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'''Ritwik Ghatak''' ({{lang-bn|ঋত্বিক (কুমার) ঘটক}}, ''Rittik (Kumar) Ghôţok'') ([[November 4]] [[1925]]{{ndash}} [[February 6]] [[1976]]) was a [[Bengali people|Bengali]] [[India]]n [[script writer]] and [[filmmaker]]. Ghatak's stature among Bengali film directors is comparable to that of [[Satyajit Ray]] and [[Mrinal Sen]]. |
'''Ritwik Ghatak''' ({{lang-bn|ঋত্বিক (কুমার) ঘটক}}, ''Rittik (Kumar) Ghôţok'') ([[November 4]] [[1925]]{{ndash}} [[February 6]] [[1976]]) was a [[Bengali people|Bengali]] [[India]]n [[script writer]] and [[filmmaker]]. Ghatak's stature among [[Bengali cinema|Bengali film]] directors is comparable to that of [[Satyajit Ray]] and [[Mrinal Sen]]. |
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
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Ritwik Ghatak was born in [[Dhaka]] in [[East Bengal]] (now [[Bangladesh]]). He and his family moved to [[Kolkata]] just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic |
Ritwik Ghatak was born in [[Dhaka]] in [[East Bengal]] (now [[Bangladesh]]). He and his family moved to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] (now Kolkata) just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic [[Bengal famine of 1943]] and the [[Partition of Bengal (1947)|partition of Bengal]] in 1947. Identification with this tide of refugees was to define his practice, providing an overriding [[metaphor]] for cultural dismemberment and exile that unified his subsequent creative work. |
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==Creative career== |
==Creative career== |
Revision as of 03:17, 26 February 2009
Ritwik Ghatak | |
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File:Ritwik ghatak.jpg | |
Born | |
Died | February 6, 1976 | (aged 50)
Occupation(s) | Film maker and writer |
Ritwik Ghatak (Bengali: ঋত্বিক (কুমার) ঘটক, Rittik (Kumar) Ghôţok) (November 4 1925– February 6 1976) was a Bengali Indian script writer and filmmaker. Ghatak's stature among Bengali film directors is comparable to that of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen.
Early life
Ritwik Ghatak was born in Dhaka in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). He and his family moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1943 and the partition of Bengal in 1947. Identification with this tide of refugees was to define his practice, providing an overriding metaphor for cultural dismemberment and exile that unified his subsequent creative work.
Creative career
In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play Kalo sayar (The Dark Lake), and participated in a revival of the landmark play Nabanna. In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre Association ( IPTA ). He wrote, directed and acted in plays and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In 1957, he wrote and directed his last play Jwala (The Burning).
Ghatak entered film industry with Nemai Ghosh's Chinnamul (1950) as actor and assistant director. Chinnamul was followed two years later by Ghatak's first completed film Nagarik (1952), both major break-throughs for the Indian cinema. Ghatak's early work sought theatrical and literary precedent in bringing together a documentary realism, a remarkable stylized performance often drawn from the folk theatre, and a Brechtian use of the filmic apparatus.
Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. His best-known films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962), a trilogy based in Calcutta and addressing the condition of refugee-hood, proved controversial and the commercial failure of Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) and Subarnekha prevented him from making features through the remainder of the 1960s. In all three films, he used a basic and at times starkly realistic storyline, upon which he inscribed a range of mythic references,especially of the Mother Deliverer, through a dense overlay of visual and aural registers.
Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). During his year at FTII, he was involved in the making of two student films, viz., Fear and Rendezvous.
Ghatak returned to film making only in the 1970s, when a Bangladeshi producer financed the 1973 epic Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titas). Making films became difficult for his poor health, due to extreme alcoholism and consequent diseases. His last film, and perhaps his most unusual, was the 'autobiographical' Jukti Takka ar Gappo (Reason, Debate And Story) (1974).He had a number of incomplete feature and short films in his credit.
He belonged to an illustrious family. His father Suresh Chandra Ghatak was a district magistrate and also a poet and playwright, mother's name was Indubala Devi. He was their 11th and youngest child. His elder brother Manish Ghatak was an acclaimed radical writer of his time, a professor of English and a social activist who was deeply involved with IPTA theatre movement in its heyday and later on headed the famous Tebhaga Andolan of North Bengal. Manish Ghatak's daughter is the legendary writer and activist Mahasweta Devi. Ritwik's wife Surama was a school teacher and his son Ritaban is a film-maker.
Impact and influence
At the time of his death (February 1976), Ghatak's primary impact would seem to have been through former students. Though his stint teaching film at FTII was brief, one-time students Mani Kaul, John Abraham, and especially Kumar Shahani (among many others), carried Ghatak's ideas and theories, which were further elaborated upon in his book Cinema And I, into the mainstream of Indian art film.
Ghatak stood entirely outside the world of Indian commercial film. None of the elements of the commercial cinema (singing and dancing, melodrama, stars, glitz) featured in his work. He was watched by students and intelligentsia, not by the masses. His students have also tended to work in the art cinema or independent cinema tradition.
Satyajit Ray, commonly held to be the greatest of the Bengali neo-realist directors, succeeded in creating an audience outside India during his lifetime and winning many prestigious international awards. Ghatak was not so fortunate. While he was alive, his films were appreciated primarily within India. (Satyajit Ray did what he could to promote his colleague, but Ray's generous praise did not translate into international fame for Ghatak.)
Ghatak's impact began to spread beyond India much later; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience.
Filmography
Feature films
- Nagarik (The Citizen) (1952)
- Ajantrik (The Unmechanical, The Pathetic Fallacy) (1958)
- Bari Theke Paliye (The Runaway) (1959)
- Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960)
- Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961)
- Subarnarekha (1962/65)
- Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titash) (1973)
- Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and a Story) (1974)
Short films and documentaries
- The Life of the Adivasis (1955)
- Places of Historic Interest in Bihar (1955)
- Scissors (1962)
- Fear (1965)
- Rendezvous (1965)
- Civil Defence (1965)
- Scientists of Tomorrow (1967)
- Yeh Kyon (Why / The Question) (1970)
- Amar Lenin (My Lenin) (1970)
- Puruliar Chhau (The Chhau Dance of Purulia) (1970)
- Durbar Gati Padma (The Turbulent Padma) (1971)
External links
- Ritwik Ghatak at IMDb
- at calcuttaweb
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- Biography
- Film Analysis
- Plot Summaries
- The relentless tragedy of Ritwik by Partha Chatterjee
- Kinship and History in Ritwik Ghatak by Moinak Biswas
- The Film We Accompany by Raymond Bellour
- Ritwik Ghatak-Reinventing the Cinema by Jonathan Rosenbaum
- Bengali film producers
- Indian film producers
- Bengali film directors
- Indian film directors
- Bengali film actors
- Indian film actors
- Bengali writers
- Indian screenwriters
- Indian writers
- Film theorists
- Indian film score composers
- Bengali-language writers
- Kolkata culture
- University of Calcutta alumni
- People from Dhaka
- 1925 births
- 1976 deaths
- Film directed by Ritwik Ghatak