MANI RATNAM

'Mani Ratnam' () (born June 2, 1956) is a critically acclaimed Tamil Indian film director, writer and producer.
Mani Ratnam revolutionized the Tamil film industry and acclaimed one of the best film directors in India.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Awards and Recognition

Filmography

Directorial Credits

Non-Director Credits

Stage

Family

See also

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Ratnam was born as G. Subramaniam on June 2, 1956, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. After graduating with a degree in commerce from Madras University and an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, he embarked on a career as a management consultant before becoming a filmmaker. He got into film direction with the help of his late brother, film producer G. Venkateswaran.

Career

Mani Ratnam's films often feature realistic, contemporary themes and complex plots. With a career spanning over two decades, he has garnered high acclaim and has been praised for handling serious issues whilst retaining a high entertainment factor in his films. Familial and marital hardships, terrorism, love, class and religious conflict, war, politics, adoption, history and disability are just some of the socio-political issues to have been featured in his films. His movies are generally made in the Tamil language, but are usually also dubbed into other languages like Telugu and Hindi owing to their national appeal. He has also made films in other languages like Hindi, Telugu and Kannada. Mani Ratnam's first film was a Kannada one. Pallavi Anu Pallavi. A film that explored a relationship between an older woman and a young man. But it was with Mouna Raagam a love story that managed to be both tender and exquisite without being maudlin or syrupy that Mani Ratnam made the cash registers ring. Then came Pagal Nilavu, a film that had to settle for quiet obscurity. But it was with Nayakan that Mani Ratnam found his voice.
Until then, it seemed that Mani Ratnam was fumbling for a style. At times, he was lucky to get away with his unformed style and at other times not so lucky. Nayakan , when it happened was a film so different from what any of the film-going audiences not just in Tamilnadu but in the rest of the country as well were used to, that it was a huge smashing success. It established his reputation as a box office miracle worker. It won a spate of awards. And it was India's official entry for the Oscar Awards. Mani Ratnam had become a brand.
The characteristic elements of Mani Ratnam's films include memorable music by notable Indian composers Ilaiyaraaja and A. R. Rahman, a strong story line, sharp dialogue and innovative cinematography and art direction. He has worked with the best cinematographers in the country - notably P. C. Sriram, Balu Mahendra, Santosh Sivan, Ravi K. Chandran, Madhu Ambhatt, Rajiv Menon and the likes.

Awards and Recognition

Widely known for his ability to tread the middle way between artistic cinema and commercial cinema, Ratnam's movies are further noted for their brilliance in technical aspects like art direction, cinematography and background score. His work has come to be recognised nationally and internationally.
In 2002, Mani Ratnam was awarded the Padma Shri^[1].
In 1994, a retrospective of his Tamil films was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). His movie ''Nayagan'' was part of Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies issued in 2005.^[2][3]

Filmography

The following is the list of movies directed by Mani Ratnam. For a lot of these movies, Mani Ratnam is also credited for the Story & Screenplay:

