A river runs through it

Sixty years is an incredibly long time when it comes to public memory. Long enough to make people forget a film.

An exhibition tells us why Jean Renoir’s 1951 film The River is one of the most important films to have been made in the city

Sixty years is an incredibly long time when it comes to public memory. Long enough to make people forget a film. But then European great,Jean Renoir’s The River was not just any other film,at least not for Kolkatans. Not because it was one of the first big Western films to be shot in the city. Not even because it used a largely Indian cast and crew. But because it’s thanks to this film that a young Satyajit Ray could meet his idol Renoir. Can you believe that Renoir was actually in this city, gushed an obviously cinema literate youngster to another at launch of the photo exhibition commemorating sixty years of the making of The River at Nandan IV.

Renoir was indeed here. For months together with his wife Dido. He managed to befriend some of the best talents who would later go on to shape the future of Bengali cinema. It is stuff legends are made of. In 1949 when the celebrated Renoir was in Kolkata to scout for locations,a young Satyajit Ray walked into the five-star hotel where the director was staying and sought a meeting. Evidently,the meeting was a success,as soon Ray would accompany Renoir on his location-scouting trips. In an article describing these trips Ray mentioned how Renoir perceived everything he saw cinematically – the pattern of cow dung cakes on a wall in a village in the Hooghly district,women with pitchers on their head and saris hanging in the verandah of houses in the busy commercial district of Bowbazar. Finally,when the film was completed in 1951 it was seen as a celebration of Indianness,as perceived then,soaked in Bengali customs and rituals.

The exhibition which comprises photographs,letters and newspaper clippings related to the film,documents how Renoir had managed to befriend all the technicians and actors associated with the film. In one frame he is shown directing Bengali actor Suprova Mukherjee with a curious blend of reproach and affection. In another he poses with the entire crew of the film,much like a patriarch. There is however,no Renoir-Ray photo,only a young Ray is seen in one of the locations with the film’s celebrated cinematographers (and Jean Renoir’s nephew),Claude Renoir.

When Renoir returned to Kolkata later to shoot the film,he hired Ray’s friend Bansi Chandra Gupta as an art director and Harisadhan Das Gupta as an assistant. Subrata Mitra,who would later become Ray’s cinematographer,took stills. Ramananda Sengupta was hired as the assistant cameraman to celebrated French cinematographer,Claude Renoir. I was fortunate enough to see both of them interact. Of course Ray was yet to start his film career then. Renoir was clearly impressed with Ray and his instinctive understanding of the cinematic language, says Sengupta.

Sengupta too shared a deep personal bond with the French great as is evident in the letters exchanged by them,which were on display at the exhibition. He did keep in touch for a long time after the film was completed. He would always enquire on my family in those letters. He was fascinated by India, says Sengupta.

The exhibition is on at Nandan IV till April 20

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