6. Kaagaz Ke Phool -1959

• A review in Filmindia, Nov. 1959: "(This) is an utterly undistinguished picture ... a depressing, incoherent tale boringly told."
• Guru Dutt to his assistant Raj Khosla during the premiere at Maratha Mandir, Mumbai: "Raj, it’s a stillborn child."
• Dutt in a Filmfare interview, 1963: "It was good in patches. It was too slow and went over the heads of audiences."
• The film’s original Cinemascope negative was damaged. Only a few scope prints survive, two at European TV stations.

This loss finds a visual voice in Murthy’s B/W camera. He plays beautifully with the studio space, its people and props, its expanse and constrictions. The use of light and shade highlights the dilemmas and desires of the characters, particularly in the ethereal Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam. And Dutt’s desperation to escape the world is brought alive in the song Ud ja pyaase bhanware even as the windblown dry leaves throb with life. The film closes with Dutt dead in the director’s chair. In many ways, Kaagaz... carries forward the theme of Pyaasa—that there is no room for art in this world and the only way out for a sensitive soul is to renounce it.