Mrinal Sen’s El Dorado164.100.47.193/fileupload/current/115074.pdfclassical narrative,” said...

2202019 Last of the legends - Frontline

httpsfrontlinethehinducomarts-and-culturecinemaarticle26002066ece 18

DISPATCHES DISPATCHES (HTTPSFRONTLINETHEHINDUCOMDISPATCHES)(HTTPSFRONTLINETHEHINDUCOMDISPATCHES)

TRIBUTE TO MRINAL SENTRIBUTE TO MRINAL SEN

Last of the legendsLast of the legendsSUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAYSUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY

Print edition February 01 2019

Mrinal Sen (1923-2018) was an unorthodox icon who broke rules and pushed boundaries

carving out his own path to immortality

FOR Mrinal Sen the switch from a regular nine-to-ve existence to the rocky path leadingto immortality in the world of cinema happened in the unlikeliest of placesmdashin front of afull-length mirror in a tiny hotel room in Jhansi Working as a medical representative inKanpur for a pharmaceutical rm he had a moment of epiphany one ne day when he wason tour Years later recalling that moment when he stared deep into the eyes of the manin the mirror and told him what he truly felt Sen wrote ldquoI remember the talk I had withhim I said hugely intrigued lsquoThere you are Mr Mrinal Sen one who read a lot on cinemawrote substantially on its aesthetics Now here you are Mr Sen a dawai-wallah

George Fernandes passes away George Fernandes passes away (httpsfrontlinethehinducomdispatchesartic(httpsfrontlinethehinducomdispatchesartic



[medicine seller] who once wanted to be a lm-makerrsquo I cried Cried like a child Allalone in a hotel room in Jhansi After three days I sent a long telegram to themanagement in Bombay and resignedrdquo

Thus began the career of one of the most fascinating trail-blazing lm-makers of Indiancinema history though for Mrinal Sen lm-making could hardly be considered a career itwas more like an all-consuming passion that was an end in itself Deeply politicaltriumphantly iconoclastic stubbornly unapologetic radical uncompromising and totallyfearless he charted out his own course often stumbling sometimes crashing in failurebut forever rising phoenix-like to stun the audience with another masterpiece

In a career spanning six decades with such classics as Baishey Shravana (The WeddingDay) Bhuvan Shome (Mr Shome) Interview Calcutta 71 Padatik (Urban Guerilla) ChorusMrigaya (The Royal Hunt) Ekdin Pratidin (A Day Like Any Other) Aakaler Sandhane (InSearch of Famine) and Khandhar (The Ruins) he shattered old traditions and dogmas andintroduced a new wave of lm-making in India On December 30 2018 the man whoalong with Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak formed the great triumvirate of Indian cinemaon the global stage breathed his last He was 95

Interestingly unlike his intellectual sparring partner and friend the great Satyajit Raywhose very rst lm Pather Panchali won him immediate international recognition Senrsquosrst venture was a disaster Raat Bhore (The Dawn) was released in 1955 the same year asPather Panchali but even a star cast including the legendary Uttam Kumar Chhabi BiswasChhaya Devi and Sabitri Chatterjee could not rescue the lm Sen himself called it thebiggest of all disasters and years later wrote ldquoHaving made such a lousy lm I reckoned Ihad humiliated myselfrdquo Down but never out he bounced back three years later with NeelAkasher Neechey (Under the Blue Sky) a sad-sweet story of an impoverished Chineseimmigrant living in Kolkata (then Calcutta) during the last days of British rule in IndiaAlthough Jawaharlal Nehru apparently enjoyed the lm it was nevertheless banned for afew months during the escalation of tension between India and China The lm was well-received by the public but Senrsquos own attitude towards it remained tepid It was withBaishey Shravana (1960) that Mrinal Sen the director came into his own It depicted thetragedy of a middle-aged once-auent man and his teenage bride unfolding under thelooming spectre of the terrible famine of 1943 The lm which was screened ininternational lm festivals introduced a new force in parallel cinema to the global stageAlthough life was a struggle for Sen even after its success the lms kept comingthroughout the 1960s the most notable among them being Akash Kusum (Up in theClouds 1965) Matira Manisha (Man of the Soil 1966) and arguably his most popularmasterpiece Bhuvan Shome (1969)

