Directors of Commercial Cinema are the anchors to the ship of Bollywood Cinema. Reputed Directors like Mani Ratnam, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Vikram Bhatt all project the contemporary flavour of society to the global audience by the superb creative essence and technicalities of film making. Hindi cinema climbed to dizzying heights due to the efforts of the filmmakers who crafted films due the desire to do the same. They imbibed a fetish for creativity which is evident in their films as well. The conceptual notion of Indian directors has hugely contributed to Indian film industry being one of the best in the world.
When it comes to the Hindi films the creative lineage of famous directors begins from Pramathesh Chandra Barua. Being one of the earliest and talented directors of Hindi film industry his film, Devdas (1937), set a cult. Such is the craze for the film that it was even remade in 2002 by Sanjay Leela Bhansali with some of the biggest names in Bollywood. He has also made a number of Bengali films as well. Apart from Devdas "Zindagi" once again brought back Barua and KL Saigal together.
Mehboob Khan is another famous filmmaker who is revered till date for his magnum opus, "Mother India". But his earliest hit film was "Aan` with Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar.
One of the most acclaimed directors is Bimal Roy. An ace cameraman, he had assisted Bimal Roy in Devdas.
His landmark film was "Do Bigha Zamin". After this he went onto deliver one hit film after the other. His filmography includes movies like Parineeta, Sujata, Bandini and others.
Guru Dutt needs no introduction for the Indian audience. He was the man who did present subjectivity with e`lan. He gifted the Hindi film industry with timeless classics such as "Pyaasa", Kaagaz ke Phool, Chaudhavin ka Chaand and Saheb, Biwi aur Ghulam. The very beautiful and graceful Waheeda Rehman was discovered by him. However his own life was steeped in confusions and agony. Unfortunately Indian cinema was faced with a huge loss in 1960 when Guru Dutt passed away.
With Raj Kapoor ushered a completely new trend in Indian cinema. He struck the right balance between commercial vein and meaningful films. The mastery of Raj Kapoor lies in the fact that he never tried to cross the line of commercial cinema. Many of his films deal with social issues like widowhood, single mother, adolescent problems and others. Besides being a director Raj Kapoor was undoubtedly a great actor as well. His films include Awaara, Shree 420, Barsaat, Sangam, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby, Kal Aaj aur Kal, Prem Rog, Satyam Shivam Sundaram and others. Such films established the Raj Kapoor Era in the Indian film industry.
New Cinema saw the rise of fresh and innovative directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee, Basu Bhattacharya, Govind Nihalani, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Ketan Mehta and others. With B.R. Chopra and Yash Chopra Hindi film industry again underwent sea changes. Yash Chopra redefined romance on the celluloid. With films like Silsila, Kabhie Kabhie, Noorie, Lamhe, Chandni and others Yash Chopra became the unspoken king of filmdom. Other commercial directors include Shakti Samanta, Kundan Shah, Manmohan Desai, Ramesh Sippy, GP Sippy, Manoj Kumar, Subhash Ghai and others.
Several filmmakers evolved by following the genre of Yash Chopra: Karan Johar, Kunal Kohli and others. Besides them there are a host of directors who have created a niche for themselves by making cinema of their choice. Such mavericks are Mahesh Bhatt, Aziz Mirza, Sudhir Mishra, Rakesh Roshan, Nagesh Kukunoor, Rajat Kapoor, Madhur Bhandarkar, Anubhav Sinha, Anurag Basu, Farhan Akhtar, Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, Ashutosh Gowariker, Rajkumar Hirani and the list goes on.
