Abstract
Hari Sadhan Dasgupta (1923–1996) was arguably the most significant documentary filmmaker to emerge from the circle of film aficionados, intellectuals, and writers who gathered at the Calcutta Film Society (and at the Indian Coffee House on Central Avenue in Calcutta) in the late 1940s and 1950s. He received institutional training in filmmaking at the film school of the University of Southern California and served Irving Pichel as observer apprentice on three films after completing his university program. He was the first among the Calcutta Film Society group to make films and went on to make 50 odd documentaries and commercials between 1948 and 1984, of which Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955), The Story of Tata Steel (1958), and Konarak (1949) have earned iconic status. He also made two feature-length fiction films Eki Ange Eto Rup (1965) and Kamallata (1969).
Hari Sadhan Dasgupta (1923–1996) was arguably the most significant documentary filmmaker to emerge from the circle of film aficionados, intellectuals, and writers who gathered at the Calcutta Film Society (and at the Indian Coffee House on Central Avenue in Calcutta) in the late 1940s and 1950s. He was the only one to have received institutional training in filmmaking at the film school of the University of Southern California and served Irving Pichel as observer apprentice on three films after completing his university program. He was the first among the Calcutta Film Society group to make films; and as he claims in the second essay in the series we present here, his first film, the 10 minutes long A Perfect Day (1948), made for National Tobacco, which involved Satyajit Ray as a screenwriter, Bansi Chandragupta as art director, and Chidananda Das Gupta, all of whom would become instrumental in the new cinematic realism of the following decade, it was the first film where they tried out location shooting for the whole action. Dasgupta went on to make 50 odd documentaries and commercials between 1948 and 1984, of which Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955), The Story of Tata Steel (1958), and Konarak (1958) have earned iconic status. He also made two feature-length fiction films Eki Ange Eto Rup (1965) and Kamallata (1969).
He did not write much; and when he did, he was not very organized with his thoughts. We have chosen the following essays from the collection of his writings, interviews, and letters edited by Arun Kumar Roy as they tell us more than his other pieces about his development as a filmmaker, his associates, and the cinematic context that nurtured him. Renoir’s visit on the production of The River (1950), his last Hollywood film, was instrumental to the cinephiles from Dasgupta’s circle who wished to cross the threshold over to filmmaking. The first essay is the most coherent account of Dasgupta’s experience on the production of The River (1950). The short note on Ajoy Kar reveals a man well versed and interested in technical aspects of filmmaking, and also the fact that there existed a bridge between mainstream activities and the new experiments. The essay about Dasgupta’s experience with producers offers a glimpse into the backdrop of production, which is proving to be crucial to the new historical scholarship on film.
Here, the filmography assembled by Arun Kumar Roy gives us a sense of the importance of the commercial film sponsor to the career of the short filmmaker: these include National Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Company, Lipton, Tea Board, Dunlop, Imperial Chemical Industries, Tata Iron and Steel Company, Burmah–Shell, Metal Box, Sandoz as well as major foundations such as Ford and government sponsors such as Films Division of India, Sangeet Natak Akademi, the West Bengal Government and the Calcutta Port Trust. Dasgupta’s reflections on this relationship points to the importance of individual connections such as Dilip Mukherjee at Tata, but also the play of interests, Tata’s Calcutta house competing with Bombay house to mount a prestige film such as the hour-long technicolor The Story of Tata Steel (1958). It also captures the peculiar whimsy with which even the prestigious documentary and publicity film was handled. Thus, Dasgupta’s iconic films, Konarak (1949) and The Story of Tata Steel (1958), both of which involved a stellar array of talent, are currently lost films. And along with these there is a whole body of work, including important advertising films such as A Perfect Day (1948), which has gone, part of a larger narrative of the lost world of advertising film. Thanks to the archivist and collector Arun Kumar Roy, some of these films have been preserved, including two ITC sponsored films Shahar Ki Jhalak (1953) and Gaon Ki Kahani (1953), though they require support for their proper preservation. The filmography Roy has assembled provides significant indices of the changing world shaped by new commodities, material forms, and leisure practices, not to speak of how perception of these novelties was shaped both by visual and auditory technologies and local attractions. For example, Dunlop, for their Giant Tyre campaign, commissioned a film from Dasgupta, Trial of Strength, which featured the iconic wrestler and subsequent B-film movie star, Dara Singh, using wrestling as a metaphor for the toughness of the new tyre (Roy, 2003, p. 153). Dasgupta also drew upon talents such as Ray, Ravi Shankar, Ajoy Kar, Dinen Gupta, Bansi Chandragupta, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Salil Chowdhury, and many others, a creative, technically proficient cohort who could be mobilized into a variety of projects, from mainstream cinema through new art works and an array of short-film genres which constituted the regimen of the career filmmaker.
