Soumitra Chatterjee | |
|---|---|
 Chatterjee reciting a poem byTagore at an event | |
| Born | Soumitra Chattopadhyay (1935-01-19)19 January 1935 Calcutta, West Bengal, India |
| Died | 15 November 2020(2020-11-15) (aged 85) Bhowanipore, Kolkata, West Bengal, India[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Calcutta |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, poet, writer, playwright, theatre director |
| Years active | 1959–2020 |
| Works | Filmography |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Padma Bhushan (2004) Dadasaheb Phalke Award (2012) Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur or Commander ofLegion of Honour (2018) Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award - South (1994) |
| Signature | |
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SoumitraChatterjee (also spelt asChattopadhyay;Bengali:[ˈʃou̯mitːɾoˈt͡ʃɔʈːopadʱːae̯]ⓘ; 19 January 1935 – 15 November 2020)[2] was anIndian film actor, play-director, playwright, writer, thespian and poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history ofIndian cinema. He is best known for his collaborations with directorSatyajit Ray, with whom he worked in fourteen films.
Starting with his debut film,Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959), the third part ofThe Apu Trilogy, as adultApu, he went on to work in several films with Ray, includingAbhijan (The Expedition, 1962),Charulata (1964),Kapurush (1965),Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest, 1969),Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder, 1973),Sonar Kella (The Fortress of Gold, 1974) andJoi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God, 1978) asFeluda,Hirak Rajar Deshe (1980),Ghare Baire (The Home and The World, 1984),Shakha Proshakha (1990) andGanashatru (Enemy of the People, 1989).
He also worked with other noted directors ofBengali cinema, such asMrinal Sen inAkash Kusum (Up in the Clouds, 1965);Tapan Sinha inKshudhita Pashan (Hungry Stones, 1960),Jhinder Bandi (Prisoner of Jhind, 1961);Asit Sen inSwaralipi (1961),Ajoy Kar inParineeta (1969), andTarun Mazumdar inGanadevata (1978). He acted in more than 210 films in his career. He also received critical acclaim for his directorial debutStree Ki Patra (1986) which was based on theBengali short storyStreer Patra byRabindranath.[3]
Soumitra was the recipient of multiple honours and awards. Soumitra was the first Indian film personality who was conferred with France's highest award for artists 'Commandeur' of,Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1999). He was also awarded thePadma Bhushan (2004) and France's highest civilian award Commandeur de la Légion d' Honneur (Commander ofLegion of Honour) (2017).[4] He received twoNational Film Awards as an actor and theSangeet Natak Akademi Award for his work in theatre. In 2012, he received theDadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in cinema given by thegovernment of India for lifetime achievement. In 2013,IBN Live named him as one of "The men who changed the face of the Indian Cinema".[5]
Soumitra Chatterjee was born in Mirjapur Street (now Surya Sen Street) nearSealdah railway station, inCalcutta in 1935. The first ten years of his early life were spent inKrishnanagar inWest Bengal where he studied in C.M.S. St. John’s High School. The town under the influence of playwrightDwijendralal Ray, also from Krishnanagar, had a flourishing theatre culture, with numerous small theatre groups. His grandfather was the president of one such group while his father, though lawyer by profession and later a government worker, also worked as an amateur actor. Encouraged by the praise he received for his acting in school plays, gradually his interest in theatre grew with passing years.[6] He was a very close friend of famous theatre personality,Mrityunjay Sil who is often regarded as a key influence on his career.[7]
Soumitra and his family moved toHowrah where he studied at theHowrah Zilla School and Calcutta during his early years. Soumitra graduated from theCity College, Kolkata with honours in Bengali literature, as a graduating student of theUniversity of Calcutta.[7] He lived for a few years in Calcutta inSatyajit Ray's old apartment at 3-lake temple road. He studied for hisM.A. in Bengali from theUniversity of Calcutta. While still a student, he learnt acting under noted actor-director ofBengali theatreAhindra Choudhury.[7] However a turning point came when in the final year of college he saw a play bySisir Bhaduri, theatre director and the doyen of Bengali theatre. The play not only set a standard for acting for him, but also helped make up his mind to become an actor. He managed to meet Bhaduri, through his friend's mother, actress Shefalika Putul. Though, he met Bhaduri, towards the end of his career, when his theatre had closed, nevertheless over the next three years, till Bhaduri's death in 1959, Chatterjee made him a mentor, and learnt the craft of acting through their regular interactions.[6][8][9] He even appeared in a small role in one of Bhaduri's productions.[10][11]
