Bapu (film director)

Early life and background

Bapu was born on 15 December 1933, in Narsapur, in present-day West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India to Sattiraju Venugopala Rao and Suryakantam. He has worked as a political cartoonist for the newspaper Andhra Patrika in 1945. He holds B.Com (1953) and BL (1955) from University of Madras.

Painting

Bapu introduced a painting style of simple bright colours. His unique style consisted of economy of strokes, freehand drawing and a lack of background clutter.

His paintings focus on Hindu mythological characters, and he has painted the Hindu epic Ramayana as a pictorial story. His character portrayals, such as Shiva, Bhima, Duryodhana, look distinctly male with wide chests, large jaws and large biceps; while Krishna and Rama are more feminine in build. Bapu has also introduced a new style of cursive writing in Telugu. The font is his own handwriting and reflects the same simplicity as his art.

Bapu's paintings also decorated the cover pages of many magazines in India and Abroad. Telugu Naadi Magazine published from USA for Telugu audience have published Bapu's great paintings. Bapu also later served on their advisory board to guide and have an outstanding content for the magazine that catered to Telugu people.

Cinematic style

The most notable achievement in Bapu's movie making is his success in capturing the nativity of the Telugu people and translating it into visuals. His movies center on realistic family issues and relationships, however his recurring theme is magic realism, with vignettes of mythological characters aiding in the narration.

Most of his movies have a female protagonist; a breakaway style from the formulaic movies that relegate female lead characters to song and dance numbers. His penchant for preserving the Telugu nativity in his movies can be seen in the choice of artists, especially the dusky female leads and weak villains.

Association with Ramana

Bapu's family was staying in Madras and in 1942, when the Japanese bombed Madras, there was a panic exodus and Bapu's family moved to Narasapuram and stayed there till 1945, when the Second World War ended. Bapu studied in Taylor High School, Narasapuram during these years. Mullapudi Venkataramana's father, who was working as a Sub-Registrar was posted at Narasapuram during the years 1942-45 and so, Venkataramana also studied in Taylor high School, Narasapram, during those years. They were classmates during those three years and that is how their association started. They continued schooling at Kesari High School, Madras. Ramana's first short story 'Amma Maata Vinakapote' was published in 1945 in 'Bala', a children's magazine published by Radio Annayya (Nyayapathi Raghava Rao), he was 14 then. Bapu illustrated the story. That was the beginning of their career as a writer-producer -illustrator- filmmaker duo".

Started as an illustrator-story writer team and then turning into a film-director-writer duo, they have contributed immensely to the enrichment of Telugu cultural ethos through literature and cinema. When one mentions Bapu, then one is bound to mention Ramana's name too and vice versa. The most notable achievement in his movie making is his success in capturing the nativity of Telugu people and translating it great on-screen visuals. When ever the renowned duo of Bapu and Ramana come together for a project, viewers expect a spectacular visual of nativity with an equally enthralling story-line.

Their mythological ventures like Sampoorna Ramayanam, Ramanjaneya Yuddham and Seeta Kalyanam have been the milestones of Telugu cinema, while historical films like Thyagayya, Bhakta Kannappa and Shreenatha kavisarvabhouma have been hugely successful. Bapu-Ramana combination has created movie magic on the large screen with some of the path breaking films in Telugu cinema and are ever remembered for films like Radha kalyanam, Velugu needalu, Bharyabhartalu, Bhogimanta, Mutyala Muggu, 'Sakshi, Mr. Pellam', Pelli Pustakam. The duo directed Mana Voori Pandavulu (1978) which won the Filmfare Award for Best Film - Telugu.

Collaborations with other artists

He worked with Satyam Sankaramanchi and drew 101 pictures for each of the stories in Amaravati Kathalu. Bapu is one-half of the Bapu-Ramana (Mullapudi Venkata Ramana) pair that made movies in Telugu cinema. Ramana provided an able foil, providing script and dialogue to suit Bapu's visuals. Bapu collaborated with Ramana to give life to Ramana's child prodigy character Budugu in the form of appealing caricatures.

Hindi cinema

Known for introducing Anil Kapoor to Indian cinema, Bapu has directed Hindi films such as Hum Paanch, Prem Pratigyaa,Seeta Swayamvar, Anokhi Bhakt, Bezubaan, Woh Saat Din, Pyari Behna, Mohobbat, Mera Dharam, and Diljala. He has also directed a Tamil film Neeti Devan Mayagugiran.

Death

Bapu had suffered heart attacks many times throughout his career. He was admitted into a hospital at Chennai in mid August 2014. He suffered from a cardiac arrest on 31 August 2014, and died later on the same day. He was given a state funeral by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Awards and honours

Filmography

1. Ramayanam along with Ramana garu. This book was published in Telugu, English and French languages.
2. Maha Bharatam along with Ramana garu.
3. Bapu Ramaneeyam along with Ramana garu
4. Koti Kommachi along with Ramana garu
5. (Im)Koti Kommachi along with Ramana garu
6. Kosaru Kommachi -Bapu Ramaneeyam along with Ramana garu
7. Bapu Cartoonulu -1
8. Bapu Cartoonulu -2
9. Bommalu Geeyandi
10. Budugu along with Ramana garu