Arun Kumar Roy has also contributed photographic material for this archival essay, and these are both suggestive and riven with pathos. Deteriorated photographs, some of them production and shooting stills, others publicity photographs, signify a kind of ruin; not only of our lost cinematic past, but also as a sign of the particular neglect visited on short films of all sorts. These provide evidence of the shooting situation, and have an aesthetic value in themselves. The profilmic, that which is put in front of the camera, has two distinct components in the production still: one is that of the scene to be shot for the film, and the other is that of apparatus and people involved in the shoot. Here, the still provides information for the researcher of film technology and how it was used. The production still from Courage to Try, a film made for the Ford Foundation which was commissioning developmental films in the 1950s, captures the peasant children who were being shot against a sparse backdrop with a hill looming in the rear of the shot (Figure 1). The foreground of the shot constitutes another layer of the profilmic, composed of the equipment, and those who direct and operate it, in this case a camera trolley with a cameraman perched on the trolley. In such stills, these figures have their backs to the scene being shot, or at an angle that does not highlight individual faces. Thus, in Courage to Try, we can make out Dasgupta only by his stocky figure, for his back is turned to the camera. In Panchthupi: a Village in West Bengal (1955) part of the Life in India series commissioned by the Burmah Shell Film Unit, the scene to be shot is composed of a woman braiding another’s hair as a girl looks on in the exterior of a hut. We see in the foreground the camera on a trolley, reflector, and an umbrella being used by the crew (Figure 2). In contrast to these, there is the production still which highlights the filmmaker rather than the scene being shot, such as of the team making the Weavers of Maindargi (1953; Figure 3), and those showing Dasgupta along with Claude Renoir (Figure 4) and Jean Renoir (Figure 5). There are others that do not relate to the actual shooting, but appear to serve as record of a meeting or relationship, which might be used for publicity and subsequently becomes memorabilia: such are Dasgupta’s photographs with John Grierson, (Figure 6) in a group along with Ray and Claude Renoir (Figure 7), and with the magician P.C. Sorcar (Figure 8). Occasionally, however, such production stills appear not just to record or to inform but to have a vivid aesthetic of their own, creating intricate proximities of equipment, faces, and landscapes, as in a production still for an unnamed film involving Hari Sadhan Dasgupta and Chidananda Das Gupta (Figure 9). There are also some startling film stills, for instance, in the Weavers of Maindargi (1953), where a top-angle shot conveys an extraordinary sense of the density of what appears to be a religious procession as it moves through the archway of a fort (Figure 10). Another such still is from Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955), where a boat is being lifted by a winch mechanism, a composition that frames earth, sky, human figures, and the mechanical apparatus for the boat with a great eye (Figure 11).
A few of these films still exist. According to Arun Roy, Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955) is held under the title The Goddess Comes Home at the National Film Archives of India; and the British Film Institute (BFI) has several copies as well, though not presently in viewing condition. The BFI also has an advertising film Dasgupta made for Dunlop promoting the Dunlopillo mattress, featuring film stars Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari rehearsing for Bimal Roy’s Parineeta (1953), with a commentary by popular radio anchor Ameen Sayani. We provide details of film availability in the filmography provided in this archive article. Roy himself holds Shahar Ki Jhalak (1953) and Gaon Ki Kahani (1953), and the soundtracks of Quest for Health (1967) and Malabar Story (1965). Available material suggests the importance of this archive for a history of nonfiction, documentary, advertising, and publicity films, for the history of public campaigns in health, government initiatives in planning, efforts in feature filmmaking; and more generally, in a history of film networks and film aesthetics that crossed different areas of film practice.
Arun Kumar Roy ed. Chalachchitra, manush ebang Harisadhan Dasgupta (Film, People, Hari Sadhan Dasgupta), Kolkata: Chitralekha, 2003
Texts selected by Moinak Biswas, translated by Maharghya Chakraborty
Working with Renoir was not always easy, a fact his American producer and colleagues had learnt rather early on. So they used to maintain a studied distance from him. My task as an assistant, therefore, proved to be difficult.
It was a completely different experience the second time though. When Renoir came back to make the film he was a different man, strict and stubborn in making decisions. First, he was not happy with the recruitment of Clyde De Vinna, the noted American cinematographer specializing in adventure films. Personally, I was rather fond of the man. He was great fun. Clyde confessed to me that he was looking forward to retiring soon. He wanted to settle down with his newlywed wife on a tiny island he had purchased on the Pacific. He showed me her photo too - a very beautiful and very young girl. For a moment I felt envious! He came over one day to our house with his small movie camera, and shot a short film with my sister’s children. We never got to see the film though; it was lost.
Clyde had sensed Renoir’s displeasure and soon decided to step down and go back to Hollywood, his home turf. I had no complaints against Renoir though, despite my sorrow at having to part with a dear friend, especially a friend who had created the remarkable scene of the locusts in Good Earth and those scenes of ferocious wild animals in Trader Horn. 2
We lost one friend but welcomed a new one – Jean’s nephew, the cinematographer Claude Renoir. He was at the height of his fame in Europe at the time, and Hollywood was offering him lucrative deals. But he resisted it all as he was keen on working with his uncle Jean. This was probably their first collaboration.
A series of incidents made Renoir’s dissatisfaction with Hollywood grow. He was unhappy with the American sound recordist and boom-man; so he replaced them with British technicians. In fact, had the producers made a fuss he was perfectly ready to work with well-known Calcutta-based sound engineer Satyen Chatterjee and his assistant Tapan Sinha.
