Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri had sent me an advance copy of Soumitra Chatterjee – A Filmmaker Remembers and asked if I would be interested in interviewing the author. Of course, I said ‘Yes’. But I wanted to review the book before I spoke to Ghosh, since I wanted my review to be objective. The interview, which took place over Zoom, turned out to be less of an 'interview' than an hour of stimulating discussion. I could have continued for another hour, talking films.
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| Courtesy: @sumanghosh Twitter |
What was the impetus for this book?
When Soumitra kaku died, I went into a deep depression. The thought of Soumitra kaku never being there... it’s like our parents; it never occurs to us that they will be gone one day. His passing away was a big jolt.
Then, Shantanu Ray Choudhury approached me in March 2020 with an idea about a book on Soumitra Chatterjee. He had earlier written an article about my films with Soumitra kaku and knew about my relationship with him. I took some time to think over it. I had never written a book before, but I thought that would be a good way to relive my experiences.
Somehow a documentary never came to mind. Writing a book is also more intimate than making a documentary – you are alone with your memories. Making a film means involving other people.
See, whenever I made a film, I used to make notes for myself, notes on what to tell the actors, etc. I had one notebook per film. I pulled them out to refresh my memories. Shantanu also did a very good job of egging me on to think about my experiences in more detail. It forced me to delve deeper into my memories. And writing about a person I loved, who was no more, was a very cathartic process. There was pain, but the pain was enjoyable too.
You talk about how, over the years, Soumitra Chatterjee, the revered actor, turned into your ‘Soumitra kaku’. Was there ever a moment when you were not in awe of the man?
I knew him from 2005, and yes, it took time for that awe to disappear. It is ironical – in fact, I mentioned this to Soumitra kaku also, a couple of years ago. In the last four or five years [before his death], there was a big change in our relationship. He became like my father. The awe completely dissolved. I attribute a great part of that to the person Soumitra kaku was, the way he interacted with people. I never felt that Soumitra Kaku was carrying the baggage of his legendary status. In fact, he hated adulation and sycophancy.
There’s pleasure, of course, in knowing that your childhood hero – we never thought they were people like us – is your friend. But to go back to your question, yes, the awe disappeared. And I miss it.
Why would you miss it?
I remember the first time I saw him – it was like someone from fairyland was in front of me. That gave me a different kick – that somehow this almost godlike person is in front of me, is talking to me. I admit that it brings a lot of artificiality into your relationship, whoever that person is. But there was a certain amount of joy, a feeling that “Soumitra Chatterjee is my friend now, he’s acting in my film!”
Later on, my interactions with him were like my interactions with my father.
How was it directing Soumitra Chatterjee for the first time in Podokkhep?
When I started Podokkhep, I was very much in awe of Soumitra Chatterjee. But I soon realised that if I wanted to make the film, I had to get over that. As I mention in the book, he also helped a great deal. He told me that he was the actor, and I was his director. He also said that old actors like him would give me a hard time, but I’d to stick to my vision.
After the first month of shooting, I realised that he was very eager to work, and very hungry for a good role. I could take advantage of that hunger.
So, it was okay for you tell him “I need one more take.”?
Yes, yes. Not only one more take, but even when he had questions, once I convinced him about the necessity for a certain shot, he would give his hundred per cent.
Soumitra da had a large body of work, and a great legacy by the time he was acting in your film. How did he get along with a cast and crew who were at least two generations younger than him?
He had an immense respect for his co-actors. Independent of their stature or their age. I have mentioned a few instances in my book.
But I had wondered about something myself. He had worked with such stalwarts – Satyajit Ray, of course, but also Tapan Sinha, Mrinal Sen, etc., and co-actors like the legendary Robi Ghosh. He was friends with the great novelists and poets of his time – Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sunil Ganguly – their addas were very popular. I’d once asked him, “Don’t you feel dissatisfied that you don’t have such people of quality around you?” He smiled and quoted [George] Bernard Shaw – “If you trip in the darkness, do you blame the dark?” I have never heard him once complain about working with lesser-known actors. He just concentrated on his own work and was happy within himself.
What about his younger co-actors? How was Ananya [Chatterjee], for instance, able to hold her own against him in Dwondo?
I always hold script readings for all my films. The idea is to have an adda to build the chemistry between all my actors. It helps to reduce the feeling of awe that veteran actors can exude, because that impacts the performance of the rest of the cast. When I held the script reading for Bosu Poribar, the younger cast members were completely tongue-tied in his presence. But he would joke with his younger co-stars, make them laugh, and soon, they would be very comfortable around him.
In Ananya’s case, it was her second or third film, and while she was a confident actress, she admitted to Soumitra da before the shooting that she was nervous. Soumitra da told her about Jim Corbett who had once said that even after shooting many tigers, the next time he aimed at a tiger, he had a slight feeling of trepidation. “That’s good tension,” he told her. “When you’re facing the camera, you should inculcate that slight tension. It keeps you alert.“
Your films are considered some of the best of Soumitra Chatterjee’s overall oeuvre. In fact, he got his first National Award for your debut film, Podokkhep. (SC had turned down the special jury award for Dekha in 2001). Your thoughts?
That says more about the National Awards than it reflects on him. Soumitra kaku had worked in several internationally renowned films, not just Satyajit Ray’s films but also with other renowned filmmakers like Tapan Sinha.
