From cotton wool clouds to candy floss walls, stained glass windows to sumptuous staircases, bunches of flowers to bubble gum furniture, art direction in Hindi films is finally a matter of design rather than accident, discovers Jayashree Menon.

Circa 1940 -1950
Curvaceous heroine cavorts under cotton wool clouds as a patently paper moon shines overhead and bunches of neatly tied, cellophane flowers rustle in black and white harmony.

Circa1960-1980
Over-stuffed sofas, garish carpets, velvet curtains and a grand piano are mute witnesses, as a furious father disowns errant son/daughter for not upholding the gharaane ki izzat.

Circa 1990-Present
Candy floss walls and bubble gum furniture complement the sugar and spice miss, as she coos sweet nothings to hunky hero from funky phone thingy.

Whether it’s quirky artefacts and colour coordinated upholstery or stately pillars and understated magnificence that reside in today’s celluloid fairy tales, one thing is quite clear – art direction in Hindi films is finally a matter of design rather than accident.

And, ringing in this change are art directors like Nitin Chandrakant Desai, Sabu Cyril and Sharmistha Roy who are pushing the envelope to authentic, even the most extravagant and sumptuous, state of the art heights.

Take Nitin Desai’s Devdas. Much of the film was shot on lavishly built sets — whether it was Paro’s (Aishwarya) stained-glass haveli which took almost seven months to erect; or the gold staircase leading to golden-hearted courtesan, Chandramukhi’s (Madhuri) chamber; or the harsh glitter of the khushiyon ki galli. Meticulous research and painstaking detail are evident as Desai recreated a Kolkata of the ’30s in Mumbai’s Film City, at a cost of a whopping 11 crore.

"Of course, making a set like Devdas is very difficult but then, art direction in real terms is all about doing such jobs," says Desai. "I must have referred to more than 500 books and I also visited Kolkata several times to see certain localities."

Or take the other blockbuster, Lagaan. Nitin Desai’s brief from director, Ashutosh Gowariker, was simple and succinct – forget the gloss, stuff the glamour, the audience should smell the cow dung of village Champaner. And indeed, Desai’s Champaner is so real that viewers refuse to believe that it is all make-believe…that such a village does not exist in the arid starkness of Bhuj.

Desai believes in making the audience feel less like spectators and more like participants. "Every film has a body and a soul. The movement of colour has to be choreographed, keeping in mind first the prominent characters and then the ambience around them," he explains.

But, long before this new breed of art directors proved their mettle, there were a few Indian film makers who had dared to translate vision into design.

Showman Raj Kapoor began his career at R.K. Films as an art director before making his debut as an actor and he put this early exposure to good use when he turned director. And, no less a person than Satyajit Ray, gave cinema art its due recogntion when he made it a point to personally sketch out all the set designs and characters for his films, even before casting for the right actors to suit the roles. Remember the detailing in the period piece, Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Ray’s first Hindi film?

Evolved directors like Guru Dutt, realising the significance of this emerging craft, used design to translate their cinematic vision into reality. Who can forget the stark poignancy of the run-down studio in Kaagaz Ke Phool, or the decadence of a Bengali zamindar’s haveli in Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam?

Or for that matter, take K. Asif. For sheer baroque grandiosity, his Mughal-e-Azam remains in a class by itself. Screened in 1960, after almost 15 years in the making, Asif’s grand operatic vision piled spectacle upon spectacle and fabricated sets that have defined popular imaginings of Mughal imperial opulence. Asif’s ultimate trump card was Technicolor – then prohibitively expensive for Indian film makers. Naturally, the director reserved this tour de force for just two musical scenes, both set in the sheesh mahal (palace of mirrors) stunningly crafted by mirror work master, Agha Shirazi. And Madhubala, reflected in a thousand shards of glass, defiantly singing "Jab pyaar kiya to darna kya…" is what Hindi film lore is all about.

What must be obvious to the diehard Bollywood buff, is that in the last five years, the look of Hindi films has undergone a sea change. And one of the persons responsible for this is Sharmishta Roy, daughter of veteran art director, Sudhendu Roy, who did all of Bimal Roy’s films. She is undoubtedly on the ‘most wanted’ wish list of all young directors wanting that certain look for their film.

This ‘new look’ not only flaunts colour and class, it has authenticity and oodles of attitude that was missing earlier. Roy’s sets mirror the physical being of the characters, rather than being just a setting for them.

"If there’s a difference today, it is in styling," says Roy. "Directors have a much more Western approach. In styling too, the look is more Western and contemporary than the films made in the ’70s and even early ’80s. The props in earlier films were not as detailed either. Hardly any attention was given to characterisation, in terms of creating the atmosphere for a character. Today there’s an attempt to focus on a character."

The Raichand mansion in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, is a case in point. Designed by Roy, it not only reflects the grandeur befitting a tycoon’s home but also the autocratic, imposing persona of the lord of the manor – Amitabh Bachchan.

Roy feels this new sensibility in her craft is due to the changing environment in apna desh. Thanks to economic liberalisation, there has been increasing exposure, for both film makers as well as audiences. The many reference points for the audience, like cable television and foreign films, have meant that recent films have had no option but to go in for a complete makeover.

This, in turn, has meant a change in the basic formula film. Sure, we still have rich girl/poor boy, but even the latter is not really poor and rather comfortably upper middle class.

As for audience mindscape, since everyone much prefers to see gloss and floss on screen, searing reality and oppressive poverty have slowly and surely evaporated from cinema. But does anyone really care?

Besides, the personality of the film makers too has changed. And this has had a great impact on the look and feel of the films they make. Young and urbane, the Karan Johars, Aditya Chopras and Farhan Akhtars, prefer crafting city centric films they are comfortable with. And as a film usually reflects the director’s sensibilities, their films have a freshly minted feel and look about them.

So complete is the art directors’ involvement with a film these days that, in some cases, they are redesignated production designers.

Desai elaborates. "When I supervise the complete look of a film, I call myself the production designer not art director. For as a production designer, I am involved in the film, right from the scripting and pre-production stages. Even the cinematographer and costume designer work in tandem with me, not exclusively as separate departments. Every prop, curtain, dress, even elements of the backdrop, are modified to fit the look that the director and I have visualised. For example, in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, even the colours of the buses and an important building in Budapest, were changed to get the right look and the mood of the sequences to be shot there."

Just as filmi costumes have inspired garage darzis over the years, today it’s the turn of the silver screen sets. And many a socialite has requested her interior designer to get her just ‘that’ look as in Madhuri’s bedroom in Dil To Pagal Hai or maybe the ultra chic, all-white look of Shah Rukh Khan’s London home in K3G.

For that matter, who has not gasped at ostentatious wedding pandals designed like Mughal palaces, Rajasthani havelis, Egyptian pyramids, and what have you? All ostensibly ‘inspired’ by some filmi set.

So, then, what’s art direction all about? High art or low kitsch? Pick your flick.

Verve contributor, Jayashree Menon, is a senior freelance writer-editor who specialises in a variety of lifestyle and entertainment subjects. Earlier with Femina, she also worked as copy editor, Verve and edited Marwar.