Film-maker Tapan Sinha passes away

The veteran film-maker had been in and out of hospital over the past few years. He was admitted to the hospital in December last year.

Noted film-maker Tapan Sinha was a master storyteller whose filmography presented an amazing variety of subjects promising different experiences for the audience each time.

Charles Dicken’s ‘A Tale of Two cities’ and its film version promoted the Dada Saheb Phalke awardee to join films and he went on to become an uncompromising film-maker in a class of his own.

An avid follower of American directors like William Wyler and John Ford,he entered the film world as a technician. He completed his journey there with 41 films,19 of which won National Awards and laurels from international film festivals of London,Venice,Moscow and Berlin.

His cinematic works were mostly down to earth depictions of the struggles of the common man.

His first film ‘Ankush’ was released in 1954,a year before Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali,’ and despite making classics like ‘Kabuliwallah,’ ‘Ek Doctor Ki Mauth,’ ‘Nirjan Saikate,’ ‘Haate Bazare’ and ‘Admi aur Aurat,’ Sinha is possibly a lesser discussed director compared to his peers.

After completing M.Sc in Physics from Calcutta University,Sinha joined the New Theatres Studio in 1946 as assistant sound recordist.

Two years later he shifted to the Calcutta Movietone Studio and in 1950 he got the opportunity to work in the Pinewood Studio in London.

There he got to watch the works of greats like Federico Fellini,Vittorio De Sica and work in director Harles Cryton’s unit as sound engineer.

He used the trip to learn in totality the art of film-making. After returning,he made ‘Ankush’ (1954) with an elephant belonging to a ‘zamindar’ as the central character,a whole new idea at the time,but it bombed at the box office.

Sinha’s next two films ‘Upahaar’ (1955) and ‘Tonsil’ (1956) were somewhat successful,but it was ‘Kabuliwallah’ (1957),his fourth film,that gave him solid footing and from there he did not have to look back.

‘Kabuliwallah’,based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore,won the President’s Gold Medal for the best film of the country.

The film,however,was not technically sound and Sinha was to later write that Satyajit Ray and Raj Kapoor had told him about its poor technical quality.

Like his favourite directors Wyler and Ford,Sinha had a large canvas and he never made two films on the same subject. ‘Lauha Kapat’ (Life in Jail,1958),‘Khudito Pasan’ (Haunted House,1960),‘Jhinder Bandi’ (Prisoner of Jhind,1961) till his last film Daughters of the Century in 2002,the list is endless.

The strong point of Sinha’s work was that he was a master storyteller. He never believed in presenting his ideas in a complicated way to his audience. His films were quintessentially focused on middle-class Bengali life.

The story ideas of most of his films had a solid literary base. They were taken from short stories and novels of Rabindranath Tagore,Tarashankar Bandhopadhyay,Saratchandra Chattopadhaya,Sharadindu Bandhopadhyay,Subodh Ghosh and Ramapada Chowdhury. Some,though,were written by himself.

To convey his message,Sinha sometimes used fantasy such as in ‘Galpo Holeyo Satyi’ (Fiction but fact,1977),‘Ek Je Chilo Desh’ (There was a country,1977),‘Bancharamer Bagan’ (Banchharam’s garden,1980) and ‘Ajab Ganyer Ajab Katha’ (Strange tale of a strange village,1998).

Despite dealing with social problems in films like ‘Adalat O Ekti Meye’ and ‘Antardhan’,politics never came in the forefront in his films such as Apanjan (1968),‘Sagina Mahato’ (1970 and Raja (1975),with the sole exception of ‘Atanka’ (Terror,1986),since he believed that political issues were short-lived and so were the films based on them.

He had strong belief in the success of individual courage and for this he faced the wrath of Leftist critics.

For over half of his career,film societies in Kolkata viewed him with scepticism though during his later years a shift from their earlier stance was visible.

Sinha made a number of films for children ‘Safed Haati’ (The White Elephant,1977),‘Sabuj Dwiper Raja’ (The King of the Green Island,1979),‘Aj Ka Robinhood’ (‘The Robinhood of Today’,1987) and ‘Anokha Moti’ (The Incredible Pearl,1999).

He made Hindi films like ‘Zindagi Zindagi’ (1972),‘Sagina’ (1974),‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’ (1990) and Daughters of the century (2002). His famous short film ‘Aadmi Aur Aurat’ (Man and Woman,1984) was also made in Hindi for Doordarshan.

Sinha made some off beat films — Nirjan Saikate (The lonely beach,1963) — the story of five widows,and the actresses who depicted them,all won national awards. ‘Wheel Chair’ (1994) was the story of the struggle of a physically challenged doctor and a woman who turned almost into a vegetable after a fall from the stairs.

Born to Tribidesh Chandra Sinha and Pramila Sundari on October 2,1924,Sinha was perhaps the first director of Bengal to go beyond the confines of the studio floors and shoot on location.

On the advice of Ray,Sinha took up composing music for his films. He also wrote lyrics of songs for films like ‘Harmonium’,‘Ek Je Chhilo Desh’ and ‘Andhar Periye’,among others.