Ritwik
Ghatak |
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Ritwik Ghatak (4 November 1925
- 6 February 1976) was a Bengali Indian filmmaker
and script writer. Ghatak's stature among Bengali
film directors is comparable to that of Satyajit Ray
and Mrinal Sen.
Early life
Ritwik Ghatak was born in Dhaka in East Bengal (now
Bangladesh). He and his family moved to Calcutta (now
Kolkata) in West Bengal just before millions of other
refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the
city, fleeing the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1943
and the partition of Bengal in 1947. Identification
with this tide of refugees was to define his practice,
providing an overriding metaphor for cultural dismemberment
and exile that unified his subsequent creative work.
The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which led to more
refugees fleeing to India, was to also have a similar
impact on his work.
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Creative career
In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play Kalo sayar (The Dark
Lake), and participated in a revival of the landmark play
Nabanna. In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre
Association ( IPTA ). He wrote, directed and acted in plays
and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In 1957,
he wrote and directed his last play Jwala (The Burning).
Ghatak entered the film industry with Nemai Ghosh's Chinnamul
(1950) as actor and assistant director. Chinnamul was followed
two years later by Ghatak's first completed film Nagarik (1952),
both major break-throughs for the Indian cinema.[1][2] Ghatak's
early work sought theatrical and literary precedent in bringing
together a documentary realism, a remarkable stylized performance
often drawn from the folk theatre, and a Brechtian use of
the filmic apparatus.
Ghatak's first commercial release was Ajantrik (1958), a comedy-drama
film with science fiction themes. It was one of the earliest
films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile,
as a character in the story.
Ghatak's greatest commercial success as a script writer was
for Madhumati (1958), one of the earliest films to deal with
the theme of reincarnation. It was a Hindi film directed by
another Bengali filmmaker Bimal Roy. The film earned Ghatak
his first award nomination, for the Filmfare
Best Story Award.
Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. His best-known
films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960), Komal
Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962), a trilogy
based in Calcutta and addressing the condition of refugee-hood,
proved controversial and the commercial failure of Komal Gandhar
(E-Flat) and Subarnarekha prevented him from making features
through the remainder of the 1960s. In all three films, he
used a basic and at times starkly realistic storyline, upon
which he inscribed a range of mythic references,especially
of the Mother Deliverer, through a dense overlay of visual
and aural registers.
Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the
Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). During his
year at FTII, he was involved in the making of two student
films, viz., Fear and Rendezvous.
Ghatak returned to film making only in the 1970s, when a Bangladeshi
producer financed the 1973 epic Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A
River Called Titas). Making films became difficult for his
poor health, due to extreme alcoholism and consequent diseases.
His last film, and perhaps his most innovative, was the 'autobiographical'
Jukti Takka ar Gappo (Reason, Debate And Story) (1974).He
had a number of incomplete feature and short films in his
credit.
He belonged to an illustrious family. His father Suresh Chandra
Ghatak was a district magistrate and also a poet and playwright,
mother's name was Indubala Devi. He was their 11th and youngest
child. His elder brother Manish Ghatak was an acclaimed radical
writer of his time, a professor of English and a social activist
who was deeply involved with IPTA theatre movement in its
heyday and later on headed the famous Tebhaga Andolan of North
Bengal. Manish Ghatak's daughter is the legendary writer and
activist Mahasweta Devi. Ritwik's wife Surama was a school
teacher and his son Ritaban is a film-maker.
Impact and influence
At the time of his death (February 1976), Ghatak's primary
impact would seem to have been through former students. Though
his stint teaching film at FTII was brief, one-time students
Mani Kaul, John Abraham, and especially Kumar Shahani (among
many others), carried Ghatak's ideas and theories, which were
further elaborated upon in his book Cinema And I, into the
mainstream of Indian art film. Other students of his at the
FTII included the acclaimed filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza
and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.[3]
Ghatak stood entirely outside the world of Indian commercial
film. None of the elements of the commercial cinema (singing
and dancing, melodrama, stars, glitz) featured in his work.