Renoir wanted to pay the entire Indian team at Hollywood rates. Unfortunately, our own cine technicians’ union was not very strong back then. Renoir’s efforts went in vain. There were four of us chief assistants in the team: Ramananda Sengupta was Claude’s chief assistant, Bansi Chandragupta and Kalyan Gupta, a leading production controller from Calcutta, were chief assistants to production designer Eugène Lourié and associate producer Forest Judd respectively. Our producer Kenneth McEldowney, having just established the Oriental International Films from Beverly Hills, and being the President of the Hollywood association, hired his experienced wife 3 as his secretary. Jean was rather touchy about my designation. He said to me one day – ‘Ori (that’s what he used to call me), you will not take any salary! You have already spent a lot of money on travelling to various places for the film. Only take some money for car allowances. I don’t want to see you as a chief assistant director for Hollywood!’
One day McEldowney arrived on the set with a rather sturdy-looking woman in tow. She was to play nanny to four or five children of a family in a non-speaking role. Our producer-president proudly declared that the woman was an actual nanny to a well-known British family in Calcutta, had traveled to Europe on several occasions with that family, and knew how to speak the refined English of the elites.
Jean and I rejected her at first sight. We wanted someone kind, soft looking. Besides, we already had someone else in mind for the role. In an instant McEldowney’s sole possible contribution to the film came to naught, leading him to leave us seething with anger and despair.
Jean asked me, “Ori, do you remember the famous middle-aged actress you took me to meet? What was her name? A Mrs. Mukherjee 4 ? Would you be able to persuade her to do this small role? If she agrees then I have a fantastic idea. I will rewrite her role and make it more important. She is so sweet looking that I kept thinking about her after going back to Hollywood. And Ori, I know that you are in love her.” The truth I could not confess to Jean was that Milidi – Mrs. Mukherjee – had been after my life for the past weeks threatening me that if she did not get a role in Renoir’s film, even if it was a small one, she would be so hurt that she might leave Calcutta for good. She would certainly never see my face again!
I personally went to convey the happy news to her that day. She was so elated that she hugged me and showered me with kisses. She summoned her husband and a few of her closest friends right away and a party was organized at her home. Wine and music flowed liberally; the party went on till dawn. It is one of the memorable nights in my life.
Claude’s arrival was a source of great excitement among our young cinematographers. The person who perhaps benefitted from this encounter the most was the young man who has worked on all of Satyajit Ray’s best films, and I personally believe that his contribution to those films is no less than that of Ray’s. This young man, Subrata Mitra, whose father had some professional ties with our producers, came to us one day and said he wished to work as an assistant to Claude Renoir. Mr. Renoir was quite taken by his personality. But by then we had already recruited a number of assistants following the recommendations of our chief assistant cinematographer Ramananda Sengupta. There were no more vacant positions; so we offered to take him on as an observer-apprentice. Subrata began to closely follow Claude’s work with his own modest Argus camera. It is amazing to think of it now – how, from such a humble start, he became one of the greatest cinematographers in the world. Kodak gave him the award of world’s best cinematographer. When it comes to India’s contribution to world cinema, we are as proud of him as we are of Ray.
Later on, my (now deceased) brother Bulu Dasgupta also became an accomplished cinematographer, especially, in colour photography. But right from the beginning, he was very shy. In this selfish world of ours one has to be a little pragmatist, even a little aggressive, to achieve success. Claude and I were making plans for a number of films that we wished to make together, the first of which was to be a film on Konarak 5 , the Sun Temple in Orissa. Our plan for it was based on a research paper written by my friend Prithwish Neogy who was at Harvard then. Claude needed a break after the long spell of work with Jean. It was decided he would join us soon after the break. We made the film in considerable haste. Dr. Neogy, Bansi Chandragupta and Subrata Mitra worked with a lot of commitment, and all that hard work resulted in an all-time great film! It was seen by Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. I received numerous letters of praise. Dunlop was the sponsor. Unfortunately, that film is now lost. Because of the immense scholarly value of the film, I made a second version later at the request of Films Division. This time, my brother Bulu did the cinematography, and did some amazing work. Meanwhile, the Tatas approached me on the occasion of their silver jubilee celebrations to make a film for them 6 . Quite naturally, I chose to work with Claude Renoir. Shot on Technicolor, this was perhaps the second significant Indian work in colour after The River. Gevacolor and Fujicolor had already arrived in India. But we chose to go with the best.
Claude was just as stubborn as Jean. We had to import 10 kilo watt lights from USA and bulbs from Holland for him, and state of the art sound machines from England. My brother Bulu did great work for him in recording in some special places. He had by then already worked in a number of my films, either independently or under the guidance of leading cinematographers of India. Those were all black and white films.
Working with Claude on Technicolor was an altogether different experience. The entire developing and editing was done at Technicolor’s laboratory in England. On our team was Satyajit Ray, who had written the script (I personally believe his sole function had been to impart glamour to the entire work). Besides Ray, the film had Pandit Ravi Shankar as music composer. Though the renowned editor Hrishikesh Mukherjee was given credit for editing, it was his assistants Das Dhaimade and Shankar Pradhan who did most of the editing work. At the end, I sat inside Technicolor’s air-conditioned laboratory and cut the negative myself. Usually, Technicolor does not allow outsiders in their editing rooms. But special arrangements were made for me.
