Ram Gopal Varma

Ram Gopal Varma
Ram Gopal Varma in September 2012
Born	Penmetsa Ram Gopal Varma (1962-04-07) 7 April 1962 Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Residence	Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh
Occupation	Director and Producer
Years active	1989–present
Children	Revathi (Daughter)[1][2]
Relatives	Madhu Mantena (cousin)

Ram Gopal Varma is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer, known for his works in Telugu cinema, Bollywood, and television.^[3][4][5][6] Varma directed films across multiple genres, including parallel cinema and docudrama noted for their gritty realism, technical finesse, and craft.^{[7][8][9][10]} Regarded as one of the pioneers of new age Indian cinema,^{[11][12][13][14]} Varma garnered the National Film Award for scripting the political crime drama, Shool (1999).^[15] In 2004, he was featured in the BBC World series Bollywood Bosses.^[16][17] In 2006, Grady Hendrix of Film Comment, published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center cited Varma as "Bombay’s Most Successful Maverick" for his works on experimental films.^{[18][19][12][13][14]}

Varma is known for presenting the Indian Political Trilogy, and the Indian Gangster Trilogy; film critic Rajeev Masand had labeled the series as one of the "most influential movies of Hindi cinema.^[20][21][22] The first installment of the trilogy, Satya, was also listed in CNN-IBN's 100 greatest Indian films of all time.^[23] Varma's recent avant-garde works include hits such as the dramatized re-enactment of "Rayalaseema factionism" in Rakta Charitra (2010), the "2008 Mumbai attacks" in The Attacks of 26/11 (2013), the "Operation Cocoon" in Killing Veerappan (2016),^[24][25] and the "Vijayawada riots" in Vangaveeti (2016).^[26][27]

Starting his career as a civil engineer, he made an entry into Telugu cinema with the path-breaking crime thriller, Siva (1989) screened at the 13th International Film Festival of India, and has garnered Varma, the state Nandi Awards for Best direction, Best first film of a director, and the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Telugu.^[28] Subsequently, the film was included in CNN-IBN's list of 100 greatest Indian films of all time.^[29] Varma's next movie Kshana Kshanam (1991) was screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The sleeper hit won him another Nandi Award for Best Direction, and the Nandi Award for Best Screenplay Writer.^[30] The 1993 political drama, Gaayam received six state Nandi Awards. In 1999, He directed Prema Katha for which he received his third Nandi Award for Best Director.^[30]

Early years

In an interview to Tehelka, Varma talked about his relationship with his parents and the reasons behind his decision to become a filmmaker.

From my parents' perspective, I looked like a useless bum. It was the truth. I had no objective. I was just fascinated by people, so I used to study their behaviour. I was most fascinated by the bullies in my classroom. They were like gangsters for me. They had the guts to push around people, do things I couldn't— perhaps did not even want to do myself. But I'd want a friend like that (laughs). I used to adulate them like heroes. That was my first touch with anti-socialism. Over a period of time, I developed a low-angle fascination for larger than life people. I was always a loner – not because I was unhappy, but because I live away from myself, not just others. I like to study myself – the way I am walking, talking, behaving. My constant obsession with studying myself and other people is perhaps the primary motivation for me to be a filmmaker.^[31]

Varma completed BE in Civil engineering from V.R. Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. Even during this period, Varma remained a film buff, through his uncle. Varma would skip classes often and watch films instead. He would watch the same film repeatedly "just to watch certain scenes which interested him."^[32] According to him, that is how he learned film direction.

After a brief stint as a site engineer for Krishna Oberoi hotel in Hyderabad, he put his dreams on the back burner and decided to go to Nigeria to make some money. It was at this moment that he visited a video rental library in Hyderabad. He loved the idea and decided to start one of his own at Ameerpet in Hyderabad, through which he slowly developed connections with the film world.^[16] Without being successful as a fourth assistant director in B. Gopal's film Collector Gari Abbai, Varma directly ventured into film direction, with the 1989 Telugu film, Siva.^[33]

International acclaim

Rachel Dwyer, a reader in world cinema at the University of London-Department of South Asia, marked Varma's Satya as an experiment with a new genre, a variation of film noir that has been called Mumbai Noir, of which Varma is the acknowledged master.^[22][34] In 2010, Varma received critical acclaim at the Fribourg International Film Festival, Switzerland; a retrospective of his filmography, highlighting Mumbai Noir was staged by film critic Edouard Waintrop, a delegate in the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival.^[35][36] Satya and Company, in particular, were cited by British director Danny Boyle as influences on his Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), for their "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld", their display of "brutality and urban violence", and their gritty realism.^[37][38][39]

In 2005, Varma directed the Godfatheresque-Sarkar, another super-hit thriller inspired by the life of Bal Thackeray, which was screened to special mention at the New York Asian Film Festival, along with its sequel Sarkar Raj, which premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and the 9th IIFA World Premiere-Bangkok, and was archived at the Academy of Motion Pictures library.^{[36][40][41][42][43]} In 2013, he directed a docudrama, The Attacks of 26/11, showcased to critical acclaim at the Berlin International Film Festival, in the Panorama as well as the Competition section,^[44][45] and was premièred at Films Division of India.^[46][47][48] The film received highly positive reviews, with critics praising Varma's narrative of assistant commissioner N. R. Mahale, and the discrepancies associated with Mahale's interaction with Ajmal Kasab on anti terrorism.^[49][50][51]

Mainstream

Varma started his career in the Telugu film industry as an assistant director on the sets of films such as Collector Gari Abbai and Rao Gari Illu. His father Krishnam Raju Varma, was a sound recordist at the Annapurna Studios. Varma met Nagarjuna Akkineni at the studios with the help of his friend nomula rohith yogi, and narrated a scene to the actor which impressed him.^[71] The result of their collaboration was a film on the criminalisation of student politics – Siva. It was a commercially successful film that gave Varma an opportunity to demonstrate his technical expertise and story telling skills.^[52]

Kshana Kshanam with Venkatesh, Gaayam with Jagapathi Babu and Anaganaga Oka Roju with J.D. Chakravarthy were successful, Govinda Govinda with Nagarjuna proved to be a moderate success at the box office.^[72] During this period, Varma produced films such as Money and Money Money. Other box office hits by Varma in Telugu include Gulabi (1995); Madhyanam Hathya (2004); Rakta Charitra (2010), Dongala Mutha (2011), Rowdy(2014), Ice Cream(2014).^[25][73] Varma introduced online auction based film distribution model for this venture, and tasted success.^[74]

Varma's notable mainstream works in Hindi cinema include Daud (1997), Darna Zaroori Hai (2006), Nishabd (2007), Darling (2007), and Phoonk (2008). Bollywood film makers such as Anurag Kashyap, Madhur Bhandarkar, Puri Jagannadh, E. Nivas, Prawaal Raman, Krishna Vamsi, Vishram Sawant, and Hansal Mehta assisted Varma, before venturing into direction.^[12] In 1993, he scripted the Tamil thriller Thiruda Thiruda, screened at Toronto International Film Festival.^[75][76][77] In 2015, Varma was fined for Rs 10 Lakhs, for an alleged copyright violation with the film Aag (2007).^[78] He made his directorial debut in Kannada cinema with the thriller Killing Veerappan.^[79]

Non-film work

Ram Gopal Varma with Suriya on the sets of Rakta Charitra

Awards and nominations

Varma has garnered the National Film Award, the Bimal Roy Memorial National Award, seven state Nandi Awards, two Bollywood Filmfare Awards, and five Bollywood Movie Awards.

Filmography

Web Series

References

External links

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