He was watched by students and intelligentsia, not by the
masses. His students have also tended to work in the art cinema
or independent cinema tradition.
Satyajit Ray, commonly held to be the greatest of the Bengali
neo-realist directors, succeeded in creating an audience outside
India during his lifetime and winning many prestigious international
awards. Ghatak was not so fortunate. While he was alive, his
films were appreciated primarily within India. Satyajit Ray
did what he could to promote his colleague, but Ray's generous
praise did not translate into international fame for Ghatak.
For example, Ghatak's Nagarik (1952) was perhaps the earliest
example of a Bengali art film, preceding Ray's Pather Panchali
by three years, but was never released until after his death
in 1977.[1][2] His first commercial release Ajantrik (1958)
was also one of the earliest films to portray an inanimate
object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the
story, many years before the Herbie films.[4] Ghatak's Bari
Theke Paliye (1958) had no similarity to François Truffaut's
later film The 400 Blows (1959), Ghatak's film remained obscure
while Truffaut's film went on to become one of the most famous
films of the French New Wave. One of Ghatak's final films,
A River Named Titas (1973), is one of the earliest films to
be told in a hyperlink format, featuring multiple characters
in a collection of interconnected stories, predating Robert
Altman's Nashville (1975) by two years.
Ghatak's only major commercial success was Madhumati (1958),
a Hindi film which he wrote the screenplay for. The film was
one of the earliest to deal with the theme of reincarnation
and is believed to have been the source of inspiration for
many later works dealing with the theme of reincarnation in
Indian cinema, Indian television, and perhaps world cinema.
It may have been the source of inspiration for the American
film The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) and the Hindi
film Karz (1980), both of which dealt with reincarnation and
have been influential in their respective cultures.[5] Karz
in particular was remade several times: as the Kannada film
Yuga Purusha (1989), the Tamil film Enakkul Oruvan (1984),
and more recently the Bollywood film Karzzzz (2008). Karz
and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud may have also inspired
the American film Chances Are (1989).[5] The most recent film
to be directly inspired by Madhumati is the hit Bollywood
film Om Shanti Om (2007), which led to the late Bimal Roy's
daughter Rinki Bhattacharya accusing the film of plagiarism
and threatening legal action against its producers.
Ghatak's work as a director also had an impact on many later
Indian filmmakers, including those from the Bengali film industry
and elsewhere. For example, Mira Nair has cited Ghatak as
well as Ray as the reasons she became a filmmaker. Ghatak's
impact as a director began to spread beyond India much later;
beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films
was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent
DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global
audience. In a critics' poll of all-time greatest films conducted
by the Asian film magazine Cinemaya in 1998, Subarnarekha
was ranked at #11 on the list.[9] In the 2002 Sight &
Sound critics' and directors' poll for all-time greatest films,
Meghe Dhaka Tara was ranked at #231 and Komal Gandhar at #346
on the list.[10] In 2007, A River Named Titas topped the list
of 10 best Bangladeshi films, as chosen in the audience and
critics' polls conducted by the British Film Institute.
