K S Sethumadhavan- Sanyasi in filmdom

The intention was to write about my interactions with Nagesh and later Raghuvaran. As I was recollecting about Nagesh, it struck me that it was at the shooting of `Nammavar’ that I interacted the most with the ace comedian. The director was K S Sethumadhavan. I then decided that my interaction with Sethumadhavan was the one that had to be written now. In my entire career, I think Sethumadhavan is one director who does not go to great lengths to explain why his movies are classics. All you need is to ask any  director  about a striking scene in the film and probably the only saving grace of the film, the director would get excited and­­­­ explain in detail. In case of Sethumadhavan, the explanations are simple and no rhetoric. He would acknowledge your compliment with a smile and not say something like even Marlon Brando thought so.

The making of his movies were all done methodically and silently. He did not have any juicy bits like how he got the lead actors to emote or got involved in their personal tiffs. I remember Sharadha who was talking to me suddenly  running say that Master is calling. According to her, Sethumadhavan is like a school master who wants his actors to emote the way he wants. She said that he was a stickler for timing, the place you stand and the angle. If you look at his movies from this angle, you will never find any such touch of a `master’ behind it. The actors are their natural best. Many directors say that they can mould anybody to the role. Sethumadhavan had the ability to make a hero play the villain, a heroine a vamp and get away with it.

If you look at the range of actors he has worked, it  is amazing. All the top actors and actress of Malayalam, he also handled multi starrer films with ease. He also directed MGR in the remake of Yaadon Ki baarat.  He was not keen to do the film as he had already done a remake in Hindi with Sanjeev Kumar. MGR agreed and he did it as his brother was keen to produce it.

Most of the director’s whom I have come across have said that it was very difficult to handle literary writers   when it came to making  their works into films. They could not understand the commercial elements that needed to be added to their work. If you look at his films, the range of writers whose works he has adapted and made into hit films is amazing. As an example, one should read Pamman’s  Chattakari and then see the film to understand how Sethumadhavan has used the craft to tell the story.

I asked him about `Chattakari’ which even today fascinates me. The music, the sensuousness in the air and all time great acting by Adoor Bhasi had caught my imagination. I was then in my school final. When I got to interview the man who created this movie, I simply could not resist asking the question- `How did you conceive those tender love scenes in `Chattakari’?. This question was partly triggered by Sethumadhavan saying that his wish in younger days was to be a sanyasi. Generally ( going by the biographies)  the makers of romantic love stories are die hard romantics in real life but Sethumadhavan was far from all this .  All he did was blush.

A man who is polite to media but do not chase it, surprised me. I got a call saying, “Look, I want you see my Telugu film and give me publicity. It is a NFDC production and they will not do a good job. It is for the first time that I am asking a journalist to write about my film,” he said. I saw the film and had a chat with him and took the stills and left. As I was about to write about the film, Sethumadhavan called me and said –“Sorry. NFDC says they will handle the publicity. So please don’t write about it,” I laughingly told him that in your life for the first time you asked a journalist to write about your film and for the first time in my career, a director tells me not to write about his film.  I felt bad when `Marupakkam’ directed by him in Tamil and his screenplay based on the Indira Parthsarathy’s novel `Ucha Veyil’  gave Tamil cinema the first national award for Best Film and Silver Lotus award for best screenplay. Jayabharathi got special jury mention. It was the joke of the year and the start of Bollywood lobby gaining upper hand, when Amitabh got best actor award for Agneepath. Till last minute Sivakumar for his performance in `Marupakkam’ was the front runner for the coveted award.