Let us go back to Renoir. I must admit there will be no end to stories if I sat down to write about Renoir. I vividly remember the moments I have spent with the man – as his assistant, or as a friend sitting and chatting with him in the Indian Coffee House. And I remember equally vividly my meetings with him in his home in Paris and Hollywood. It will be impossible to recount so many moments in such a short span. I will narrate the ones that made me regard Renoir as a god – a god who loved me immensely.
One evening, he was shooting a particularly sensitive sequence in the Gwalior House. We had spent the whole day arranging for everything. It was a party scene, but had a lot of drama in it. Renoir was very particular about setting up a scene flawlessly; so we were all on full alert. The actors were busy preparing their lines. The atmosphere was grave. Claude was putting the finishing touches to his mood lighting. Eugène Lourié and Bansi Chandragupta were visibly on edge. Suddenly, our producer, the president of our Hollywood film company, turned up with his new companions. His friends comprised mostly British jute-mill owners, cheerfully high on Scotch. It was apparent they had been invited to the set; and they had arrived with the intention of enjoying the action. As the shooting began, the whole thing made Renoir uncomfortable. Annoyed by the din outside, he gravely asked everyone to keep quiet. When that failed to elicit the desired response, he walked outside looking like a wounded tiger. He said to the well-dressed lot: “We are working on something very important here. Today, especially, we are shooting a sensitive scene, and we are all very busy. This is a laboratory, not a circus. We are doing experiments here, using our emotions, our deepest feelings. So please don’t bother us. Go back to your club and make all the noise as you want, don’t do it here.”
Each and every person there, including the man who had invited them in the first place, silently walked out. In a few minutes Renoir had calmed down and the shooting commenced. All of us understood that day how much of a disciplinarian he could be when it came to his work.
Towards the end of his first visit to Calcutta, Renoir had collected a large number of friends, acquaintances made over endless conversations at the Coffee House or at film society meetings. One day he asked me to call everyone over to his hotel room for a party, and everyone happily agreed. My mother asked me to take some Bengali sweets along, especially rasgullas. Renoir was elated. I simply assumed he loved sweets. However, he suddenly picked up the earthen pot used for delivering sweets and ran to his wife Dido. Pouring all the sweets onto an ordinary plate, he handed the earthen pot over to his wife and asked her to carefully wash it. Once she had done so and had handed the pot back to him, he almost began dancing with it. He told me, “Ori, do you know I started off as a potter? These earthen pots, they represent an entire community’s identity. They represent a nation’s character and its culture. I have finally managed to understand Bengal better. I will take this pot back to my home in Hollywood. A world of gratitude to your mother, and tell her I loved the gift.”
Truth be told, this caused quite a bit of trouble at the time of his departure. Renoir wished to carry as many of these earthenware pots as he could with him. Our producer had to go through a lot of trouble to pack these fragile items into large boxes that were shipped off to Hollywood. I had to buy for him bell metal utensils too, especially the kind he had seen in my house. One day I took him to a famous silk store in North Calcutta. Deeply impressed by the exquisite Murshidabad silk sarees on display he ended up buying a deep red one for Gabriella. Gabriella Renard had been Renoir’s governess when he was a child and she later became a model for his father 7 . The old lady was still alive. From a khadi store he also bought lots of jackets and Gandhi caps for his friends back home, along with handloom curtains for his house. After returning to Hollywood he threw a party for his close friends, comprising Chaplin, Eugene O’Neil, Stravinsky and their families. He wrote to me, “Ori, We are having a Bengali adda here tonight. Dido is serving us food in the bell metal utensils and we have used the earthen pots for flowers. Gabriella is sitting there at the centre of the room, resplendent in her red silk saree. And I am wearing a white dhoti and my Bangla shirt, and the red slippers you gave me as birthday present. Dido is wearing the saree your mother gifted her. We are thinking of the friends we have left behind. Dido and I miss you, Khuku 8 and your mother a lot. If only you could be here! But we know we will meet again soon.”
I have already mentioned that working with Renoir was not always easy. He would suddenly have a new idea, and it had to be immediately implemented. Once, after an entire day of shooting, Mr. Lourié informed me that Jean wished to shoot a sequence involving a Bengali wedding the very next day. I was asked to find thirty to forty Bengali beauties of various ages in wedding finery to attend as guests in the scene. Lourié also asked me for the phone number and address of Karuna Saha. I was the one who had introduced Lourié to Karuna, who had begun earning fame as a painter. Besides, she was very beautiful, and Lourié was obviously attracted to her. He would send her flowers or rare books on art whenever he got a chance. This was going to be a big break for Karuna; she was going to look after the setting up of the wedding scene for the shooting. She was also going to draw a huge alpana 9 , which was later used as the backdrop to the scene. Karuna was given prominent credits for the alpana.