Bhuvan Shome a lyrical and profound Hindi movie depicting the transformation of asevere unbending dyed-in-the-wool civil servant into a more humane and receptiveindividual is universally considered a milestone in Indian cinema that paved the way forthe Indian New Wave ldquoI think Mrinal Sen was hugely important in the way Bhuvan Shomeushered in a new wave of lm-making in India Of course prior to that there were someexceptional lms but Bhuvan Shome introduced a set of new possibilities in terms ofnarrative characterisation shot-taking editing and sound engineering This was also a



shift from his own style and experimentations which preceded itrdquo Madhuja Mukherjeelm-maker and head of the Department of Film Studies Jadavpur University toldFrontline

The 1970s saw one of the most radical political and creative periods in Senrsquos lm-makingcareer It was in this period that his unique style of making movies became more denedand was stretched to the limits of conventionality ldquoSenrsquos cinematic style is marked by hisconsistent engagement with the various aspects of urbanitymdashspecically in the context ofa tumultuous Calcuttamdashhis way of taking his camera to the streets which was possibleprimarily because of two reasons the advent of the Arriex camera in India and thedexterous handling of the equipment by his cinematographer KK Mahajan and hisinterest in a discursive mode of lm-making that resists the temptations oered by theclassical narrativerdquo said Parichay Patra lm scholar and Assistant Professor Departmentof Humanities and Social Sciences BITS Pilani Goa campus

Mrinal Senrsquos El DoradoSen loved Calcutta with all its complexities and contradictions and saw in it as he himselfloved to say his own contradictions and complexities ldquoI was not born here but true I wasmade hererdquo he said The city he said ldquoacts as much like a stimulant as an irritantrdquo Heand his cameramen would often be present at scenes of social and political upheavals andrecord the events to ldquocharacterise the period eectivelyrdquo as he put it

ldquoFor reasons of my own I call my city my El Doradordquo he wrote in his autobiographyAlways Being Born In the four lms he made on Kolkata almost back to backmdashInterview(1970) Calcutta 71 (1972) Padatik (1973) and Chorus (1974)mdashSen scaled new heights inexperimentation and at the same time fearlessly made some of his most powerful politicalstatements inspired by his lifelong passion for Marxist thought and ideology

ldquoThose four lms have been studied at length for their political intensityrdquo MadhujaMukherjee said ldquoBut this discourse was possible through a cinematic style that clearlyappears like a process A lm that really haunts me is Chorus A truly experimental lmin the way Mrinal Sen channelises sound bodily movement gesture voicerdquo

Sen was an artist of his own age The reality and harshness around him were the topics ofhis poetry ldquoI try to understand my own periodrdquo he once said ldquoI try to put it acrossrdquo Thecommon people were his muse and their travails triumphs and tragedies his inspirationBut there was also humour and a wonderful sense of the bizarre like the scene in the busin Interview in which one of the passengers looks at the camera and says ldquoWhat is thisDo you call this cinema It is my story it is your storyrdquo

Against the backdrop of bigger tragedies and issues there were always the little problemsand the insignicant troubles enormous and seemingly insurmountable and constantlyplaguing the little man He understood these problems to their last minute detail just ashe understood the greater tragedy under the shadow of which all of the common manrsquoslife was being played out Like his hero Charlie Chaplin he saw the humour in theirfrustrations and their tiny disasters that seem to them so overwhelming as they occur andthey are overwhelming and he understood that



For example Interview delineates a young manrsquos adventures and impediments on the dayof his interview for a job which promises to change his impoverished life forever Theprotagonistrsquos trials and disasters however much realistic still border on the edge of farceand are played out under the shadow of larger issues relating to class colonial hangoverand unemployment From amidst the general absurdity that is presented the rebel is born

As far as his art was concerned Sen was always the rebel He was forever lashing out ataccepted norms and traditions and breaking rules and pushing boundaries He once said inan interview that the challenge was to do your own kind of lm ldquoEven when I made lmsthat became very popular I did not think of the people I thought of myself I thought thisis a very interesting idea let me go through it Let us break new ground This is veryimportant This is a big challengemdashworking into an alien areardquo he said

It was this indomitable spirit and courage of conviction this uncontrollable compulsion toexpress himself with an honesty that was stripped of all pretensions and self-gloricationthat won him the respect and admiration not only of his peers but also his legion ofunwavering admirers One may not agree with his views or even like many of his lmsbut one cannot remain indierent to him He would challenge his viewers to come out oftheir comfort zones provoke a reaction from them force them to see what they wouldrather avert their eyes from It is impossible to bracket Sen into any category or even labelhim a ldquoBengalirdquo lm-maker