Subsequently, he started his career working inAll India Radio as an announcer,[10] While he was there he started pursuing a career in films. He came in touch with Ray during the casting forAparajito (1956), who was looking for new faces. Ray thought he had the right look, however found him, age 20, and just out of college, too old for the role of adolescentApu. Ray remembered him and offered him the role of adult Apu two years later.[12][13][10] Meanwhile, he was rejected in his screen test for Bengali film,Nilachale Mahaprabhu (1957) directed by Kartik Chattopadhyay.[9]
Chatterjee had gone on the sets of Ray's fourth film,Jalsaghar (1958) to watch the shoot. He was unaware that he had already been selected for the title role in the Apu trilogy. That day, while he was leaving the sets, Ray called him over and introduced him to actorChhabi Biswas as "This is Soumitra Chattopadhyay; he's playing Apu in my next filmApur Sansar" leaving him much surprised.[14] Despite being selected, as a debutant actor, Chatterjee was nevertheless unsure of his career choice and especially his looks, as he didn't consider himself photogenic. However, on 9 August 1958, when the first shooting of the film was accepted in a single take, he realized that he had found his vocation.[9] Thus Soumitra's film debut came in 1959 inSatyajit Ray'sThe World of Apu (Apur Sansar). In fact, Ray believed with a beard Chatterjee looked like young poet laureateTagore.[15]
Soumitra would go on to collaborate with Ray in fourteen films. His centrality to Ray's work is akin to other key collaborations in the history of cinema —Toshiro Mifune andAkira Kurosawa,Marcello Mastroianni andFederico Fellini,De Niro andMartin Scorsese,Leonardo DiCaprio andMartin Scorsese,Max von Sydow andIngmar Bergman,Jerzy Stuhr andKrzysztof Kieślowski,Klaus Kinski andWerner Herzog.[16][17] AfterApur Sansar, he also worked withSharmila Tagore in a number of Ray's films, apart from working with leading star actor of the period,Uttam Kumar, with whom he has often been compared, in eight films.[18][19]
Chatterjee was cast in diverse roles by Ray and some of the stories and screenplays that Ray wrote were said to be written with him in mind. Soumitra featured asFeluda/Pradosh Chandra Mitter, the famous private investigator from Calcutta in Ray'sFeluda series of books, in two films in the 1970sSonar Kella (1974) andJoi Baba Felunath (1979). These two films were the firstfilm series made forFeluda and are considered as theFeluda original film series. He was the first person who portrayed the iconicBengali sleuthFeluda.Satyajit Ray made some illustrations ofFeluda based on Soumitra's body figure and look in the 1970sFeluda books. After him,Sabyasachi Chakrabarty took the role of the iconic Bengali heroFeluda in the mid-1990s.
Soumitra had approached Satyajit Ray to suggest a name for a little magazine founded by Soumitra and Nirmalya Acharya in 1961.Satyajit Ray had named the magazineEkkhon (Now), he designed the inaugural cover page and illustrated the cover pages regularly even after Soumitra had stopped editing the magazine. Nirmalya continued editing the magazine, and several of Ray's scripts were published in the magazine.[20]
Besides working with Ray, Soumitra excelled in collaborations with other well-known Bengali directors such asMrinal Sen andTapan Sinha. He earned critical acclaim for his role of an impostor inMrinal Sen'sAkash Kusum (1965). He was equally confident in playing the swashbuckling horse-riding villain inTapan Sinha'sJhinder Bandi (1961) giving the legendaryUttam Kumar a tough challenge. In the romantic filmTeen Bhubaner Pare (1969), he shared the screen with actressTanuja, the film was noted for his "flamboyant" style of acting. Besides films, Chatterjee continued acting in Kolkata-based Bengali theatre, and also published over 12 poetry books.[21]
Entering the 1980s and 1990s, he started working with contemporary directors, likeGoutam Ghose,Aparna Sen,Anjan Das andRituparno Ghosh, and even acted on television. In 1986, he played the role of a swimming coach, Khitish Singh(Khidda) in filmKony (1986) directed bySaroj Dey, who was part of the film collective Agragami. The film is about a young girl from a slum, who wants to become a swimmer.[19] At the32nd National Film Awards, the film won theNational Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment.[22] Later in a 2012 interview, he called Kony one of the best films of his career. He even recalled using film's catch-phrase "Fight-Koni-fight" in hard times, as a chant to himself to lift his "aging spirits". The phrase had become popular with middle-class Bengalis at the time.[19] He also starred in his biopicAbhijaan directed by Parambrata Chatterjee, an artist himself. The movie was released in April 2022 posthumously as a tribute to Soumitra featuringJisshu Sengupta who portrayed the younger self of the late artist.[23]
