A New book by Pradip Biswas and Rüdiger Tomczak
will be released in Kolkata, around October, 24, 2009
FIVE INDIAN DIRECTORS
PREFACE
The dearth of good books on cinema is a bizarre phenomenon. The picture obtains anywhere in the world where somewhat honest proclivity to get in touch with good and serious works/books on socially relevant cinema dares pop up. Keeping this in mind, myself and my friend Rudiger Tomczak, a well-known critic from Germany, specialist on Asian cinema, have initiated a move to work on a book, an anthology of sorts, called Five Indian Directors.
Our mentioned book, born out of mutual understanding and cool passion, focuses on the five Indian directors and their sparkling films that prove good cinema is never dead. In the process, we have taken up the eminent five Indian directors, senior and junior ones, such as Girish Kasaravalli, Aparna Sen, Nandita Das, Sonali Bose and Shaan Khatau, the last one being the documentary experimenter. It is needless to mention that these directors have carved out special niche for themselves in a natural way and make it incumbent upon the film-buffs and film society members to confront them even when reluctant. Such is the strength of the book which thematically flourishes with multiple dialectical analysis. The subjects of films are as varied as critical canons permit. Main aspect of each director and his/her film is rooted to our social milieu and topical interest.
Mrinal Sen, the heretic director of world cinema, says: “It is the dialectical leap that is which is our concern”. We must admit our anthology only follows this faith. Till this time there is no work like the one we have jointly worked out in Indian perspective. And we believe our efforts as directed in the book do solidify this infallible notion. Naturally, we leave the work to the care of genuine film-buffs, cineastes and bibliophiles who are hungry for good cinema. And we again remind our readers, film-buffs and parallel critics of the fact that while we present our views, we don’t claim it to be final, the last words. We invite multi-disciplinary readings of the texts as presented in our discourse.
October 31, 2009 PRADIP BISWAS
Kolkata. RUDIGER TOMCZAK
Das Gupta & Com. Literature on Cinema Books
RAY ON RAY
PRADIP BISWAS
While using the scope to write on Ray, I have kept in mind how to present this genius in true light and genuine perspective, mostly in conversation mode. His impression is: "Over the years, I have understood art as an expression of a creative personality, and I don't believe in the new theories which hold that art must be destroyed and doesn't need to be permanent". Besides, his advice to the directors is: if anybody analyses his films individually, he would find all these "great moments or turning points" on significant happenings treated visually, in virtual silence.
This book, a warm tribute to the maestro, is brought to life being inspired immensely by his style of execution and artistic mastery over the medium. In the process, to make it quite interesting, I have preferred to hinge on matters and materials related to focused discourse on cinema, the liberating medium, Ray has had with me, other scholars and his profuse writings first as a critic and then as a filmmaker. The contents would indicate why is the necessity of the book. The chapters are full of intellectual discourse and information necessary to further understand Ray in the 21st century.
A GIRISH KASARAVALLI FILM
THE SHADOW OF THE DOG: A CRITQUE
PRADIP BISWAS
In many a way The Shadow of the Dog is an elliptical film with mythic dimension. As always, Girish Kasaravalli here too employs strands of imagination and dovetails it with reasoning so that his film does not appear elusive or bang mystic. For the first time, Girish has dared to transform S.L. Bhyrappa's novel Nayi Neralu when the author himself didn't think much of it. It showcases resistance offered to hidebound socio-cultural and religious decrees in a very feudal system. Intellectuals talk about subversion as a mode of protest. Says Girish: "The novelist Kuvempu once said that even a dullard can fool the wise with a simple trick. This sort of thing happens where you least expect it. The past was not all acceptance and submissiveness. There was vigorous protest too. Only it was offered in different paradigms, and by people you'd least expect to be radical."
ROMANIA:
CINEMA OF CRISTIAN MUNGIU
PRADIP BISWAS
Cristian Mungiu, two-film old director from Romania, is the subject of this book. Not a regular name, Mungiu has come to make a grade at the 60th Cannes Film Festival, 2007 by bagging the highest award, Palme d'Or, for his film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. Though it may sound bizarre, such big breakthrough is really an isolated phenomenon in the recent times. Yet I would say, it has so happened keeping in tune with the country's previous record of achievements in the field of cinema. Films made before and after the fall of socialism have their own distinctive weakness and quality, merits and demerits. We have had some memorable films from Romania shown at our International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in the country from time to time. Therefore, rise of a young filmmaker like Cristian Mungiu who won the Palme d'Or for his film has not taken me by surprise in a way.