His canvas was vast and his subjects varied and he made lms in Odia (Matira Manisha)Hindi (Bhuvan Shome Ek Adhuri Kahani Mrigaya Khandhar Genesis and Ek DinAchanak) and Telugu (Oka Oorie Katha)

ldquoWhether Mrinal Sen was a great lm-maker or not is for others to judge but I will saythat he was certainly dierent from others and tried to create his own style of lm-making One important thing that should be learnt from him is that he nevercompromised He never abandoned his Leftist ideology He never sold himself for smallgains and always made lms according to his own beliefs This attitude is very rare in thisday and agerdquo internationally acclaimed lm-maker Buddhadeb Dasgupta told Frontline(interview on page 66)

Dasgupta said that although he was never personally inuenced by Senrsquos works henevertheless loved quite a few of his lms ldquoBaishey Shravana Matira Manisha Oka OorieKatha Ekdin Pratidin and Bhuvan Shome are great lms One notable aspect about MrinalSen is that he continued experimenting with techniques and ideas Sometimes he failedmiserably but that never stopped him from going onrdquo he said

Even after the success of Bhuvan Shome things were not easy for Sen as he refused to fallinto the trap of making money-raking formula lms ldquoI made a lm which accidentallybecame an artistic success and a money-spinner When I made it I was convinced that thelm would not run for more than a day Three Bombay directors came to meet me thesame day and wanted me to do the same kind of lmrdquo he said He had to wait 10 years tomake Bhuvan Shome as no one was willing to produce it ldquoFinally I applied to the FilmFinance Corporation asked for Rs150000 and made the lm in 1969rdquo Sen later wrote



After the contemporary urban milieu of the four Kolkata lms Senrsquos next masterpieceMrigaya (1975) was played out in a tribal setting in British India It was a masterfulexploration of human relationships of fragile innocence in an unforgiving world governedby laws that contradict each othermdasha world where one murder is rewarded and another ispunished with death This was Mithun Chakrabortyrsquos debut lm for which he received theNational Award for Best Actor Sen also won his third National Award for Best Feature FilmHe would win one more in the same category in 1980 for Aakaler Sandhane

Twenty years after making Baishey Shravana Sen revisited the theme of famine but thistime in a radically dierent manner Aakaler Sandhane is essentially the story of a lmcrew that comes to a village in 1980 led by a passionate young director to make a lm onthe famine of 1943 It is a lm being made within a lm It is also a terrifying study of thedierence between reality and intellectual conception

ldquoWhen surreptitiously stealthily the past walks into the present and you have to look intoit you get scared You run away from the reality That was exactly what my plan was inAakaler Sandhanerdquo Sen said about the lm The lm also won the Silver Bear Special JuryPrize at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival

Sen followed it up with several more classics in the 1980s such as Kharij (The Case isClosed 1982) Khandhar (1983) and Ek Din Achanak (1989) Even though he would makeonly three more lmsmdashMahaprithibi (World Within World Without 1991) Antareen (TheConned 1993) and Aamar Bhuvan (This My Land 2002)mdashthe master never lost histouch Antareen won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali while AamarBhuvan won Sen the Best Director Award at the Cairo International Film Festival

Old age did little to diminish Senrsquos zest and passion In 2012 in a public function on theoccasion of his 90th birthday he said ldquoIrsquom not old enough to stop making lms Every dayI feel like making a lm Ideas pop into my headrdquo He pointed out with his trademarkhumour that if the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira could so could he (Manoel deOliveira was making lms until 2015 the year he died at the age of 106) This was 10 yearsafter the completion of Aamar Bhuvan Unfortunately for millions of cinema bus theworld over Sen never got down to converting those ideas into lms

Born in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh) Sen had rebellion in his blood His father DinesChandra Sen a leading lawyer in the district and a close associate of Lala Lajpat Rai BalGangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal used to lend legal support to militant freedomghters and was once even disbarred for his open support for the nationalist cause YoungMrinal was used to seeing some of the most important nationalist leaders in his houseYears later he recalled a childhood memory of him suering terribly from a toothache at atime when Subhas Chandra Bose was deep in consultation with his father in the next roomIt was at Bosersquos suggestion that the young Mrinal was given a medicine that gave himimmediate relief ldquoI felt terribly proud that Subhas Chandra Bose was my rst dentistrdquo hesaid