But what was I to do? How was I supposed to procure so many women at such a short notice? I told Lourié quite clearly that it was not my job and the production manager had better handle it. But Lourié argued that in Hollywood it was the chief assistant director who was most attuned to the director’s tastes. Consequently, I was the one who should find the women Renoir wanted. Previously, my sister and a few of my friends’ sisters had been roped in for a Diwali sequence. They had gleefully taken part in lighting the lamps, blowing conch shells and bursting crackers. But where was I supposed to get forty to fifty women, pretty and of various ages? Nearly going mad, I approached Lourié again: “Eugène, this isn’t Hollywood. You can’t expect to call the nearest employment exchange and have a horde of young men and women turn up on set hoping to earn a few extra bucks. There are no agents like that here who can procure good-looking extras all dressed up. In our country these extras are usually played by prostitutes.” “Then get some! But make sure they are pretty and are dressed well,” Eugène answered.
That evening, with Kalyan Gupta in tow, I set out on a new expedition. He told me he would take me to all the red light quarters of the city. We roamed from South to North Calcutta. But the whole thing turned out to be quite annoying. Finally, we returned home, all exhausted. Suddenly, I remembered a friend of mine, a renowned dance teacher. He was the only one who could save me. I was aware that he was a devout worshipper of the goddess Kali and used to spend that time of the night in deep meditation. He prayed for hours; on special days, it could be the whole night. Without wasting any more time I went to his house, and, as expected, found him lost in meditation. Fortunately, rifling through his things I chanced upon a bottle of country liqueur which I made good use of sitting next to him. At dawn, when he finally opened his eyes, I told him about my predicament to him. Anadiprasad, my dance master friend, said to me, “By the grace of Kali all your problems will be solved. Go and take rest now. I will see to it that you and your Mr. Renoir do not face any trouble.”
A few hours later Anadiprasad arrived with good news. He brought me the contact details of a certain Mrs. K. C. Roy, the widow of a renowned bureaucrat. Well-known in the city as ‘didibhai’, she used to run a school in Alipore for girls from elite families. When I called her up she said to me in a sweet voice, “We are well aware Mr. Dasgupta that M. Renoir is making a film based in Calcutta. My girls are very excited at the prospect of meeting such an esteemed personality and attending his shooting. You have to only make arrangements for their travel and make sure they are fed well. I can also come along if that isn’t a problem.”
I called up Renoir immediately to convey the news. He asked associate producer Ernest Judd to make all the necessary arrangements. A luxury bus was hired to ferry the girls, and Renoir himself took on the responsibility of choosing the menu for lunch. The young girls and some elder women were dressed in wedding finery; they did their hair in Bengali traditional style. As the wedding scene was being finally filmed in Technicolor with these women against Karuna Saha’s alpana, it looked straight out of an Auguste Renoir painting. Didibhai later told me that some of these girls from elite Bengali families knew French. They had agreed to be cast as extras on learning it was Renoir’s film. Jean presented them with flowers and autographed photos. He gave didibhai a book of his father’s paintings. All this made Eugène a little jealous!
Once on a visit to Santiniketan with Satyajit Ray, Subhash Sen, and a few other friends, searching for an actress to play Bimala 10 , I came across an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Her name was Maya. Manish Dey introduced us. Manish was a sort of lady-killer and drank a lot. I fell in love with Maya, a daughter of Russian and Bengali parents, at first sight, bowled over by her softness and beauty. With Manish watching I hardly got any chance to talk to her. But she left an indelible impression on me. I returned to Calcutta heartbroken and employed all my contacts to find out more about Maya. I found her mother and went to meet her. She was in charge of a woman’s hostel in Calcutta. I found her father too. He used to work for Amrita Bazar Patrika. But it was all in vain. However, I was undaunted. I was a little braver while I was working with Renoir. One day, I confessed to him that I was deeply interested in Maya. He wanted to meet her, which became my passport. I ran over to Maya’s house and informed them about Renoir’s wish. They agreed the moment they heard about Renoir’s name. On seeing Maya, Renoir told me, “Ori, why didn’t you bring her to me before? I would have cast her as the lead! I wouldn’t have had to run to Benaras for Radha. Anyways, I like Maya very much and I will shoot a new scene especially for her.”
Renoir devoted himself to thinking of his new scene, which was a sort of a dream sequence. I too began to nurture my own personal dream. During the shooting I used to drive Maya in my car from her house and back. Throughout, she used to sit in the back, with a grave face. After the shoot got over she vanished into thin air again. Nonetheless, my ego was satisfied.
[From Jugantar]
Ajoy Kar Should Have Made Different Films (Ajoy Karer uchit chhilo ektu anya dharaner chhabi kora)
Once, while I was there, Kanan Devi happened to visit Hollywood. It was there that we first met. Before her return she asked me to get in touch with her once I was back in Kolkata. After I came back, she invited me to her house in Tollygunge one day. She told me she was going to introduce me to a truly brilliant cinematographer. He too had been scheduled to visit America but he finally could not. She had brought the lenses and filters that he had wished to get from there. Kanan Devi introduced me to Ajoy Kar, and we became friends.
I used to like him for two reasons – he was a brilliant technician and a fine gentleman.
