SIMPLY SEN-SATIONAL

[Dr. Jai Maharaj]

SIMPLY SEN-SATIONAL! The Deccan Herald Sunday, April 18, 1999 The one and only APARNA SEN shares with MONOJIT LAHIRI some moods and memories. 'The only thing I like about 'masala' movies are their fights. And that too, for technical reasons! superb choreography and brilliant editing!' THE actors` actor, Naseeruddin Shah, can`t wait to start shooting with her. Nandita Das, who keeps getting and rejecting Bollywood offers each day, is all excited at the prospect of being directed by her. Tinsel town`s 'Shabana Azmi of the 90`s` Tabu is ready to work with her any time and the money be damned! Mahesh Bhatt, even today, maintains that her treatment of love scenes in her first film was among the finest he`s ever seen on celluloid. Yash Chopra considers her one of the most sensitive film-makers in the business. And the the late Satyajit Ray rated her debut film very high. Beautiful, bold, talented, creative and multi- dimensional, Aparna Sen is a unique person. All set to direct a tele-film with Naseer and Nandita before moving on to do a feature film (a sensitive and powerful essay on female bonding), the stunning actress who lit up the screen in Bengal during the Sixties and Seventies with her scintillating performances opposite heavyweights Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee talks about her life and times. Excerpts: It all started with acting, didn`t it? Did you always dream of becoming an actress or was it an accident? In all truth, the acting bug bit me ever since I acted in my first dance-drama in school. I suddenly felt that this was truly what I wanted to do. I loved the feeling of interpreting, emoting and performing, although at that point I hadn`t given it any thought as a career. How do you look back on your acting days now? With regret, embarrassment or nostalgia? I think a little of all three! Regret and embarrassment at the volume of trash I accepted, mostly in my early days. Thanks to TV, they all come back to haunt me! Nostalgia at some of the decent stuff I was associated with Oshomoy, Memshaib, Proxy, Shesh Pathorer Thala. And some great memories of working with some wonderful people like Uttam Kumar, Robi Ghosh, Anup Kumar and Ranjit Mullick. How do you feel about your Bollywood disasters? Frankly, indifferent! See, I was never keen or ambitious to go west and prove myself. If at all I accepted those roles, they were for the wrong reasons - financial or because the director seemed a nice sort of guy. It`s only natural that I was horrible in them! I could never (can`t still) connect with their concept of acting or social behaviour. My background is different, as also my socio-cultural milieu. I felt distinctly uncomfortable. I guess it showed... I was much happier doing my own thing in Calcutta. The glamour of Bollywood didn`t attract me in the least. Strange as it may appear, it is totally true. Why did you choose direction? I loved acting and was seldom happier than when emoting in front of the camera. Reaching a moment of truth in acting was like a sudden skyward surge. It made all the tedium suddenly worthwhile. But reaching such high points became increasingly difficult in absurd stories directed by unimaginably incompetent directors! The move to direction wasn`t all that sudden. You must remember I was exposed to the medium for longer than most assistant directors. Besides, which creative artist does not, at some point, have the urge to direct? One watches and learns while one is in front of the camera if one is either sensitive or even mildly curious. 36, Chowringhee Lane started off originally as a short story. Slowly it started growing in great detail, forcing me to convert it into a film script. I remember taking it nervously to Satyajit Ray for his comments. He loved it, made some incisive observations and instructed me to immediately start looking for a producer. I had known Shashi Kapoor and knew that he had launched a film production company committed to quality cinema. I called him up and sent him a synopsis. He loved it and invited me to come over to Bombay and narrate the script to him and Jennifer, whom I planned to cast anyway. They fell for it straight away and 36 Chowringhee Lane went into action. How was it like working with Jennifer, Rakhee, Shabana and Rupa? It was absolutely incredible working with Jennifer. Totally professional, dedicated and focused, she invested into the role of the lonely, ageing spinster, little touches of her own that ignited it with magical power and conviction. She always said, 'Until I know better, yours is the final word`. Her`s was truly an award- winning role. Her contribution to the success of 36 Chowringhee Lane was immense. I miss her a lot Rakhee was different. Contrary to rumour, I never ever thought of or screen-tested any other actress except her for the lead role in Paroma. I was warned that she was moody and would throw star tantrums. On the contrary, after our initial discussion and once she decided to do the role, it was a case of total submission. She unconditionally surrendered to my direction except one thing she wouldn`t kiss! She worked hard and was very good, especially in the latter half of the film where she is de-glamourised. Shabana Azmi was someone I had admired immensely all along and was dying to cast her in a worthwhile project, when Sati came along. Shabana is a thinking actress who should never be over-directed. Give