CHENNAI, June 10 -- By Wednesday afternoon, the narrow street outside Bharathiraja's Chennai home had become a receiving line for half a century of Tamil cinema. Kamal Haasan came. Ilaiyaraaja came. Rajinikanth stood outside the house of the man who once told him, to his face, "I like you but I don't like your acting," and called him a friend of fifty years.

The director, who died at his home on Wednesday morning at 84, will be accorded state honours, the Tamil Nadu government announced within hours, recognition for the filmmaker who moved the industry's camera from studio floors to village soil, India Today reported. Film and television shoots across the Tamil industry are being suspended in mourning, and at least one star, Raghava Lawr...