Right from the start young Mrinal displayed a streak of rebelliousness that he never lostall his life rather it seemed to grow with age and later found expression through his artWhile still in primary school he and a group of school friends courted trouble by shouting



ldquoBande Mataramrdquo at the police They were sent to lock-up Young Mrinal received a tightslap from his father for his antics Years later he found himself once again in policecustody for his activism while he was in college in Kolkata and drawn to the Leftistpolitical movement Once again his father came to arrange his release but this time hegave his son a pat on the back ldquoI realised I had come of agerdquo Mrinal Sen later quipped

Though closely associated with the Left cultural movement and the Indian Peoplersquos TheatreAssociation (IPTA) Sen had no interest in cinema until he chanced upon Rudolf Arnheimrsquosbook Film in 1943 From that point cinema became his passion his obsession He alsobegan to write on cinema for various publications including the cultural magazine of theCommunist Party of India He also wrote a book on the life and art of his hero CharlieChaplin in 1951 However making a lm was not yet a realistic possibility

In 1953 he married Geeta who would go on to deliver powerful performances in eight ofhis lms in 1954 his only child Kunal was born To make ends meet he tried his hand atregular jobs but cinema was too powerful an attraction for him to reject To him cinemawas the ultimate vehicle for self-expression it was through his lms that he articulatedsome of his most powerful statements on life art ideology and humanity He was aloveable rebel who never sought commercial success remained undeterred by harshcriticism and treated both success and failure with a shrug and a smile For all the nationaland international awards he won including the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award in2005 for all the honours bestowed upon him by his own country and by other nations Senmaintained a healthy disdain for fame and glory He lived modestly answered the phoneand the doorbell himself welcomed everybody into his house and gave as much time to acommon person who sought his appointment as he would to an international celebrity

As in life in his style of working too Sen was unorthodox and open-minded Thecelebrated cinematographer Avik Mukhopadhyay who worked with Sen in Aamar Bhuvanremembers how the great director invited suggestions from him in his own inimitable wayldquoHe told me I am an old man I will welcome your suggestions I told him that eventhough this lm is a classical story we can think of treating it like a Rembrandt Heimmediately liked the suggestion and said it was a good idea His attitude was never like lsquoIam the bossrsquo He believed in collaborationrdquo Mukhopadhyay told Frontline Impulsive andfun-loving right until the end Sen was one who drank life to the lees and soughtmaximum happiness from the most insignicant of things While shooting at a riverbankfor his last lm the old maestro suddenly discovered a bicycle and promptly got on it andbegan to pedal about the place An alarmed Mukhopadhyay tried to talk him out of it bypointing out his age (Sen was approaching 80 then) only to be reassured by theindomitable director that ldquono one forgets how to ride a bicycle no matter how oldrdquo Thelegendary thespian Rudrapasad Sengupta remembers him as not just a lm-makerldquoMrinal was a complete human being He would walk in protest rallies participate indebates he would argue and quarrel ercely with a person and then go out and enjoy a cupof tea with him He now belongs to historyrdquo he told Frontline

What also made Sen such a fascinating and endearing individual were the contradictions hedisplayed in his personality and actions openly and without any embarrassment He was aniconoclast who attacked traditional institutions and long-held beliefs yet resented and



opposed the renaming of Calcutta to Kolkata He was one of the biggest names in parallelcinema both in India and the world yet he mainly chose to work with little-knownartistes often picking them from the stage He was an unwavering follower of Marxistideology right until the end but never became a member of any party

When the political upheaval of Nandigram and Singur divided Kolkatarsquos intellectual circlesharply down the middle both sides took out rallies and Sen lent his presence to both Heembraced these contradictionsmdashin fact he wore them like a badge of honour

Senrsquos relationship with Satyajit Ray is an integral chapter in the history of both themasters It would perhaps not be wrong to term the relationship as one of friendlyanimosity The historic war of words through letters to the editor in The Statesmanfollowing the release of Senrsquos Akash Kusum (1965) is now a part of lm lore and amasterclass on lm theory ideas and criticism by two of the greatest directors of Indiancinema The intellectual battle raged on for over two months on the newspaperrsquos pageswith hundreds of readers joining in with letters of their own ldquoFinally it was nobodyrsquos gainnobodyrsquos lossrdquo said Sen When The Statesman nally closed the debate with a formalannouncement Ray apparently told Sen when he met him on a social occasion ldquoWhat apity it came to an end I could have written many more lettersrdquo To which Sen cheerfullyreplied ldquoI would have replied to all your lettersrdquo

