspects of a movie as a "product." Kumar applied the same practice and principles of management to filmmaking in India at a time when the terms "sociology of work" and "management" had not yet entered the Indian consciousness. Reflecting on his involvement in movies beyond being an actor, Kumar said: "Nobody taught me this, but I came to the conclusion that I should consider a film in its entirety as a product" (Kumar 2014). His advice to filmmakers is no less Aristotelian: "The attempt should always be to make a film with good stories, sound conflicts, characters that make it entertaining."

The making of Dilip Kumar -'the Tragedy King'
While working as a writer for the Bombay Talkies, Kumar visited the sets of films that were in production in the studio. He watched an older actor, Ashok Kumar, act for the camera in a natural and relaxed manner. Ashok Kumar told the young fellow actor that acting in front of the the camera was "not acting but feeling" (Nazir 2019).
Kumar has called himself an "accidental" actor. The source for this inspiration may have been Ashok Kumar, who had a lasting influence on the young and upcoming star. The 'Tragedy King', as Kumar came to be known, had been unconsciously developing method acting before the term itself was even coined or applied to movie work by Stela Adler and Elia Kazan. Kumar explains his approach to acting in the following way: For instance, if the director comes up to me for a scene and says 'This is your mother. And she is dead'. But I know this is not my mother. This is the actress, Lalita Pawar, and she is just acting. And every faculty of yours is against the idea that this woman who is lying down is your mother and she is dead. 5 In a situation like that, regardless of whether you think she is your mother, your imagination needs to function, asking, 'What if 6 she was my mother? What then?' And that is when the brain starts to bring in memories of your own mother, and sometimes directly, sometimes in-5 This was an actual scene that Kumar played in Daag by Stain (1952). 6 This is the magic if that has guided the Method Acting as taught by Stela Adler and Elia Kazan.  (Desai 2005). 8 In Hindi, Ganga is the great river Ganges and Jamna is the second major river in India. The movie was one of the biggest hits of the 1960s and one of the most successful films domestically and overseas. It also remains the most celebrated film directed by Nitin Bose. Meanwhile, in the village, Parvati is married off to an older man. In the city, Devdas takes to drinking and finds refuge in the arms of a courtesan, Chandramukhi, a dancer and entertainer 12 who falls in love with him. She is "the fallen woman with a heart of gold." He uses and abuses her, but due to the social traditions, he cannot accept Chandramukhi as his companion/wife. He drinks with a suicidal ambition. Chandramukhi is unable to make him stop.
Realizing that he is nearing his end, Devdas returns to Paro's village only to die at her doorsteps. He does not get to see her, or she him.
The novel was and remains a strong criticism of the caste system and the arranged marriages in India.
With Dilip Kumar's performance, the story of Devdas has become the Romeo and Juliet of the Indian culture. When Bimal Roy approached Kumar with the project, the actor was unsure, as the 1935 version had been a big hit and had elevated cinema from mere entertainment to a medium of social concern and literature. Roy urged Kumar to read the novel that was published in 1917. 13 Kumar recalls in his memoirs: I read the novel quite a number of times. Familiarized and refamiliarized myself with the novel, it also helped me to read his other novels too. The characters, the culture, the ethos that was depicted in the novel Devdas grows on you, and you could develop a relationship 12 Traditionally, in the Indian cinema, this has been a thinly veiled euphemism for prostitution. 13 Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay  wrote Devdas in 1901, i.e. when he was 25 years old. However, he was unable to find a publisher until 1917.
with that way of life. So, gradually I got familiarized myself and identified with Devdas. (Kumar 2014) Bimal Roy , who was inspired by Italian neo-realism and Vittorio De Sica, was a master at casting and extracting the best out of every actor.
In a career that was cut short by cancer, Roy won eleven Filmfare Awards: four for the best films and seven as the best director -a record that remains unbroken to this date. Kumar acknowledged that he learned a great deal about acting and restrain in displaying emotion from Bimal Roy. Kumar wrote: "I think Bimal Roy was one of the most significant motion-picture makers, not only of the '50s but in the history of Indian cinema" (Kumar 2016).
Kumar rendered a memorable performance as an indecisive Devdas who destroys his own life as well as that of those who loved him. Yet, there is no hint of self-pity or despondence in the doomed Devdas. Though it should be acknowledged that it was the director's imagination that created the scene, there is no denying that it was Kumar's mesmerizing dialog delivery that lifts the scene into a hauntingly charged experience that remains preserved in the viewers' memory. However, the scene contained a dozen other significant elements, e.g. the words by 15 There are numerous parallels in the American films where a film is remembered for a particular scene, e.g. the "shower scene" in Psycho (1960), a crop duster chasing the protagonist (Cary Grant) in North by Northwest (1959), and James Cagney pushing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in The Public Enemy (1931). the dialog writer, the background music that highlighted the lines, the choice of camera angles, and the editing of pictures and sound. All the elements -combined with the range of Kumar's facial expressions and tonal inflections of sarcasm, pain, guilt, and rage -rendered a hauntingly captivating scene (Mahaan 2010).
During the pre-production stage of Ganga Jamna It is not without reason that Dilip Kumar is considered to be an institution in himself, a "school of acting" that so many actors have drawn their inspiration from (Ahmad 2019). Dharmendra -a highly successful actor during the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s -inspired by Kumar's performances, reflected poetically: "Dilip Kumar is the brightest star whose shine I stole to light my desires" (Ayaz 2018).

Ganga Jamna earned Kumar his eighth Filmfare
Awards nomination for Best Actor. He would go on to earn eleven more nominations with three more Throughout his career, Kumar is noted for his consummate skill in taking any role and bringing it to life. He has always gotten a wide variety of roles, diverse plot structures, and complex climaxes that gave vent to his acting talents. Dilip Kumar admits that he does not know how he came to be known as a method actor. "The epithet was used for me much before it was used for Brando," as he says, adding that: The truth is that I am an actor who evolved a method, which stood me in good stead. I learned the importance of studying the script and characters deeply and building upon my gut observations and sensations about my own and other characters. It was always meaningful for me to study even those characters who would be close to me or opposed to me. Like a sociologist using phenomenology to observe and predict human behavior, Kumar did observing, and using instinct and common sense, he developed his approach to filmmaking, which strikingly resembles Becker's theories of the production of works of art and "doing things together" to achieve the common goal. Nor would it be an exaggeration to say that Kumar has been as much the auteur of many of his movies as were his directors.
Martin Scorsese claims that the American cinema can be divided into two periods: before Brando and after Brando. Similarly, the Indian cinema can be divided into "before Dilip Kumar and after Dilip Kumar." Indians often claim that "their gift to humanity is cultural synthesis." In making this claim, the Indians refer to the pre-British time, i.e. the time of Muslim rule -especially the Mughal era of Akbar and Jehangir (Naipaul 1977:112). A true renaissance man -i.e. a man of culture, literature, poetry, and ultimate sophistication -Dilip Kumar is India's gift to humanity, the last of the moguls with old-school values as well as a man with a vision for the future.
To paraphrase Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire, Dilip Kumar found Indian acting a brick and left it marble.