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Nitin Desai - An unparalleled art director who brought history alive on screen

author BY : Sangati Jogwar
PUBLISHED: LAST UPDATE:

Nitin Desai was found dead today at his Karjat Studio near Pune. It was a big shock to the film industry as he was just 57 with many projects in hand.

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Credit: Twitter/Nitin Desai

Nitin Desai

Nitin Desai was found dead today at his Karjat Studio near Pune. It was a big shock to the film industry as he was just 57 with many projects in hand. While the police will find out what went wrong in his life that forced him to take this drastic step, the legacy that he has left behind is unparalleled.

He was the man who brought history alive on the screen in most of the Bollywood period movies that hit the screens in the 90s and years after that. Nitin Desai was the first choice for leading directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ashutosh Gowarikar to create that cinematic magic on the big screen so that every frame of the movie looks picture-perfect and justifies the setting of that particular period movie.

Even though he has worked as a director, debuted as an actor recently, and also has his own production company, it was his art direction that continues to make his work unforgettable.

Not surprisingly, he has won 4 National Awards and all of them are for period films.

Long association with Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Raj Kumar Hirani

The first major break for Nitin was Parinda directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The movie was a big hit. That climax scene where Nana Patekar is trapped in the fire and his last fight with Jackie Shroff was one of the reasons that made the movie unforgettable. Apart from Nana’s brilliant acting, it was the cinematic representation of that dreadful situation that helped the scene go a notch higher.

His work was so impressive that Chopra worked with him in many following movies including Kareeb, 1942: A Love Story, Munnabhai M.B.B.S and Lage Raho Munnabhai, and more.

Devdas and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for bringing history alive on the screen with brilliant sets and a combination of exact costumes and light settings. It's this brilliance that made Devdas, Khamoshi The Musical, and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam so unforgettable and beautiful. Undoubtedly, the sizzling chemistry between the lead stars like Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Manisha Koirala, and Shah Rukh Khan in these movies made every scene worth watching.

But Nitin Desai’s art direction was also one of the major highlights of all these SLB movies. From the special set for “Nimboda” or “Dola Re Dola” song to Chandramukhi’s haweli near a water body in Devdas, each shot just transited you into the world of scenic beauty, mesmerizing the audience with the right combination of lighting, drapes, and visual opulence with beauty in abundance.

Ashutosh Gowarikar always relied on Nitin Desai

Apart from Vidhu Vinod Chopra and SLB, the one Bollywood director who repeated Nitin as art director for his many movies is Ashutosh Gowarikar. Be it his Lagaan, where the set to be installed was from the pre-independence era, or Jodhaa Akbar and Panipat which demanded the backdrop to be set in the 12th century or the 18th century respectively, the Mohenjo Daro director always relied on Desai.

He also worked as a production designer for many movies for which he worked as an art director including Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Lagaan, Devdas, and many more.

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