However ercely they have may have opposed each other over ideas and theories oncinema the deep respect each had for the otherrsquos genius could not be denied They kept intouch with each other and each delighted in the otherrsquos words of approval In hisautobiography Sen recalled a long private conversation that he had with Ray a year beforethe latterrsquos death ldquoI had a quiet session with him a long onemdashhe and I none else At acertain point of time I asked him lsquoDonrsquot you feel lonely at timesrsquo He said lsquoTerriblyrsquordquo

Senrsquos appeal transcended the world of cinema Not only was he one of the most importanticons of West Bengalrsquos cultural history he had in fact become a symbol of his beloved cityof Kolkata itself As he himself put it ldquoThe truth is that I am so much a part of its [thecityrsquos] anatomyrdquo

He hated pomp and fanfare and had left specic instructions that after his death his bodyshould not be kept for public display nor should it be draped with banners or garlandedand wreathed Yet on January 1 as his mortal remains were taken to the crematoriumhundreds joined him on his nal journey Alongside tearful celebrities from the world ofcinema theatre ne arts and literature there was the nameless faceless mass of commonpeople that Sen so loved and upheld in his movies He understood them better thananyone else and they knew it dry-eyed and silent they had come to say goodbye to onewho always belonged to them alone

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[medicine seller] who once wanted to be a lm-makerrsquo I cried Cried like a child Allalone in a hotel room in Jhansi After three days I sent a long telegram to themanagement in Bombay and resignedrdquo

Thus began the career of one of the most fascinating trail-blazing lm-makers of Indiancinema history though for Mrinal Sen lm-making could hardly be considered a career itwas more like an all-consuming passion that was an end in itself Deeply politicaltriumphantly iconoclastic stubbornly unapologetic radical uncompromising and totallyfearless he charted out his own course often stumbling sometimes crashing in failurebut forever rising phoenix-like to stun the audience with another masterpiece

In a career spanning six decades with such classics as Baishey Shravana (The WeddingDay) Bhuvan Shome (Mr Shome) Interview Calcutta 71 Padatik (Urban Guerilla) ChorusMrigaya (The Royal Hunt) Ekdin Pratidin (A Day Like Any Other) Aakaler Sandhane (InSearch of Famine) and Khandhar (The Ruins) he shattered old traditions and dogmas andintroduced a new wave of lm-making in India On December 30 2018 the man whoalong with Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak formed the great triumvirate of Indian cinemaon the global stage breathed his last He was 95

Interestingly unlike his intellectual sparring partner and friend the great Satyajit Raywhose very rst lm Pather Panchali won him immediate international recognition Senrsquosrst venture was a disaster Raat Bhore (The Dawn) was released in 1955 the same year asPather Panchali but even a star cast including the legendary Uttam Kumar Chhabi BiswasChhaya Devi and Sabitri Chatterjee could not rescue the lm Sen himself called it thebiggest of all disasters and years later wrote ldquoHaving made such a lousy lm I reckoned Ihad humiliated myselfrdquo Down but never out he bounced back three years later with NeelAkasher Neechey (Under the Blue Sky) a sad-sweet story of an impoverished Chineseimmigrant living in Kolkata (then Calcutta) during the last days of British rule in IndiaAlthough Jawaharlal Nehru apparently enjoyed the lm it was nevertheless banned for afew months during the escalation of tension between India and China The lm was well-received by the public but Senrsquos own attitude towards it remained tepid It was withBaishey Shravana (1960) that Mrinal Sen the director came into his own It depicted thetragedy of a middle-aged once-auent man and his teenage bride unfolding under thelooming spectre of the terrible famine of 1943 The lm which was screened ininternational lm festivals introduced a new force in parallel cinema to the global stageAlthough life was a struggle for Sen even after its success the lms kept comingthroughout the 1960s the most notable among them being Akash Kusum (Up in theClouds 1965) Matira Manisha (Man of the Soil 1966) and arguably his most popularmasterpiece Bhuvan Shome (1969)

Bhuvan Shome a lyrical and profound Hindi movie depicting the transformation of asevere unbending dyed-in-the-wool civil servant into a more humane and receptiveindividual is universally considered a milestone in Indian cinema that paved the way forthe Indian New Wave ldquoI think Mrinal Sen was hugely important in the way Bhuvan Shomeushered in a new wave of lm-making in India Of course prior to that there were someexceptional lms but Bhuvan Shome introduced a set of new possibilities in terms ofnarrative characterisation shot-taking editing and sound engineering This was also a

















































FrontlineFrontline























































FrontlineFrontline







Mrinal Sen’s El Dorado164.100.47.193/fileupload/current/115074.pdfclassical narrative,” said...

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