Shyam Benegal (World Directors)

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About the Book Shyam Benegal is the best known and most prolific contemporary film-maker from India's arthouse or 'New Cinema' tradition. From Benegal's first film Ankur (1974) through to the recent hit Zubeidaa (2000). his films have explored the contradictions and tensions of a society in very rapid transition with an uniquely powerful focus on female protagonists. Sangeeta Datta's book traces a career with its beginnings in political cinema and a realist aesthetic. She demonstrates how the struggles of women and the dispossessed and marginalised in Indian society have found an eloquent expression in films as diverse as Nishant, Bhumika, Mandi, Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda and Kalyug. The book also traces Benegal's work with his protégés and collaborators including many of the biggest names in Indian cinema-Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil. Naseeruddin Shah. Om Puri. Govind Nihalani and more recently commercial stars Karishma Kapoor and A. R. Rahman developing a style and ethos uniquely his. In this first major overview of the director's work the author explains how it presents both a stark contrast to Bollywood and yet also contains many creative continuities both with commercial cinema and his distinguished predecessor Satyajit Ray. She shows too how no other director has come close to painting such a compelling and vivid portrait of modern India. Sangeeta Datta is a film historian, lecturer, critic and documentary film-maker. She runs a London-based film society. In Focus, which promotes South Asian cinema in the UK and is a member of FIPRESCI International.

Foreword I have known Shyam Benegal on and off for around 30 years, ever since he was particularly kind to me when I first came to India on a rather vague mis-sion to understand Indian cinema and possibly proclaim it to a world which still sometimes seems to know very little about it except in terms of clichés. This was before I saw any of his films. And when I finally sat down in front of Ankur, I realised that here was a pretty special film-maker, in world as well as Indian terms. Since then, he has always struck me as an international figure, securely Indian but well able to transcend any barriers of nationality because of his wide interests and an insatiable curiosity too about most things outside India. Certainly he is greatly respected and liked everywhere he goes an ambassador for India almost without parallel in the cultural field. As a film-maker pure and simple, it can be said with some accuracy that no director since Satyajit Ray has done more for Indian film than Shyam Benegal. His first few films provided a huge marker for other young direc-tors of what was once hopefully called the Indian parallel cinema. And the fact that he made his films in Hindi, the language of what the West rather insultingly calls Bollywood, yet spoke of social and political commitment in terms much more firmly grounded in reality than Bollywood was able, made his success all the more notable. If it wasn't for the lightning bolts of Ankur, Nishant, Manthan and Bhumika, many other films we now celebrate as high-points of the parallel cinema might never have been made. Benegal's con-tinued persistence in increasingly difficult times for the serious film-maker has encouraged countless others.

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge my thanks to the following. My friends in India who helped during my research trip in May-June 2001. In Bombay: Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar for their generous hospitality, feedback and advice, Rajan Kothari, Khalid Mohamed, Sudhir Nandgaonkar, Govind Nihalani, Om Puri, Maithili Rao, Bhawana Somayaa and Shama Zaidi for extending interviews. Shyambabu, who generously gave his time as we talked through hot, languid after-noons in his office in Everest Building over the bustling street in Tardeo, boosted peri-odically by the glasses of sugary tea the local chai-wallah brought in, and Raj Pius and other staff members in Shyam Benegal's well-organised office, who helped with the photographs, press cuttings and video tapes. In Pune: P. K. Nair and Anil Zankar for their comments, the National Film Archives where I reviewed many of Benegal's films, and special thanks to Shashidharan and Aarti Karkhane for providing research material. In Kolkata: Amiya and Jasodhara Bagchi. Samik Bandopadhyay and the late Subrato Mitra for their comments. In London: Nasreen Munni Kabir, Girish Karnad and Avtar Panesar for their inter-views: Derek Malcolm for the foreword and an illuminating discussion we had with Gierson and Uma da Cunha during the mayor's lunch at Cannes: Kitty Cooper and Pamela Cullen for brief but useful discussions: Mukulika Banerjee. Kaushik Bhowmick and Sudipta Kaviraj, who read the chapters at various stages and made useful sugges-tions and friends Seema Anand, Mukulika (again), Rachel and Michael Dwyer, Naman Ramachandran, Vipul Sangoi and Cary Sawhney for their continuing support. In Boston: Satrajit Ghosh and Katrien Vander Straeten for procuring the DVDs. The BFI for offering funds to support the research trip: and Andrew Lockett for his editorial support, advice and patience. Finally, family and friends, especially Soumilyo and my sons Soumik and Souvid, who pitched in often to help. Last but not least, Dipali for holding fort when I was away.