her the basic outline and she works out her own brilliant interpretation. She is totally dedicated to her role, her director and the project. She is a real trouper who genuinely cares about the well-being of the film. Her feisty support for Deepa Mehta`s Fire is a typical case in point. Rupa is a competent actress whose strength is her total dedication. Like Rakhee, when she understood the demands of her role in Yugant she considers it her most significant role to date she was totally at my beck and call. She slogged like crazy (learnt dancing and swimming at her own time and cost) and pulled out all the stops to do justice to the role. A wonderful person; I do hope she gets roles that challenge her potential. Do you ever feel at a disadvantage being a woman director? Not in the past, but perhaps now. I find that men especially in the area of funding are far more savvy and cool with producers or production houses than women. The yaar syndrome, the back-slapping stuff, I am convinced, breeds a kind of association that is more relaxed. Despite my decade and a half experience as a film-maker, I still cannot bring myself to hard- sell myself to the trade. I remain embarrassed and inhibited and back off. Men, I am sure, handle these things better... Why this well-known allergy for the Bombay-manufactured 'masala` movies? Very simply, because they leave me cold! I don`t find anything in them that is believable and at the same time, none rise to the level of fantasy or even entertainment. I welcome a nostalgic, romantic and idolised version of reality but that`s missing. In its place is a crude exhibition of blatant bad taste, unrelieved by the remotest touch of class. Everything is presented in loud and garish tones, in larger-than- life caricatures, devised for instant reaction. None of it appeals to me because I can`t stand anything that`s so completely superficial. Now the trend and it has come to Bengal too is 'dialogue-baazi`. People say kya dialogue mara, but cinema is not punchy, populist dialogue or armpit rhetoric targetted at front- benchers for their wah-wah, for god`s sake! The best remembered films, Hitchcock, the Billy Wilder comedies, Chaplin, the Western, the Musicals, the Classics, are all from the mainstream and cherished for the mood they evoked, not for their 'dialogue-baazi`. Closer home, take the Raj- Nargis or Uttam-Suchitra films. Why do they, even today, play to packed houses? Because in these brutal and troubled times that we live in, people crave nostalgia. These films allow them to recapture a sense of romance and wonder that was... The only thing I admit I like about the masala movies are their fights. And that too, for technical reasons! Superb choreography and brilliant editing. But what about the entertainment factor? The masses seem to love them with a passion... It`s like this. If you are denied healthy nourishing food over a period of time, and instead offered junk food, then that`s what becomes your staple diet. And one day, if (accidentally!) you do get some really good food, you will hesitate to taste it. Because your taste and diet has been corrupted beyond repair. And the loss, believe me, is entirely yours! Other frightening fallouts, thanks to the city-specific popular Hindi and Bengali TV serials playing on the various channels, is that today`s audiences shut off and summarily veto any movie or subject that deals with the lower strata of society. Subjects like poverty or villages, dealing with neo-realism, are a total no-no. Influenced by a steady diet of easy-to-digest inane comedy, heavy duty extra-marital affairs or dumb family feuds blitzing the box, this new viewership- base is clued-in on only great production values and slick treatment with a definite urban upmarket feel. No wonder people like Mrinal Sen are out in the cold. I have my doubts if Ray`s Pather Panchali would find an Indian audience today. Is it equally dismal on the Bengal scene? By and large, yes. They copy the Hindi (lately Bangladeshi) formulae, Bengali-cize it, and give it to the audience in large, syrupy doses. The essential character of the authentic Bengali film as seen, understood and loved in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies has changed largely because those directors (Ajoy Kar, Asit Sen, Tapan Sinha, Tarun Mazumdar) along with their scriptwriters are either dead or out of favour with the audience. Today`s Bengali audience are looking for high pitched, sentimental, emotional and melodramatic muck and the film-makers are dishing it out to them. What about your acting? Have we gained a director but lost an actress? I act less. I have to take on, at least, some assignments for purely economic reasons. Also remember I was an actress before I became a director. I am known and recognised as a star of sorts and to protect this I need money. Since my fees as a director are fairly modest, I try to compensate by asking for higher remuneration while acting. And this is confessedly a contradiction I have not, as yet, been able to entirely come to terms with. If I could be a superbeing, then I wouldn`t act at all in the kind of films I do. Of course, I try to stay away from the typical masala and act in quality stuff like Uneshey April. I can`t say I always succeed, but I try. Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Jai Maharaj About 70,000 links to posts by yours truly are offered at: http://www.flex.com/~jai Om Shanti