On my return to India I began working on commercials for Lipton and a cigarette company. Around the same time, Kar was busy filming Chandrashekhar (1947)
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with Ashok Kumar and Kanan Devi – a big-budget film where production costs ran up to a few lakhs, a princely sum back then. Despite being a famous cinematographer Kar began working with me on those commercials. I remember something that I cannot forget easily. Kanan Devi had asked him, “Don’t you feel ashamed that you, such a renowned cameraman, make these films on bidis and cigarettes?” He had replied, “Where else will I get the scope to do the sort of experiments I am doing other than these short films?” In fact it was with these short films that I was learning the ropes of film-making and Ajoy Kar was doing incredible new experiments with photography. Of these, we were particularly proud of the technical quality of A Perfect Day (1948). Back then no one could even imagine that a film could also be so brief. The plot concerned a cigarette packet, bought in the morning, and how it gradually runs out through the day. The film was shot entirely outdoors in offices and on the street, and I believe it was the first Indian film that managed to truly capture the essence of neorealism. Written by Satyajit Ray, the film had Bansi Chandragupta as art director, music by Jyotirindra Maitra and Chidananda Dasgupta as production controller. Besides, poet Chanchal Chattopadhyay and writer Kamalkumar Majumdar were involved in it. For certain
Around that time I told Kar about Satyajit Ray, about how he was an extraordinary genius, and Kar graciously agreed to come on board as the cinematographer for Ghare Baire. I particularly loved his modesty, considering he was a top notch cameramen back then and Ray was an unknown newcomer.
We had planned to do many films together but none of them came to fruition. Even the photography line-up for my debut feature film Eki Ange Eto Roop (1965) was done with him. The story was to unfold over a day from morning till night; the lighting scheme had been carefully planned keeping that in mind. But due to a number of reasons we could not work together in the end. But we remained close friends. We spent numerous hours in conversation on many occasions. We met only recently. One day I ran into him while picking my grandson up from school. He took a liking to my grandson and cast him in a film soon after that. Of course he was a little miffed by the Government’s films but I had no role to play in that.
I think highly of some of his films, especially his debut feature film Jighansa (1952).
But I have seen too little of his work to comment on them. I have always felt he was a very efficient director but not very imaginative. And since he was such a dear friend there is one other thing I would like to say. Despite being so technically equipped he always made films based on the works of famous writers like Saratchandra, Bankimchandra, Rabindranath et al. What he could do with the camera was never truly showcased in such story-driven films; he should have done films on the lines of Hitchcock and David Lean. He would have been able to contribute much more to cinema had he made something thematically unusual, something different.
[From Chitrabhash]
My Films and their Producers (Amar chhabi o prajojokera)
As I speak of my documentaries I want to say a few things about their producers. A particularly important work for me was The Story of Steel, produced by Tata Steel in the mid-1950s. By then I had already worked with famous producers like Burmah Shell, Dunlop, Imperial Tobacco, Imperial Chemical Industries, Lipton, National Tobacco, World Bank, etc. I will dwell here less on the craft of filmmaking and instead try to throw some light on the psyche of some of my producers.
Whenever I have had the good fortune to work with an intelligent and cooperative producer I have succeeded in making a good film. Of course, I have been fairly lucky in this regard. Public relations heads, managers of advertisement firms, the chairman of a company – many such people got involved in my films, on their own accord.
I wish to recount my experience of working with the producers – the ones who helped, the ones who didn’t, or the ones who ruined many films out of stupidity, egotism, or greed for money or fame. I do not wish to defame anyone; instead, I wish to thank and express my respects for the ones who helped me in making some good films. Although such people were definitely a handful it is still a matter of pride, especially considering the tragic conditions facing filmmakers today. Those who produce their own films are indeed fortunate. Where have all the lion-hearted distinguished producers of yesteryears gone, whose only concern was with making a good film and building a legacy? I worked with one such remarkable person while making the film for Tata Steel – my friend Dilip Mukherjee. During his stint at the premier advertising agency D. J. Keymer, he was instrumental in helping me make two films – Trial of Strength and Our Children Will Know Each Other Better (1960, co-produced with Satyajit Ray).
When I was starting out as a filmmaker I made the film on Konarak with my own money (of course with the help of Dr. Prithwish Neogy and Claude Renoir). I ran into debt, and Mr. Mukherjee came to my relief, pursuing R. K. Sarkar, the doyen of the advertising world in India and a father-figure to him, to produce my film. Konarak was an erudite and serious film on the Sun Temple. Dr. Radhakrishnan and Pandit Nehru praised it highly.
One of Dilip’s first acts after joining Tata Steel as a chief public relations officer was to set in motion the production of a film to mark their golden jubilee celebrations. The Tatas at the Bombay House wanted an Englishman (Mr. Schilach?) who had previously made a much acclaimed film on the British Steel Federation. Dilip was adamant that an Indian make the film. He did not want me simply because we were friends. He had already seen some of the films I had made before – Konarak, Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955) made for Burmah Shell, and Weavers of Maindargi (1953). He had to fight a long battle to have his way.
I have worked with many such people and being able to make these films has given me immense satisfaction.