Feature films
Director & Screenwriter
" Nagarik (The Citizen) (1952)
" Ajantrik (The Unmechanical, The Pathetic Fallacy) (1958)
" Bari Theke Paliye (The Runaway) (1958)
" Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960)
" Kamol Gandhar E-Flat (1961)
" Subarnarekha (1962/1965)
" Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titash) (1973)
" Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and a Story)
(1974)
Screenwriter
" Musafir (1957)
" Madhumati (1958)
" Swaralipi (1960)
" Kumari Mon(1962)
" Deeper Nam Tiya Rong(1963)
" Rajkanya(1965)
Short films and documentaries
" The Life of the Adivasis (1955)
" Places of Historic Interest in Bihar (1955)
" Scissors (1962)
" Fear (1965)
" Rendezvous (1965)
" Civil Defence (1965)
" Scientists of Tomorrow (1967)
" Yeh Kyon (Why / The Question) (1970)
" Amar Lenin (My Lenin) (1970)
" Puruliar Chhau (The Chhau Dance of Purulia) (1970)
" Durbar Gati Padma (The Turbulent Padma) (1971)
AS ACTOR
" Tothapi(1950)Dir: Manoj Bhattacharya
" Chinnamul(1951)Dir: Nimai Ghose
" Kumari Mon(1962)Dir: Chitrarath
" Subarnarekha(1962)
" Titas Ekti Nadir Nam(1973)
" Jukti,Takko, aar Gappo(1974)
Incomplete Films and docu
" Bedeni(1951)
" Kato Ajanare(1959)
" Bagolar Bangodarshan(1964-65)
" Ronger Golam(1968)
Documentary:
" Ramkinkar(1975)
Screenplays aborted before shooting
" Okal Basonto(1957)
" Amritokumbher Sandhane(1957)
" Arjan Sardar(1958)
" Bolidan(1963)
" Aronyak(1963)
" Shyam Se Neha Lagei(1964)
" Sansar Simante(1968)
" Padda Nadir Majhi
" Notun Fasol
" Raja
" Sei Bishnupriya
" Princess Kalaboti
" Lojja
Theatre
" Achalayoton(Tagore),1943:directed and acted
" Officer(Gogol),1953:acted
" Ispaat(Ghatak),1954-55:wasn't staged
" Kato Dhane Kato Chaal(Ghatak),1952:in the context of
the first Election in Independent India,based on food crisis
" Kalonko(Bijan Bhattacharya)1951:acted
" Kalo Sayor(Ghatak),1947-48:acted and directed
" Khorir Gondi(Brecht)
" Galileo Chorit(Brecht)
" Chandragupto(D.L.Roy):as a child actor
" Jagoran(Atindra Mozumdar):acted
" Jalonto(Ghatak)
" Jala(Ghatak)
" Dakghar(Tagore)
" Dheu(Biru Mukhopadhay)
" Dhenki Swarge geleo Dhan bhane(Ghatak/Panu Paul)
" Dolil(Ghatak),1952:acted and directed
" Notir Puja(Tagore)
" Nabanna(Bijan Bhattacharya)
" Nildarpan(Dinabandhu Mitra):acted
" Nicher Mahal(Gorky):wasn't staged
" Netajike nie(Ghatak)
" Poritran(Tagore)
" Falguni(Tagore)
" Bidyasagar(Bonophul)
" Bisarjan(Tagore)
" Vangabandor(Panu Paul):acted
" Voter vet(Panu Paul):acted
" Musanfiro ke lie(Gorky):acted in Hindi
" Macbeth(Shakespeare)acted as the witch
" Raja(Tagore)
" Sanko(Ghatak):acted
" Sei Meye(Ghatak)directed
" Strir Patro(Tagore)
" Hojoborala(Sukumar Ray)
Books by Ritwik Ghatak
" Ritwik Ghataker Galpo(Short Stories of Ritwik Ghatak)an
anthology
" GalileoCharit(Bengali Translation of Brecht's 'Life
of Galileo'
" Jala(play)
" Dolil(play)
" Meghe Dhaka Tara(screenplay)
" Chalachitro,Manus ebong aro kichu
" Cinema and I,Ritwik Memorial Trust,Kolkata
" On Cultural Front
" Rows and Rows of Fences:Ritwik Ghatak on Cinema, Seagall
Books Pvt.Ltd,Kolkata
" Ritwik Ghatak Stories.Translated from Bengali by Rani
Ray,New Delhi,Shrishti Publishers and Distributors
Books on Riwik Ghatak
" Ritwik: Surama Ghatak, Calcutta, Asha Prakasani
" Ritwik and His Films: in two volumes:edited by Rajat
Ray
" Ritwik Kumar Ghatak:edited by Rajat Ray, Shristi Prakasan
" Ritwikke Sesh Valobasa:Pratiti Devi,Bangladesh,Sahitya
Prakas
" Ritwiktantra:Sanjay Mukhopadhaya,Kolkata Ritwik Cine
Society
" Riwik Kumar Ghatak:(a monograph)Haimanti Banerjee,National
Film Archive, Pune
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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