Preface grew up in India during the exciting developments of parallel cinema, the women's movement and street theatre of the late 1970s and 1980s. Shyam Benegal's films were formative influences in defining the parameters of good cinema and shaping the way a generation of educated middle-class youth learned to look at life. His trilogy and Bhumika (1977) provided the context for much debate and discussion during university days in Calcutta. Later, when I was teaching at St Xavier's College Bombay. Shyambabu (as he is commonly addressed) would often agree to introduce his films to my students of Indian film. I also wrote on his films in newspapers and journals in India. While at Sussex in 1997 at a special conference on 50 years of Indian independence, 1 programmed Bhumika, and Shyambabu was invited as a guest speaker from India. In 1998, when I was shooting for my documentary on women film-makers The Way I See It. every director referred to Benegal's films. As Shabana Azmi said. "The yin and the yang are perfectly balanced in Shyam! In the end, he was the only man I interviewed for the film. In 1999. I was in Jaipur for the shooting of Zubeidaa (2000) as Benegal's guest. The set in Ram Niwas Mahal bore witness to the director's meticulous eye for detail and historical accuracy. The walls had been decorated and painted with intricate motifs, old sepia-coloured photographs of royal hunts were up on the wall, a portrait of the prince (played by Manoj Bajpai) domi-nated one end of the room. Shyambabu was directing Rekha and Karishma Kapoor, setting the actors at ease even as he corrected accents and dialogue delivery. After every take, the actors would crowd around the monitor to watch the replay and receive the director's approval. As cinematographer Rajan Kothari got ready to light the next sequence. Shyambabu pulled up a chair on the terrace and lit his trademark Dunhill cigarette. A spotboy ran up with glasses of hot tea as Shyambabu proceeded to tell me about that period of Indian history when princely lands were confiscated by the state. He dis-cussed the next day's festival sequence with the local musicians who would be singing in it.

Introduction Today. Shyam Benegal is considered the father of parallel, or Indian new wave, cinema in India. Indeed, the history of this politically conscious film movement with realist premises more or less coincides with Benegal's career span close to 30 years commencing in 1974. So central to the move-ment is Benegal's work that he could be said to have forged an aesthetic: an aesthetic of an 'alternative cinema' (another name for parallel cinema) or of a realist Hindi cinema that reflects his socially conscious yet deeply human-istic mind. Benegal's films offer an 'alternative' history of India as well as an exam-ple of film-making practice from the margins. This is a history that chal-lenges assumptions about national progress and provokes considerations of the consequences of this development. When revisiting all of Benegal's 20 feature films while writing this book (see Filmography), what struck me powerfully was the unarguable historical and cultural significance of this body of work. These films may be read as a cinematic rendition of the story of a nation in continuous transition. Now 55 years after independence. while a younger generation celebrates consumer culture, Benegal still draws attention to caste and gender inequalities those basic, unavoidable reali-ties of Indian life that are airbrushed out of the rosy images conjured up by Bollywood for the benefit of a global market. And Benegal has been doing this right from his first film. Ankur (1974) made use of the background of peasant revolt in Southeast India, while his latest project about the contro-versial leader Subhas Chandra Bose looks at the nationalist movement and the problems of leadership in the freedom fight.