ETERNITY AND ANGELOPOULOS
PRADIP BISWAS
The Eternity and Angelopoulos deals with Greek history of political turmoil and the memories of agony of the director Theo Angelopoulos. It is nearly an autobiographical film called Eternity and A Day that shows the scars of wars hitting the Central Europe. Here is focused the cycle Angelopoulos describes as `a kind of victory of life over death' or perhaps acknowledging that beyond the sadness of death, a sense of the realization of the `freedom and release' that death means. An artist who is gracefully capable of celebrating life over death is immortal. Angelopoulos is one such world's foremost living and indomitable artist, a cinema's visionary, a filmmaker, in whose realm the art of cinema is transformed into service of mankind. Eternity and A Day is a work of great merit, a film of epic scale, a work of great epiphany. It invites us gracefully to a dialogue with silence.
REVISITING ANGELOPOULOS
PRADIP BISWAS
The book Revisiting Angelopoulos deals with a terrible time, a politically disturbed period in Greek history. The Popular Front is crushed, the fascists begin to take control, Nikos is killed and Spyros’ son accepts an offer from another band leader to tour America. Alone with her sons, Eleni is arrested for political reasons and spends the war years in jail. Freed in 1946, she learns that Spyros’ son, who joined the army to get US citizenship and so be able to send for his family, died in the final days of the war in the Pacific.
The Weeping Meadow is the first part of Angelopoulos' trilogy depicting the unfurling of the 20th century in Greece. In an interview Angelopoulos, the director, has explained how the film was partly inspired by the death of his mother. Born at the beginning of the 20th century, she died in 1998, spanning almost completely the time frame covered in the Trilogy project. Originally conceived as just one film, Angelopoulos soon found that he had too much material and wide pasture and re-configured the script as a three-part piece. As nearly three- hour long, The Weeping Meadow has already set the pace for a lengthy and intense exploration of the tribulations of Greece and some of its people.
NABYENDU'S (MANIK) TRILOGY FILMS
PRADIP BISWAS
The book is based on trilogy films based on stories of Manik Bandyopadhyay, the infant terrible of Bengali literature. This is the centenary year of Manik. Nabyendu Chatterjee, among others, is one such director who has never felt spooked to work on Manik's stories despite risks and hidden loopholes.. Indeed, he has just made three films based on literary sources of the rebel author. The films are Aaj Kaal Parshur Galpo, Sarisreep and Shilpi at regular intervals. This he could execute out of his zeal and prove a point or two. This, I believe, is a special achievement.
For, while probing Nabyendu's three films as mentioned above, brining them into critical scrutiny, I could realize a quaint continuity, if not in chronological order. Following my perception, I have found a spate of synergy, identical elements, ploys of exploitation, marginalization of downtrodden, sordid life of peasants and weavers and the role of the barbarian sharks, lurking under masks. The thread of theme, in its own tenacity, runs through all three of his film, focusing on complex survival of the marginalized.
MRINAL SEN, SUCHITRA SEN, APARNA SEN:
SENS AND SENSIBILITIES
PRADIP BISWAS
The book is a tribute work to three major film personalities of India such as Mrinal Sen, the maverick maestro of Indian cinema, Suchitra Sen, Greta Garbo of Bengali cinema, and Aparna Sen, director and actress. The current book is the result of some very important and meaningful discourses/articles essayed on Mrinal Sen, the intrepid heretic of Indian cinema, Suchitra Sen and Aparna Sen, very eminent figures of Indian cinema. When I just wrote them out of pure passion, there was nothing at the back of my mind that someday, a necessity would pop up to aid a book in my name. But I had a strong feeling while writing these pieces I must look serious and the discourses in question must have a serious and aesthetic flair in them. Since a critic is a conduit, a bridge but never a law, I took it upon myself to make exercises on subjects/persons/works, a wee phenomenon none can brush aside with a puff; rather these would be taken up for study, not as
didactic one, but something that teaches us to re-read for ourselves with quickened intelligence and keener appreciation.
>
> Book:
> RAY ON RAY
> By Pradip Biswas
> Satyajit Ray is such a big phenomenon that it strikes fear in any critic, cineaste engaged in evaluating or writing on his oeuvre or the artist that he is. I am, I should admit, no exception in the matter. Yet I feel I can pick courage, given my long-standing relationship with the maestro and his family, to make this prodigy a proud subject of my book called Ray On Ray. It is not that in such study, a result of thinking for many years on my part, I could essentially write a book covering everything, his marked features, startling aspects, binge of artistic traits, directional skills and exhaustive profile of the maestro. It is not simply possible. And I naively admit it is beyond my compass to play stupid claiming encyclopedic knowledge on the great Ray. I think, none can do a foolproof work on the maestro. Because, it is not only absurd but also is an enigma.