I am also fortunate that not many people have managed to get by giving me hard times. Such people – who are not interested in good films and who believe their demands are justified simply because they are associated with the medium – are usually of two types. The first type is only ever interested in alcohol, women and cash. They treat the director as a contractor and expect to get their cuts. However, they are not too harmful in the long run. If you can find a way to make them happy you might just be able to make your film the way you want, even if it means lower profits. But the other type is like a deadly virus, carcinogenic or like the AIDS, and they hurt you psychologically. This second type usually believes they know more about filmmaking than the filmmaker, especially if the film has a screenplay. I have never been one to adhere to a definite screenplay, for more than one reason. During filming I kept making necessary alterations, while such ‘intellectual supervisors’ always expect one to follow the screenplay to the letter. The problem becomes more acute if a famous person has written the screenplay; he then feels he can interfere in other aspects of filmmaking.
People of this second group have claimed a couple of weeks back in a Bengali weekly that they were in charge of judging the merit of the film. In fact the film was so big a project that it was not their task to judge it. It was made following the advice of Satyajit Ray. Nearly 80% of the film had no fixed screenplay. Ray referred to the scenes of steel manufacturing as ‘Ode to Steel’ in the screenplay. I told him directly that a fixed script would be an impediment to the film. He agreed with me and it was his generousness that he allowed his name to be credited as the screenplay writer under my direction. He must have been confident in my abilities as a director. We used to discuss everything before shooting and he had agreed to write the screenplay to ensure that I could make the film. The film was edited by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and the music was composed by Pandit Ravi Shankar.
In order to shoot the film I had a brand new Arriflex camera shipped from Germany (courtesy of Mr. Ambalal Patel). I also purchased 20 KV of MI lights and 10 KV lights from the USA, a new ferrograph tape recorder from Britain, and bulbs from Holland. My friend Dilip Mukherjee had to fight with people like J. R. D. Tata & Dr. J. K. Bhabha for all that. Among my contenders were eminent directors like V. Shantaram and Sohrab Modi. Finally, we managed to finish the film. It was shown at ‘Lighthouse’ Cinema amidst much fanfare with Sir Jehangir Gandhy, Russi Mody, Dilip Mukherjee and his friends in attendance. Satyajit Ray was there too; and he was the first to start clapping his hands after the end credits, to be followed by the rest.
Later at the cocktail party, Sir Jehangir, Russi Mody and Dilip Mukherjee looked elated as to them this was a victory over Bombay House. My story ends in a note of sadness though.
It took two years to complete the film. We spent more than four times the cost of the production to clean up the plant and make it shiny. A lot of money was spent. In the two years, I went to the Technicolor laboratories in London four times to make things perfect. People at Technicolor were also happy, and gave us a perfect print. However, only two prints were finally made. It was as if after two years of hard work spent in research and making the perfect printing block, only two copies of a book were printed. The terrible end of the story is that even those two prints got lost thanks to the machinations of some petty production people. Like the Americans, these people too had their last laugh.
Hari Sadhan Dasgupta’s Filmography
compiled by Arun Kumar Roy
(Film availability indicated in square brackets)
Producer: National Tobacco
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Script: Satyajit Ray
Camera: Ajoy Kar
Editing: Ardhendu Chatterjee
Art Direction: Bansi Chandragupta
Music: Jyotindra Moitra
Acting: Ranen Ray, Chidananda Das Gupta, R.P. Gupta, and Chanchal Chattopadhyay
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Ajoy Kar
Producer: Dunlop
Executive Production and Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Script: Prithwish Neog
Camera: Claude Renoir
Art Direction: Bansi Chandragupta
Direction: Jean Renoir
Assistant Directors: H.S. Dasgupta, Sukomoy Sen, and Bansi Ashe
Camera: Claude Renoir
Camera Operator: Ramananda Sengupta
Editing: George Gale
Production Design: Eugene Lourie
Art Direction: Bansi Chandragupta
[From 1950 to 1955, Dasgupta directed eight advertising films. We only have details of two of these, but without titles. They were produced by Lipton, directed by Dasgupta, with camera by Ajoy Kar and edited by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. One of the films features the magician P. C. Sorcar. There is also another advertising film for the Dunlopillo mattress featuring Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari, with voice over by Ameen Sayani.]
