We Have Lost the Word ‘Honesty’: Tapan Sinha

During a shooting break of Ek Doctor ki Maut (Source – Abesh Das, Pic Courtesy – Sukumar Roy)

Now I am almost a retired person. I seldom go out due to my physical ailments. I sit at home and watch three to four films a week. I get the latest video cassettes from abroad through friends. I don’t watch Bengali films any more. Are they worth watching at all? I don’t know.

Watching countless films from around the world within these four walls, I have understood that at most six or seven good films are made in a year. And how much is India compared to the world, and how much more is West Bengal! Still, I am talking about Bengali films, as I was born here and have been involved with Bengali films for so long. I cannot leave out Bengali films.

Bengali life is forever without variety. In the Bengali literature of earlier times, writers used to diversify the narrative by creating backgrounds outside of Bengal. Sometimes the forests of Bihar, sometimes the colliery region used to come up in their stories. The quality of their presentation was also highly impressive. Many have lived there for a long time. Bibhutibhushan Mukhopadhyay lived in Darbhanga, Banaphool, in Bhagalpur. Some of the local characters in their writings also brought diversity to Bengali literature. Cinema has grown following literature. No matter how many attempts are made to establish cinema as a separate medium, it cannot, be done without literature. Everyone from Griffith to now Tarkovsky, Godard has used the literary form. They could not come up with a different idea for cinema. Buñuel said at the end of his life, “My and Dali’s surrealism will have more influence in developing countries, not so much in developed countries.”

So it happened. To a group of film enthusiasts today, the library of experiments is the strip of celluloid. It is almost like the political indoctrination in student politics. They see the world through only one window, the window of politics. They are now called ‘committed’ filmmakers! But their daily lifestyle has nothing to do with film commitments. But, their guru Buñuel was not like that. There was no hypocrisy in him. I can understand his honesty.

We Indians have lost the word ‘honesty’. So the quality of our cinema is decreasing day by day. I have been in the film industry for fifty years, and I have fallen in love with the film industry more and more as days passed by. And that’s why the faults are magnified in my eyes. Those who made a little name for themselves in our time were also in love of cinema. The touch of that love could be felt in their films too. I miss that touch in today’s films. There is no identity of that sense of beauty in the body of a film today.

At the same time, it is also true that now the opportunities to make films have increased a lot. NFDC is pouring crores of rupees into good films without any hope of return. But what is interesting is the reckless attitude of those who make films with NFDC money i.e. tax-payers’ money. They do not calculate the cost properly. Whereas, we had to travel to many places with film cans to collect money to make our films. And now there is a mockery with readily available money.

Tapan Sinha and Satyajit Ray

Also see how the technological development is progressing. The number of films in Germany and England has decreased, not in Hollywood for whom the entire world is their market. But they are also using the technological developments in the film medium itself. Cinema will not die in Hollywood. We will have it in India too. At least as long as people are culturally literate, I am sure. That aside, look at the state of general education today! Being literate does not mean having an education. We have lost our identity due to lack of proper education. Otherwise, the Bengali films these days are neither following a Hindi style nor a Hollywood one. But certainly they don’t have a Bengali style any more. Even twenty-five years ago, when we used to watch a film, We could feel that we are watching a ‘Bangla’ film. The characters of the film, the melody of the songs, the romance, the character of the parents, everything had a kind of typical Bengaliness. And now? Events and characters can be from Africa or Honolulu – anywhere, not Bengal. In fact, this loss of identity—the loss of one’s character—is driven by economics. Now profit by any means is the main objective of most film-makers. No one has an iota of love for cinema. Bengali films are a great example of how low one can stoop to earn money. Those who work in the Tollygunje film industry have no idea about the developed technologies of world cinema. Even if that isn’t there, but why will the love and individuality be lost from cinema? Until the Bengali regains its identity, until it realizes its desire to bring back its own cultural consciousness, Bengali cinema will continue to be such ‘characterless’. Same goes for Indian films.

Thirty years ago, I used to think that by making a good film, I could change the audience’s taste and educate the audience. Now I understand, that is not possible. How can there be a cultural education if we remain backward in public education? Nobody cares about that. A group of Bengali film-makers is stooping the lowest to earn money from their mindless films, while there is another group which is greedy to go to festivals mainly.

In such a situation, I am completely a misfit. I stay alone at my home. A few days back a person from the Films Division came to for an interview. He wanted to know about ‘Internationalism in Indian Cinema.’ I told him, “Satyajit Ray was the first and is the last.” Now there is no national identity of the Indian cinema, forget about its internationality! I was always an optimist, my films used to have that hope, now I don’t know why am I becoming such a pessimist? Please readers forgive me. I do not see the light in any direction.

Originally published in ‘Sangbad Pratidin’ on 16 January 1996. Translated from Chalachchitra Ajiban by Amitava Nag.

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