The Classics Ep. 2 | Pyaasa — What Art Costs?

Pyaasa (1957) isn't just a great Indian film. It's the only Hindi film on Time magazine's list of the 100 greatest films ever made. This is Episode 2 of The Classics — where I go through the films that built Indian cinema, one at a time. This week: Guru Dutt's Pyaasa. A film about a poet the world only celebrated after it thought he was dead. Made by a filmmaker the world only celebrated after he actually was. We get into the production chaos that somehow produced a masterpiece, why Sahir Ludhianvi's lyrics weren't written for the film at all, what Guru Dutt's camera was actually doing, and why both this film and Do Bigha Zamin had to change their endings — and what that tells you about Indian audiences.