History of Bengali Cinema
Bengali cinema is the country’s most prestigious and award winning movie world having internationally famous directors, actors, actresses, cameramen and other technicians. Among other regional language movies, Bengali films are the most noteworthy for their rich content and variety in forms. A lot of experimentations have been done in the Bengali films. Since inception, Bengali movies have gone through high and low, but have never compromised with quality.It is the Bengali movie world from which other language film personalities have obtained their skills.In short, Bengali filmdom is the leaning field for Hindi and other language movies.
Bengali filmdom has the distinction of producing stalwarts like Satyajit Ray who is counted among the ten top directors of the world. Besides, Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy and Mrinal Sen are the other big names in the field of movie direction. They are also counted among the best directors of the world. While Ray got Oscar for his life time achievement and France’s highest civilian award Legion of Hnour and Bharat Ratna by India, Sen received France’s Commander of Arts and Letters and Russia’s Order of Friendship award. -- honors no other film directors of India have received so far. The honor journey is still on. The current film directors like Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Gautam Ghsoh, Aparna Sen, Rituparnao Ghosh are also internationally acclaimed film personalities.Several Bengali movies have won national and international awards. Those include Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar, Aparajita – an Apu trilogy, Charulata, Simabaddha, Asani Sanket, Aranyer Dinratri, Nayak, Gupi Gaine and Bagha Baine and other films of Satyajit Ray, Meghe Dhaka Tara of Ritwik Ghatak, Calcutta 71, Padatik and other films of Mrinal Sen. Many recent films have also earned accolades home and abroad.
Hiralal Sen is rated among the India’s first film directors. Although Sen is the maker of Silent movies, but that was the call of the period. Talkies did not came to India, when Sen worked. Sen was also rated among the country’s pathfinders of AD film making.Billwamangal was the first Bengali silent movie that came up as early as in 1919, six years after India’s first feature film Raja Harish Chandra , made in Hindi. The first Bengali Talkie was Dena Paona, an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s story. The film was released in 1931.Two famous Bengali heros – Pramathes Barua and Deboki Bose – appeared on Bengali silver screen during the early 1930s. They enjoyed rare popularity among the people ever seen. Barua and Bose also directed a good number of movies giving a new orientation to Bengali cinema. Bengali talkie Chandidas, ditrected by Debaki Bose was released in 1932. In this film sound recording system got its frequency modulation by Mukul Bose.It was a rare breakthrough.Among the actors, Uttam Kumar is the most popular hero in Bengali film. On his life, Satyajit Ray made his award winning film Nayak. Uttam Kumar paired with All-time Great Bengali heroine Suchitra Sen to enthral the audience for nearly two decades since late 1950. Satyajit Ray called the Uttam-Suchitra pair as ‘World Romance’. After a medical surgery, Suchitra Sen retired from film and never appeared before the people since her last movie Pranay Pasha with another Bengali intellectual hero and Satyajit Ray favourite Soumitra Chatterjee. She is the mother of glamourous model-turned actress Moon Moon Sen and great grandmother of budding actresses Riya and Raima Sen.
Uttam Kumar, however, continued pairing with other heroines like Supriya Devi with whom he lived together for 17 years till his sudden death in 1980. Uttam Kumar, who started his career as an extra, acted over 200 films, majority of which were hits. Uttam Kumar is not only Bengal’s heart throb, he also acted in some Hindi movies with great success. Uttam Kumar also directed some films like Ban Palashir Padabali which was a roaring hit. His Hindi directorial venture in Chhti Si Mulakat, however, was a super flop triggering his first heart attack.
After Uttam Kumar’s death, a vacuam engulfed Bengali films.No other replacement hero couild fit into Uttam Kumar’s role. With Uttam Kumar’s contemporary Soumitra Chatterjee fading into old age, Tapas Pal, Prasenjit, Bollywood hero Biswajit’s son, Chironjit acted in Bengali films, but they were all poor pigmies comparing to Uttam Kumar. Eminent directors like Tapan Sinha, Tarun Mazumder stopped directing films and their places are being occuopied by less qualified filmmakers who only copied Bollywood masala films. The decline was noticed since late 1980s and the phase was complete in the last decade of the past century.Tollywood, a nickname for Bengali film industry, is now in search of talented and promising actors, actresses and technicians to get back the lost glory of Bengali films. Some compensations are being made by some potential directors in the form of actress-turned director Aparna Sen , Gautam Ghosh, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Rituparno Ghosh.These new directors have earned national and intenational fame and almost every year they are bring medals for Bengali films.Alas for the present Mainstream Bengali films!