Directorial Credits

'Year'	'Film'	'Language'	'Cast'	'Music Director'	'Notes'
1983	''Pallavi Anu Pallavi''	Kannada	Anil Kapoor, Lakshmi	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Tamil as ''Oh! Priya Priya''
1985	''Unaru''	Malayalam	Mohanlal, Sukumaran, Sabina Jose	Ilaiyaraaja
1985	''Pagal Nilavu''	Tamil	Murali, Revathi Menon, Radhika Sarath Kumar, Sathyaraj	Ilaiyaraaja
1985	''Idaya Kovil''	Tamil	Mohan, Radha, Ambika, Goundamani	Ilaiyaraaja
1986	''Mouna Raagam''	Tamil	Mohan, Revathi, Karthik	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as 'Mouna Raagam''
1987	''Nayagan''	Tamil	Kamal Haasan, Saranya, Nassar, Janagaraj	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Hindi as Dayavaan'' Dubbed into Telugu as ''Nayakudu''
1988	''Agni Natchathiram''	Tamil	Prabhu, Karthik, Vijayakumar, Prabhu Deva, Amala, Janagaraj, Jayachitra	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as ''Gharshana''
1989	''Geethanjali''	Telugu	Nagarjuna, Girija, Vijayakumar	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Tamil as ''Idhayathai Thirudathey'' Dubbed into Malayalam as ''Geethanjali''
1990	''Anjali''	Tamil	Raghuvaran, Revathi, Prabhu, Tarun Kumar, Shamili, Shruti, Saranya	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as ''Anjali''
1991	''Thalapathi''	Tamil	Rajinikanth, Mammooty, Arvind Swamy, Amrish Puri, Sobhana, Bhanupriya, Srividya, Geetha, Jaishankar	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as ''Dalapati'' Dubbed into Hindi as ''Dal-pati''
1992	''Roja''	Tamil	Arvind Swamy, Madhubala, Pankaj Kapoor, Nassar, Janagaraj	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into English as ''The Rose'' Dubbed into Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi as ''Roja''
1993	''Thiruda Thiruda''	Tamil	Prashanth, Anand, Heera Rajgopal, Anu Agarwal, Balasubrahmanyam	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Hindi as ''Chor Chor'' Dubbed into Telugu as ''Donga Donga''
1995	''Bombay''	Tamil	Arvind Swamy, Manisha Koirala, Nassar, Prakash Raj	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Hindi and Telugu as ''Bombay''
1997	''Iruvar''	Tamil	Mohanlal, Aishwarya Rai, Prakash Raj, Madhubala, Tabu, Revathi, Gouthami, Nassar	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Telugu as ''Iddaru''
1998	''Dil Se''	Hindi	Shah Rukh Khan, Manisha Koirala, Preity Zinta	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Tamil as ''Uyire'' Dubbed into Telugu as ''Prema Tho''
2000	''Alaipayuthey''	Tamil	Madhavan, Shalini, Arvind Swamy, Kushboo, Vivek, Sukumari, Lalitha, Jayasudha, Pyramid Natarajan	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into English as ''Waves'' Dubbed into Telugu as ''Sakhi''
2002	''Kannathil Muthamittal''	Tamil	Madhavan, Simran, Nandita Das, Keerthana, Prakash Raj, Pasupathy	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into English as ''A Peck on the Cheek'' Dubbed into Telugu as ''Amrutha''
2004	''Aayitha Ezhuthu''	Tamil	Madhavan, Surya Sivakumar, Siddharth Narayan, Meera Jasmine, Esha Deol, Trisha, Bharathiraja	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Telugu as ''Yuva'' Dubbed into English as ''The Three Dots''
2004	''Yuva''	Hindi	Ajay Devgan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Rani Mukherjee, Esha Deol, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri	A. R. Rahman
2007	''Guru''	Hindi	Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Madhavan, Vidya Balan, Mallika Sherawat, Mithun Chakraborty	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Tamil as ''Guru'' Dubbed into Telugu as ''Gurukanth''
2008	''Lajjo''	Hindi	Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor	A. R. Rahman	Shooting expected to commence around the second half of 2007.

Non-Director Credits

Mani Ratnam established Madras Talkies for film production during the shoot of Iruvar. Mani Ratnam had earlier produced Nayakan, Roja and Thiruda Thiruda under his personal name. All movies directed by Mani Ratnam subsequent to Iruvar has been produced through ''Madras Talkies''. Apart from production, Mani Ratnam also has written story and screenplay for movies directed by others.

★ ''Indira'' (1996) - Screenplay (Movie was directed by his wife Suhasini)

★ ''Gayam'' (1993) - Story & Screenplay (Telugu Movie)

★ ''Aasai'' (1995) - Producer

★ ''Nerrukku Ner'' (1997) - Producer (Madras Talkies)

★ ''Dumm Dumm Dumm'' (2001) - Story & Screenplay

★ ''Saathiya'' (2002) - Screenplay (Movie is a re-make of Alaipayuthey and was directed by his assistant Shaad Ali) and Producer (Madras Talkies)

★ ''Five Star'' (2003) - Producer (Madras Talkies)

Stage

★ ''Netru, Indru, Naalai'' (2006)

Family

★ Mani's father Gopal Ratnam Iyer was a film producer.

★ Mani's brother G. Venkateswaran, popularly known as G.V. was also a film producer who committed suicide.

★ Mani married to actress Suhasini, niece of Kamal Haasan and they have a 15-year old son Nandan.

★ Mani co-founded and co-runs the independent production company ''Madras Talkies'' along with his brother G. Srinivasan.

★ G. Srinivasan passed away in Manali on the 27th May 2007 by slipping into a gorge.

See also

★ Madras Talkies Maniratnam's Own Production Company

★ List of movies by Mani Ratnam featuring A R Rahman

References

1. Padma awardees honoured
2. Time 100: Nayakan
3. Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies List

External links

★

★ Director Mani Ratnam: A living Legend in Film Making

★ Technical Analysis of Mani Ratnam Films

★ Mani Ratnam and A. R. Rahman

★ Mani Ratnam: Brief film descriptions

★ A Mani Ratnam Interview

★ Mani Ratnam - article and interview

★ Interview with Bharathan Kandaswamy and Mani Ratnam

★ [Mani Ratnam - article and interview]