Producer: Imperial Tobacco
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Art Direction: Sudhendu Ray
Camera: M. Malhotra and V. Agarkar
Cast: Mehmood
Producer: Imperial Tobacco
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Camera: K. Baikuntha and P.S. Dasgupta
Music: Kanu Ghosh
Cast: Ashim Kumar, Mala and Keshto Mukherjee
Producer: Dunlop
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Commentary: Ameen Sayani
Cast: Dara Singh and Randhawa
Producer: Burmah–Shell
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Producer: Burmah–Shell
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Camera: Ajoy Kar and P.S. Dasgupta
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Producer: Burmah–Shell
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Camera: K. Baikuntha and P.S. Dasgupta
Music: Salil Chowdhury
Producer: Tata Steel
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Script: Satyajit Ray
Camera: Claude Renoir and P.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Music: Pandit Ravi Shankar
Commentary: Zul Vellani
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S Dasgupta
Photography: P.S. Dasgupta
Music: Abani Dasgupta
Commentary: Romesh Thapar
Between 1958 and 1962, Dasgupta made several short films for USIS, Ford Foundation, P.L.480, Colombo Plan, etc. These include the following two:
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S Dasgupta
Camera: P.S. Dasgupta
Producer: Ford Foundation
Direction: Hari Sadhan Dasgupta
Camera: P.S. Dasgupta
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S Dasgupta
Produc Dasgupta
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Made through H.S. Dasgupta Productions
Producer: India Tube Company
Direction: P.S. Dasgupta and Raghunath Goswami
Awarded Prime Minister’s Gold Medal as Best Children’s Film for 1960
Producer: Chamber of Commerce
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: P.S. Dasgupta
[Unilever, with the help of World Wide Pictures, wanted to procure several films on Asian countries. Hari Sadhan started shooting for an hour-long documentary, but due to the sudden death of his photographer brother P.S. Dasgupta, he abandoned the shooting.]
Producer: Sangeet Natak Akademi
Direction: H.S Dasgupta
Producer: Sandoz Company
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Music: Satyajit Ray
Commentary: Barun Halder
Producer: Metal Box
Direction: Hari Sadhan Dasgupta
Editor: Tarun Dutt
Camera: Dinen Gupta
Music: Pandit Ravi Shankar
Joint Production: Satyajit Ray and H.S. Dasgupta
Direction: H.S Dasgupta
Music: V. Balara
[Made especially for the platinum jubilee of Dunlop]
Producer: Hindustan Motor Company
Director: H.S. Dasgupta
Photography: Ajoy Kar
[Dasgupta made another film of half an hour duration on this subject, but information is not available on this.]
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
In 1971, when documentary filmmaker S. Sukhdev fell ill, Dasgupta helped him complete the two following documentaries:
Nine Months to Freedom: The Story of Bangladesh, 1972 (with the help of Zahir Raihan)
One Technicolor film of an hour, produced by Engineers India Limited
Producer: Calcutta Port Trust
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Dhrubajyoti Basu
Producer: Tea Board
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Ajoy Mitra and Dhrubajyoti Basu
Music: V. Balsara
Producer: Union Carbide
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Dhrubajyoti Basu and Satya Roy
Music: Timir Baran
Producer: FD
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Editing: Arabinda Bhattacharya
Camera: Kamal Nayak
Producer: West Bengal Government
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Soumendu Roy and Girish Padhiyar
Editing: Arabinda Bhattacharya
Producer: H.S. Dasgupta Productions
Producer: St. John Ambulance
Direction: Sanjoy Sen
Camera: Dhrubajyoti Basu
Producer: Calcutta Port Trust
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Sunil Chakraborty
Centenary Film for Indian Tea Association, not dated
Producer: India Tea Association
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
A documentary produced by IADP (Indian Area Development Project), 20’
Producer: United Bank of India
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Basav Sinha
Producer: Indian Farmer’s Fertiliser Company
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Goutam Ghose and Sambit Bose
Producer: Films Division
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Goutam Ghose and Raja Dasgupta
Producer: West Bengal Government
Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Raja Dasgupta
Music: Subhas Chowdhury and Raghunath Seth
Besides these films, Hari Sadhan did coverage in TV for Stanvac 12 on behalf of Elmo Williams productions, in 1950–1958, and for Brown–Boveri 13 (Switzerland) in 1967.
Producer: H.S. Dasgupta Productions
Story: Achintya Kumar Sengupta
Script and Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Dinen Gupta
Art Direction: Bijoy Basu
Editing: Tarun Dutta
Music: Ali Akbar Khan
Cast: Soumitra Chattopadhyay, Madhabi Mukhopadhyay, Basanta Choudhury, Chhaya Devi, Haren Mukhopadhyay, Shekhar Chattopadhyay, Sumita Sanyal, Dolanchampa Dasgupta, Subal Dutta, Nibaran Sen, etc.
Producer: Charuchitra
Story: Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Script and Direction: H.S. Dasgupta
Camera: Anil Gupta and Jyoti Laha
Art Direction: Sujit Das and Subodh Das
Editing: Dulal Dutta
Music: Robin Chattopadhyay
Cast: Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Nirmal Kumar, Samar Kumar, Jui Banerjee, Romi Choudhury, Promila Trivedi, Bijon Bhattacharjee, Ajit Chattopadhyay, Chhaya Devi, and Kamu Mukhopadhyay
Production still from Courage to Try
Still from Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955)
H.S. Dasgupta and team of The Weavers of Maindargi (1953)
Claude Renoir and H.S. Dasgupta during shooting of The Story of Tata Steel (1958)
Production still featuring Jean Renoir, H.S. Dasgupta and another during shooting of The River (1950)
H.S. Dasgupta with John Grierson and others
H.S. Dasgupta, R.P. Gupta, Satyajit Ray and Claude Renoir during the shooting of The Story of Tata Steel (1958)
H.S. Dasgupta and P.C. Sorcar and another
H.S. Dasgupta with Chidananda Dasgupta
Still from The Weavers of Maindargi (1953)
Still from Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955)