Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, également appelé Dadasaheb Phalke, est un réalisateur indien né le 30 avril 1870 à Trimbak et décédé le 16 février 1944 à Nasik. Il est considéré comme le père du cinéma indien.

Un prix, qui porte son nom, est remis chaque année en Inde : le Prix Dadasaheb Phalke.

Biographie

Early life and education
Dhundiraj Govind Phalke was born on 30 April 1870 in Marathi family at Tryambakeshwar, 30 km. from Nashik, Maharashtra, India, where his father was an accomplished scholar.

He joined Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1885. After passing from J.J. School in 1890, Phalke went to the Kala Bhavan in Baroda, where he studied sculpture, engineering, drawing, painting and photography.


Early career
He began his career as a small town photographer in Godhra but had to rat business after the death of his first wife and child in an outbreak of the bubonic plague. He soon met the German magician Carl Hertz, one of the 40 magicians employed by the Lumiere Brothers. Soon after, he had the opportunity to work with the Archeological Survey of India as a draftsman. However, restless with his job and its constraints, he turned to the business of printing. He specialized in lithography and oleograph, and worked for painter Raja Ravi Varma. Phalke later started his own printing press, made his first trip abroad to Germany, to learn about the latest technology and machinery.


Film

Following a dispute with his partners about the running of the press, he gave up printing and turned his attention to moving pictures, after watching a silent film, The Life of Christ and envisioning Indian gods on the screen. Phalke made his first film Raja-Harishchandra effectively marking the beginning of the Indian film industry. Around one year before, Ramchandra Gopal (known as Dadasaheb Torne) had recorded on film a stage drama called Shree Pundalik, in 1912; it was first shown publicly on 3 May 1913 at Mumbai's Coronation Cinema, and shown recording at the same theater. However, the credit for making the first indigenous Indian feature film is attributed to Dadasaheb Phalke as it is said that "Pundalik" had British cinematographers.

Once again, Phalke proved successful in his new art and proceeded to make several silent films, shorts, documentary feature, educational, comic, tapping all the potential of this new medium. Film, having proved its financial viability, soon attracted businessmen who favored money over aesthetics.


Hindustan Films
Phalke formed a film company, Hindustan Films in partnership with five businessmen from Mumbai, in the hope that by having the financial aspect of his profession handled by experts in the field, he would be free to pursue the creative aspect. He set up a model studio and trained technicians, actors but, very soon, he ran into insurmountable problems with his partners. In 1920, Phalke resigned from Hindustan Films, made his first announcement of retirement from cinema, and he wrote Rangbhoomi, an acclaimed play. Lacking his extremely imaginative genius, Hindustan Films ran into deep financial loss, and he was finally persuaded to return. However, Phalke felt constrained by the business and, after directing a few films for the company, he withdrew.


Sound film
The times changed and Phalke fell victim to the emerging technology of sound film. Unable to cope with the talkies, the man who had fathered the Indian film industry became obsolete. His last silent movie Setubandhan was released in 1932 and later released with dubbing. During 1936-38, he produced his last film Gangavataran (1937), before retiring to Nashik, where he died on 16 February 1944, in penury.