Kumar Shahani | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1940-12-07)7 December 1940[1] |
| Died | 24 February 2024(2024-02-24) (aged 83) Kolkata,West Bengal, India |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, film academic, visual artist |
| Known for | Maya Darpan,Tarang,Khayal Gatha,Kasba |
Kumar Shahani (7 December 1940 – 24 February 2024[2]) was an Indian film director and screenwriter, best known for hisparallel cinema filmsMaya Darpan (1972),Tarang (1984),Khayal Gatha (1989) andKasba (1990).[3] His films won theFilmfare Critics Award for Best Film in 1972, 1990 and 1991.[4] Due to his dedication toformalism, and with the reputation of his first feature—Maya Darpan being considered amongIndian cinema's first formalist films—critics and film enthusiasts often associated him with filmmakers such asPier Paolo Pasolini,Andrei Tarkovsky andJacques Rivette.[5] He was also known as a teacher at hisalma mater, theFilm and Television Institute of India, and as atheorist of cinema. His book of 51 essaysKumar Shahani: The Shock of Desire and Other Essays, was edited byAshish Rajadhyaksha and published byTulika Books in 2015.
Shahani was born on 7 December 1940, inLarkana,Sindh (now in Pakistan).[1][6] After thepartition of India in 1947, Shahani's family shifted to the city of Bombay (nowMumbai).[1] He attended theUniversity of Bombay to obtain an undergraduate degree in political science and history, and studied advanced direction and screenplay writing at theFilm and Television Institute of India inPune, where he was a student ofRitwik Ghatak. He also studied withDamodar Dharmananda Kosambi. On a French government scholarship,[1][7] he moved to France to further his studies at theInstitut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) and assistedRobert Bresson onUne Femme Douce.[8]
After returning to India, Shahani made his first feature filmMaya Darpan in 1972. He received funding twelve years later to make his next full-length feature film,Tarang, in 1984.[5][9] His other landmark films included the 1989 filmKhayal Gatha and the 1990 filmKasba. He also made the short filmsRails for the World,Fire in the Belly,Our Universe andVar Var Vari, the documentaryBhavantarana andChar Adhyay. His films won theFilmfare Critics Award for Best Film in 1972, 1990 and 1991.Maya Darpan won theNational Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi in 1972. His films often appeared at theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam.Khayal Gatha won theFIPRESCI Prize at Rotterdam in 1990. He received thePrince Claus Award in 1998.[1][4][8][10][11]
From 1976 to 1978, he held a Homi Bhabha Fellowship to study the epic tradition of theMahābhārata,Buddhist iconography,Indian classical music and theBhakti movement.[12][13] Shahani was also involved with India's archiving and restoration initiative, theFilm Heritage Foundation.[8] He taught at the Film and Television Institute of India.[6] His book of 51 essays,Kumar Shahani: The Shock of Desire and Other Essays, was published byTulika Books in 2015. The essays were written over a 40-year period.[14][15]
Shahani consideredRoberto Rossellini andRobert Bresson as major influences on his work and those from whom he learned the most. When comparing the two, he stated:[5]
There is austerity in Bresson. But there is a possibility in cinema to have both: austerity and ornamentation. In Bresson, there is mainly austerity even though he aspires to have spectacle. When I work along those lines, I want the ornamentation to stand out. The magic of that reality must appear and we ought to allow that to happen. The notion of ornamentation that we have in India, thealankar, of how we play with it, that is something I like to retain in my work. And this is not there either in Rossellini's work or Bresson's in the works of Catholic filmmakers. When they move towards austerity, they really move towards it: Bresson in the tradition ofSt Augustine and Rossellini more in the manner of notational narratives.
For his filmTarang, which dealt with labour issues, Shahani mentioned that he consciously tried to avoid 'repeating' or 'imitating' one of his favourite films:Sergei Eisenstein'sBattleship Potemkin. Shahani stated:[5]
[F]orTarang for instance, I was shooting a strike sequence. It was an obvious point where one could have quoted Eisenstein. Most filmmakers in such a situation would do so, inadvertently and unconsciously. Even the most "bourgeois" filmmakers as it were, the most commercial ones, or their exact opposites, would all do that. That is why one should remember him, to remember what he did and not to repeat it. So I remembered him while I was shooting that sequence, constantly like a prayer. We can't help saying that Eisenstein did it such a way and let only him do like that. That is why I feel very happy with that particular sequence inTarang. It doesn't have, in any sense, an imitation of Eisenstein.
Shahani was also influenced byRitwik Ghatak.[1][10]
Shahani died inKolkata,West Bengal on 24 February 2024, at the age of 83.[1][4][6] He was survived by his wife and daughters Uttara and Rewati and his partner Rimli Bhattacharya.[10]
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1966 | The Glass Pane | b/w, 35mm, 10 min. Graduation film. FTII. |
| 1967 | Manmad Passenger | b/w, 35mm, 15 min. Short film. FTII. |
| 1967 | A Certain Childhood | (English and Gujarati). b/w, 35mm, 22 min. Documentary for Directorate of Films, Gujarat, India. |
| 1970 | Rails for the World | 35mm, 20 min. Technicolor, Documentary made for Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) |
| 1971 | Object | 16mm, 10 min. Kodachrome, Short film made in collaboration with the psychoanalyst Udayan Patel. |
| 1972 | Maya Darpan | (Hindi) 35mm, 100 min. Feature. NFDC. WinnerFilmfare Award – Best Film (Critics)[4] National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi[11] |
| 1973 | Fire in the Belly | (English). b/w, 35mm, Documentary made for Films Division, India. |
| 1976 | Our Universe | (English). b/w, 16mm, Educational film |
| 1983 | A Memoir of the Future | (English). 35mm (incomplete). Film made on the work of British psychoanalystW.R. Bion |
| 1983 | Rules of the Game | 35mm, Documentary (censored but not released), made forFilms Division. |
| 1984 | Tarang | (Hindi). 35mm, Cinemascope, Feature produced by NFDC.National Film Award – Special Jury Award (Certificate)[17][18] |
| 1988 | Var Var Vari | (Hindi). b/w, 35mm, 29 min, produced by the Film & Television Institute of India |
| 1988 | A Ship Aground | (English). 16mm, Short film. |
| 1989 | Khayal Gatha | (Hindi) 35 mm WinnerFilmfare Award – Best Film (Critics)[4] WinnerFIPRESCI Prize –Rotterdam International Film Festival[4][8] |
| 1991 | Kasba | (Hindi) 35 mm, produced by NFDC. WinnerFilmfare Award – Best Film (Critics)[4] |
| 1991 | Bhavantarana | (Oriya) film about GuruKelucharan Mahapatra[10] National Film Award for Best Biographical Film[19][20] |
| 1997 | Char Adhyay | (Hindi and Bengali) film based on Rabindranath Tagore's novel[6] produced by NFDC |
| 2000 | Bamboo Flute/Biraha bhariyo ghar angan kone | (Hindi and Tamil) film produced by the Ministry of External Affairs |
| 2004 | As the Crow Flies | Film based on the artistAkbar Padamsee |
| 2007 | Chhapakhana | (Bengali) short film made atSatyajit Ray Film & Television Institute |
| 2009 | Priye Charushile | (Oriya and Italian), feature documentary, completed but unreleased |
Source:[21]
Director Kumar Shahani ... passed away at a Kolkata hospital late Saturday night. He was 83...
