Hrishikesh Mukherjee

1922–2006

Twenty-six films here, under more job titles than anyone else in the catalogue - director, editor, writer, producer, and in a couple of odd corners cinematographer and cast.

He was Bimal Roy's editor first. He cut Devdas in 1955 and Madhumati in 1958, both of which are here, and Madhumati swept nine Filmfare awards.

His own first film is Musafir, in 1957, which he directed and produced and which is also here - and it is a much stranger debut than his reputation suggests. Three unconnected stories, titled Marriage, Birth and Death, happening in one rented house, with the landlord putting the TO LET sign back up between them. The story is Ritwik Ghatak's, the dialogue Rajinder Singh Bedi's, the score Salil Chowdhury's, the camera Kamal Bose's - most of Bimal Roy's unit, making something Roy would not have made. Dilip Kumar sings in it, the only time he ever did.

Anari came two years later, and that is where the Hrishikesh Mukherjee film most people mean arrives fully formed: ordinary people, moral pressure applied steadily, comedy that never undercuts the seriousness next to it.

Khubsoorat, in 1980, won him the Filmfare for Best Film and is the purest example of it. A household is run by written rules; a young woman arrives and breaks them; and the woman who made the rules is given a case, a reason and a nomination of her own rather than being made a joke. Rekha won Best Actress for it.

He also kept taking editing jobs on other people's films long after he had stopped needing to - Yakeen, a 1969 spy thriller, is cut by him.

That editing background is visible in everything. The films are short, they do not linger, and they cut away from the emotional peak about half a second before a lesser director would.

Dates and credits from Wikidata.