But I was overjoyed when he got it for Podokkhep. In fact, I told kaku that the award probably didn’t mean anything to him, but for me, it was a matter great pride. I started my career riding on his shoulders; with that National Award, my film got a lot of attention.
And when Soumitra kaku was interviewed by Ananda Bazaar Patrika after winning the award, he said that he was very happy to have got the award for a very good film that he liked very much.
I am extremely fortunate to have worked with such greats and to be remembered by history for making the film for which Soumitra Chatterjee got his only National Award.
You write that you have to think of an actor before writing a character.
That is very true.
So, did you, given your growing closeness to Soumitra da, have him in mind while writing your subsequent films?
Not always. See, I always told kaku about my future projects. When I told him about Shyamal Uncle Turns Off the Lights, he was enamoured of the concept. But the only good aspect of me as a director is that I am very honest. I will not do anything to compromise my vision of the film. I wanted to shoot Shyamal Uncle… in cinéma vérité style. That would have been impossible if I’d cast him. He had pleaded with me, saying he would act so no one would recognise him on the streets. But given his star status in Bengal, if he walked on the streets, there would have been a thousand people waiting to watch Soumitra Chatterjee. And that was not the film I wanted to make.
I know that taking Soumitra kaku would have given my film a wider reach. I knew that casting non-actors in this film was a great risk. But I was clear I could not compromise.
You refer to Soumitra da as a ‘Renaissance Man’. Can you elaborate?
When we use the word ‘Renaissance Man’, we think of Leonardo Da Vinci or Michelangelo. In common usage, it means someone good at many different things. For me, it also means someone who has insatiable curiosity. For instance, Soumitra kaku was curious about many things; things that may not add anything specific to his primary craft, which was acting. But it added to his life experiences and gave him a wider perspective, which he then drew from when he was acting. I found the same curiosity in Amartya Sen, and I have heard that said about Satyajit Ray as well.
One of the overarching images of Soumitra da in his later years was that of him publicly signing an anti-CAA protest poster. He was 80+ at the time. Was he always so principled? Did his politics impact his choice of roles, or affect his performance?
I can’t say if his politics impacted his choice of roles. But if you ask me, I think that as an artiste, if someone doesn’t have a political view – I am not talking about party politics – of life, there is a big lacuna. I think that is missing in today’s younger generation of actors. I can understand that there is a lot of fear, because there are consequences, but if everyone remains silent, then…
Soumitra kaku has always stood up for what he believes, independent of whichever party was in power. A few years ago, a Bengali film called Bhobhishyoter Bhoot directed by Anik Dutta was unceremoniously and illegally pulled from the theatres. While the Bengali film industry was largely silent, Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna Sen came out on the streets to protest. He was 82 or 83 then.
Their point was that India was a democracy. Why can’t someone critique a party or a government or politics? In fact, he publicly called out his fraternity, asking why they were unmoved by what was happening, and what they would do when it happened to them the next day.
Talking about old age, in Peace Haven, your characters gently mock the idea of death. Yet, they seem to be celebrating life. Soumitra da was 81; the others weren’t much younger. What was the shooting like?
They are/were all legends in their own right, very established actors with a huge body of work. But they all had a terrific sense of humour. I was very stressed because of their age, but they understood my vision, and they could laugh at the thought of death.
But there was one scene which takes place in a morgue – that day, Soumitra kaku told me that something was bothering him. It was an active morgue with dead bodies being brought in, so I can understand his uneasiness.
You also mention that you mulled over making a documentary of his last moments…
[Interrupting] – It was a mixed genre, recreating the events of his life a little and then documenting his actual death. I wanted to experiment with the narrative format.
Making such a narrative, demands that you be distant from your subject. Given your closeness to him, could you have been objective?
As you rightly point out, I am sure I wouldn’t have shot the film objectively. For me, too, this would have been an experiment. It would be like observing my father’s death. But as a filmmaker, I would want it to be shot objectively. This dilemma goes deeper into questioning art in general, questioning the process of acting, which was my inspiration for that film. It was not just a gimmick or exploiting his death, but a deeper enquiry into the process of art.
Do you regret not making that documentary?
I do regret it, because first of all, it was a challenge for him as an actor to enact his own death – the interesting thing about it is that he would not have seen his final ‘performance’. I think that would have been the greatest test of an actor, the truth of acting. Because when you are dying, all your thoughts about how you would enact your death cannot compare with your actual death.
Your book has repetitious incidents – was that an oversight? Or by design?
I agree that some of the incidents/anecdotes he speaks about in the interviews were repetitions of the conversations we had earlier. But I was dissatisfied with the interviews that were being published then. The questions had nothing to do with his artistic process or the craft of acting. I don’t blame the journalists because they would often interview him when a film was being released. So, I had interviewed him on two of his birthdays.
The repetition occurred because felt we didn’t want to break up the interviews, but we also wanted to keep the reminiscences.
What next?
As a writer? I am not a writer, but I do write regularly for the popular press. I have written articles on Satyajit Ray; on Koushik Basu, my professor at Cornell University; on economics, etc. That will continue. As a filmmaker, I have signed on to make a social comedy in Hindi. And then, I intend to make a period film in Bengali.
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So begins a new section on this blog: In Conversation. I hope to make this a regular feature if possible.
*An edited version of this interview is published on The Daily Eye.
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