(Excerpt from the book)
BOOKS BY PRADIP BISWAS, AUTHOR AND FILM CRITIC
1) INDIAN CINEMA (1995) Rs.200/-
2) BUDDHADEB DASGUPTA: CINEMA OF IMPRINTED TIMES (1997) Rs.150/-
3) YILMAZ GUNEY: CINEASTE MILITANT (I998) Rs.150/-
4) SANDIP RAY: TAKE ONE (1999) Rs.125/-
5) FILMS OF NABYENDU: A MONTAGE (2001) and 2ND Edition (2006) Rs.250/-
6) ETERNITY AND ANGELOPOULOS (2003) Rs.150/-
7) MRINAL SEN, SUCHITRA SEN, APARNA SEN: Rs.150/-
SENS AND SENSIBILITIES (2006)
8) FILMS OF NABYENDU: SIGNATURE OF HUMANISM (2006) Rs.175/-
9) NABYENDU'S (MANIK) TRILOGY FILMS (2007) Rs.200/-
10) REVISITING ANGELOPOULOS (2008) Rs.150/-
11) ROMANIA: CINEMA OF CRISTIAN MUNGIU (2008) Rs.150/-
12) A GIRISH KASARAVALLI FILM: SHADOW OF THE DOG: A CRITIQUE (2008) Rs.100/-
13) ANJAN BOSE: ROAD TO DOCUMENTARY (2008) Rs.175/-
14) IRAN: CINEMA OF ABBAS KIAROSTAMI (in print)
15) RAY ON RAY
16) CHINA: CINEMA OF ZHANG YIMOU (in print)
In Preparation:
17) IRAN: FILMS OF SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF
18) GIRISH AND GULABI TALKIES: A CRITIQUE
19) FIVE INDIAN DIRECTORS
_________________________________________
PRADIP BISWAS, an eminent film critic and author of many
cinema books, is attached to The New Sunday Express, The Indian
Express, The Financial Express and Shomingeki (Gemany). He is the
senior most film critic of Indian Cinema and has written thirteen books
so far. Pradip Biswas is a permanent Jury Member of International Film
Festivals of India (IFFI), India and has served on the Jury of Fribourg
International Film Festival (FIFF), Switzerland, twice. He is also a
Script Committee member of National Development Corporation (NFDC),
Govt. of India.
His books are read as texts in Colleges and Universities.
The list of Books are already on website: www.shomingeki.de/Biswas.html
Comments on Books:
MRINAL SEN Says: "Your understanding of good and bad fascinates me. I am increasingly getting to know you better".
ADOOR GOPALAKRISHNAN says: "If you are a film lover
and still haven't heard about Theo Angelopoulos, the master filmmaker
from Greece, here is a book called Eternity and Angelopoulos penned by
the well-known journalist and critic Pradip Biswas that would introduce
his art and genius to you".
THEO ANGELOPOULOS says: "Overwhelmed by the intellectual discourse on my films".
SHYAM BENEGAL says: "Your books are excellent introduction to the works of the filmmakers you have written about".
MRINAL SEN says: "Talking about the writer, PRADIP
BISWAS, whose understanding of cinema fascinates me, REVISITING
ANGELOPOULOS should, in all fairness, be powerful read for those who
will like to know more and more about the poet of Greek cinema".
DEREK MALCOLM of The Guardian says: "I have found the work (Yilmaz Guney) deeply interesting"
PAMELA PHILIPOSE of The Indian Express says: "By reminding Indian readers of this great practitioner (Yilmaz Guney) of the cinema of realism, Biswas has done well"
THE INDIAN EXPRESS says: "As a friend of the Ray
family, he has seen Sandip Ray grow from a `go-for' (as termed in
Hollywood) in his father's crew to a filmmaker in his own right. Yet in
this slim thesis Sandip Ray: Take One, Biswas has not allowed that
friendship to cloud his vision".
SATYAJIT RAY (The Telegraph, 1990) remarked: "Your writing on me is quite engrossing and shows your great critical acumen as a film aesthete.I find the references you drew from Eric Rhode, Tom Milne and Robin Wood valid,cogent and asthetically inspiring".
GIRISH KASARAVALLI, Director: "I am deeply impressed by your ability to go beyond the skin of the film. You negotiate with the text not through the plot but through cinematic rendering, through Images, through details. Sometimes you even co relate the views expressed by the film makers in various interviews to reconstruct the conceptual frame of the text. You succeed in bringing out the hidden layers of the film by putting the film in its socio political and cultural context of the society in which the film is set. I have seen this happening in the books on Angelopoulos and Cristain Mungue. As well as on your books about Indian film makers. Your book on my film The shadow of the dog is no exception. I thank you for giving these books. I also appreciate your efforts to write on non-bollywood cinema which is the true Indian cinema, when most Indian writers prefer to write on those films".
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Contact:
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Author/film critic
Phone: 0091(0)33-2335-0451
Email: pradipbe@cal3.vsnl.net.in
Email: pradip_express@yahoo.co.in