He replaced Mrityunjay Sil as the lead artist in 1958. Mrityunjay Sil was at the peak of his theatre career at that time. But due to personal issues he suggested his friend, Soumitra's name. Mrityunjay Sil is often credited with being one of the few people to have helped Soumitra. But, he soon left his job.[7]
After a two-decade long busy career as a leading man of Bengali cinema, he returned to theatre in 1978, with his productionNaam Jiban, staged at Biswarupa Theatre in Kolkata. This led to other plays likeRajkumar (1982),Phera (1987),Nilkantha (1988),Ghatak Biday (1990) andNyaymurti (1996), beside notable plays likeTiktiki (1995), an adaptation ofSleuth andHomapakhi (2006). Besides acting, he has written and directed several plays, translated a few and also branched out topoetry reading in recent decades.[7]
Since 14 November 2010, he regularly performed in the title role of the playRaja Lear directed bySuman Mukhopadhyay and produced by Minerva Repertory Theatre, a play based onKing Lear byWilliam Shakespeare. Soumitra received widespread critical and popular accolades for his acting in the play.[19]
Chatterjee received the 'Commandeur'Officier des Arts et Metiers, the highest award for arts given by theFrench government in 1999, and the Lifetime Award at the Naples Film Festival, Italy.[24][25] He turned down thePadma Shri award from the Indian government in the 1970s.[24] In 2004, he accepted the prestigiousPadma Bhushan award from thePresident of India.[26] He has been the subject of a full-length documentary namedGaach by French film director Catherine Berge. In 1998, he was awarded theSangeet Natak Akademi Award given by theSangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama.[27]
Incidentally, besides receiving eight awards from theBengal Film Journalists' Association for the best actor[28] and international recognition for his acting prowess, Chatterjee never won a National Film Award for acting in the early part of his career, which established his reputation as an actor, working with directors like Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha and Mrinal Sen. Thus, over the years, he has been vocal about his feelings of disappointment and alleging bias in theNational Film Awardscommittee towards awarding popular and mainstream cinema.[6][8] Thus, in a gesture of protest against, he turned down the2001Special Jury Award forDekha directed byGoutam Ghose. Later in an interview he stated "the National Film Awards, overlooked my performances in several powerful roles. When I didKony,Shashi Kapoor was adjudged the best actor.Anil Kapoor was feted (Best Actor) forPukar whileDekha was awarded a 'consolation' prize".[8][29]
However, after receiving thePadma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour given by Government of India in 2004, he changed his viewpoint towards awards, and stated "Now (after Padma Bhushan) I feel I don't have the right to hurt my viewers by rejecting an award."[8] A few years later, on 9 June 2008, he was awarded the 2007National Film Award for Best Actor forPodokkhep (Footsteps) (2006),[30] which he accepted though stating "after decades of acting, I do not attach too much value to it".[31]
In 2010, he won Best Supporting Actor at 54th Asia-Pacific Film Festival for his role inAngshumaner Chhobi (2009).[32]
In 2012, he was awarded theDadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in cinema given annually by the Government of India for lifetime contribution toIndian cinema.[18][21] In 2014, he received the introductoryFilmfare Awards East forBest Male Actor (Critics) for his role inRupkatha Noy[33] and also he wonFilmfare Lifetime Achievement Award – South (1994).[34]
Source(s):[35]
Source(s):[42]
Chatterjee has multiple works to his credit in Bengali, including:
The Master and I: Soumitra on Satyajit, Soumitra Chatterjee, tr. by Arunava Sinha. Supernova Publishers, 2014.ISBN 9788189930721.[60] Translation of Chatterjee'sManikdar Sange.
On 5 October 2020, Chatterjee tested positive forCOVID-19 and was admitted on 6 October inBelle Vue Clinic, Kolkata.[65][66] However, he tested negative to the second COVID-19 test conducted on 14 October. In the meantime, his complications (urinary tract infection, fluctuations in sodium potassium levels, etc.) made the condition critical and he had to be admitted toICU. From 13 October, his condition started to improve marginally and on 14 October, he was transferred from a Covid unit to a non-Covid unit. He was kept onBiPAP support and invasive ventilation for in the critical times; after his improvement in health, the treatment mechanisms were changed. He was under the supervision of a medical team of 16 physicians. On 25 October, his condition further deteriorated.[67] On 15 November 2020, Chatterjee died due to COVID-19[68][69] inducedencephalopathy at Bellevue hospital in Kolkata at 12.15 p.m.[70]
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