Böcker av Amitava Nag

DeScriPtionWhen Soumitra Chatterjee debuted in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar in 1959-thefinal part of Ray's Apu trilogy-a star was born in Bengali cinema. Soumitra soontranscended the boundaries of the Bengali film industry to become an internationallycelebrated actor who was compared to the best in the business, from Max von Sydowto Marcello Mastroianni. Famously known as 'Ray's actor', in a career spanning sixdecades, Soumitra worked with practically every Bengali director worth the name-Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Chidananda Dasgupta, Aparna Sen, Tarun Majumdar,Rituparno Ghosh and Goutam Ghose, to name but a few.Following Apur Sansar, Soumitra played the lead in another Ray film, Devi, in 1960.From then until the posthumously released Abhijan and Belashuru (2022), the morethan 300 films in which he acted rank among the best in Bengali cinema, andwon him a string of awards, including the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award(1995), the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1999), the Padma Bhushan (2004), theDadasaheb Phalke Award (2012) and the Legion d'Honour awarded by the FrenchGovernment (2018). But it was not just on the silver screen that Soumitra shone. Hewas also an accomplished playwright and theatre actor, a poet, a painter, the literaryeditor of the magazine, Ekshan, and an elocutionist.Soumitra Chatterjee: His Life in Cinema and Beyond, is the first comprehensive attemptto portray the life of the actor in all its facets. It traces Soumitra's initial years ofsearching for identities to the final decades when he reached the pinnacle of hiscareer as an actor and an artist. Written from the vantage point of someone whoshared an exceptionally close relationship with the actor, film journalist Amitava Naghas drawn an intimate portrait of the star thespian and his art beyond acting, whichwill be essential reading for his legion of fans, and for all those interested in cinema.

For the last six decades Soumitra Chatterjee has been revered, followed, worshipped - he had been a way of life, for many. There is no doubt that he is a product of our time, our culture for over half a century. Yet, he knew the secret to transcend time and culture in the most magical way. Probably he approached life with openness and generosity which is why he seemed transparent, yet arty. He could sport naturalism as his ego, less judgmental and hungry. Fastidious about his own art he was liberal to concepts, who perfected a sense of emotional detachment in order to engage himself in a mental and esoteric travel to other eras, other moments in history. The idea of this book stems from the many discussions the author Amitava Nag had with Soumitra Chatterjee for over the last few years. This is not a biography. Nor a hagiography of a bright star of the collective mental sky. The book holds the author's many anxieties, questions, hazy perceptions and unresolved miseries. In the discussions, there have been some common themes - separation, return, fear and death. Then painting, poetry, reading. The themes repeat though not in this same order. Just like a good cinema must reflect some good shots, a good writing must also leave behind, apart from others, a few good sentences. The silent steals, the distant murmurs, the broken dreams. A memoir needs to teem with unfulfilled love, the moments of grief and pain. And silence. This book is written in the present tense throughout. In discussions of soul time freezes, fleets and flies. In these we probe the boundaries of words. What is left to thinking if there aren't words as friezes? About Amitava Nag Amitava Nag is an independent film critic based in Kolkata and editor of Silhouette. His most recent books on cinema are 16 Frames and Smriti Satta o Cinema. His earlier writings include the acclaimed books Satyajit Ray's Heroes and Heroines and Beyond Apu: 20 Favourite Film Roles of Soumitra Chatterjee. His latest book is The Cinema of Tapan Sinha: An Introduction. Amitava also writes poetry and short fiction in Bengali and English - observing life in a platter. His poetry collection Forever Meera and translation anthology of Soumitra Chatterjee's English poems titled Walking Through the Mist were published in 2020.

This book will help the reader uncover and understand Rays enigmatic prowess in making most of his actors give brilliant performances. Madhabi Mukherjee Satyajit Ray first placed India on the map of world cinema with his 1955-classic Pather Panchali. In a career spanning nearly four decades and twenty-seven feature films, Ray is undoubtedly the most well-known Indian film-maker till date. It will probably not be an exaggeration to state that Rays profiling of characters and his casting acumen resulted in some of the best on-screen performances in Indian cinema. Satyajit Rays Heroes & Heroines looks at various character profiles in Rays cinema, examining the intricate play of nuances and details that went into each of them, making them unforgettably real people. In doing so, it also explores the craft of the actors who breathed life into them, making the character and the actor indistinguishable. A first of its kind in English, this book is a tribute to Bengals superlative actors who bloomed to their fullest in the cinema of Satyajit Ray.