Career
In 1938, he left Amroha to study in Lahore, now part of Pakistan, where singer K. L. Saigal discovered him and took him to Mumbai (Bombay) to work for Sohrab Modi's Minerva Movietoon film company, where he started his career working on films like Jailor (1938), Pukar (1939), Bharosa (1940), Kardar (Shohjeban 1946). He made his debut as a director in 1949, with Mahal, starring Madhubala and Ashok Kumar, which was a musical hit, with songs by Lata Mangeshkar and Rajkumari Dubey.
He directed only four films; of these were Mahal (1949) for Bombay Talkies and Pakeezah (which was conceived in 1958 but was not brought to the screen until 1972). He also wrote the screen play, lyrics and produced the latter.
He wrote scripts for the movies made by Sohrab Modi, Abdul Rashid Kardar and K. Asif. He was one of the four dialogue writers for the latter's famous 1960 movie, Mughal-e-Azam, for which he won the Filmfare Award.
As a director, he developed a style that combined a stylized direction with minimalist performances. This style was different from the one with expressive acting that was common in Indian cinema of his period. Both Mahal and Pakeezah express Amrohi's personal vision of the world, and it can be said that they are not so much movies as symphonic poems on celluloid.
In 1958, he started Kamaal Studios for his banner Mahal Films, though it closed down after three years and later changed hands to become Natraj Studios.
It was mentioned that the last movie he wanted to make was called Aakhri Mughal. He had written a substantial portion of the script. But it went into oblivion after his death. Noted film maker J P Dutta was to revive the film in the late 1990s which was supposed to have been Abhishekh Bachchan's debut movie. But later Dutta scrapped the project. He was again planning to revive the film in 2007 after the debacle of his costume drama Umrao Jaan (2006) remake from the cult film from the 80s.
Read more about this topic: Kamal Amrohi
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