What can one write about the legendary Soumitra Chatterjee. The actor in a career lasting over six decades was always associated with Bengali films. And yet he is revered not only nationally, but internationally as well.
Soumitra was the lead actor in 14 movies directed by Satyajit Ray and that was one of the main reasons why he got worldwide recognition. But then it was not Ray alone who made Soumitra famous. His acting skills took him to such a level that Ray, the finicky filmmaker that he was did not think twice about casting him.
But then it would be wrong to call Soumitra an actor only. He was a poet, elocutionist, activist, thinker, theatre personality – an artist extraordinaire. His knowledge about William Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore was vast to say the least. He could just reel of ‘Friends, Roman, Countrymen, Lend me your ears’ from Julius Caesar. He was equally at ease while reciting ‘Chitto Jetha Bhoysunya, Uccha Jetha Seer (Where there is no fear at heart and you can hold your head high). He was articulate and was never afraid to express his thoughts.
A great cricket fanatic, Soumitra was a regular visitor to the Eden Gardens even a decade back whenever India played. He was a close friend of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and idolised Sourav Ganguly. He could talk about cricket too and always fondly remembered the times when he played the game when he was in college.
Chatterjee never ventured out to experiment with films in other languages. Yes in the 1960s and 1970s he was offered roles in Hindi films. However, he always turned down the offers as he felt he did not have the ability to pronounce Hindi words properly.
Born in 1935, Soumitra did his school and college education in Kolkata. He completed his MA in Bengali from Calcutta University. He did have a passion for acting, but the turning point in his career came when he watched Bengal’s theatre legend Sisir Bhaduri on stage. It was then Soumitra decided that he would take the plunge in acting. Till Bhaduri died in 1959, he remained Soumitra’s mentor and the latter slowly became a master craftsman.
Chatterjee had gone on the sets of Ray’s fourth film, Jalsaghar (1958) to watch the shoot. He was still unaware that he had already been selected for the title role of the ‘Apu’ trilogy. That day, while he was leaving the sets, Ray called him over. He introduced Soumitra to actor Chhabi Biswas as ‘…This is Soumitra Chattopadhyay; he’s playing ‘Apu’ in my next film Apur Sansar leaving him much surprised.
Despite being selected, as a debutant actor, Soumitra was nevertheless unsure for his career choice. He did not consider himself photogenic because of his looks. However, August 9, 1958, when the first shot of the film was given an okay in one take, Soumitra realised he had found his vocation. Thus Soumitra’s film debut came in 1959 in Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar (The World of Apu).
Soumitra would eventually collaborate with Ray on 14 films. His centrality to Ray’s work is akin to other key collaborations in the history of cinema — Mifune and Kurosawa, Mastroianni and Fellini, De Niro and Scorsese, DiCaprio and Scorsese and Max von Sydow and Ingmar.
And in each of these movies Soumitra played diametrically opposite roles. In Abhijaan he was the angry young bus driver, in Charulata he played the role of man obsessed with the wife of his brother, in Sonar Kella, he was a sharp-thinking yet masculine detective, in Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne he was the singer with the magical voice. He carried off all the roles with elan.
Starting with his debut film, Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959)as adult Apu, the third part of Apu Trilogy, Soumitra went on to work in several notable films with Ray. Among those were Abhijan (The Expedition, 1962), Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964), Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest, 1969), Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder, 1973), Sonar Kella (The Fortress, 1974), Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God, 1978), Hirak Rajar Deshe(1980), Ghare Baire (The Home and The World, 1984), Shakha Proshakha (1990) and Ganashatru (Enemy of the People, 1989). He acted in more than 220 films in his career.
In 2012, Soumitra received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest award in cinema given by the government of India for lifetime achievement. He also won two ‘National Film Awards’ as an actor. For his contribution to Bengali theatre, he received the ‘Sangeet Natak Akademi Award’ in 1998, given by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. In 2014, he received the introductory ‘Filmfare Awards (East)’ for Best Male Actor (Critics) for his role in Rupkatha Noy. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2004.
In 2017 exactly thirty years after Ray was honoured with France’s highest civilian award, the coveted ‘Legion of Honor’, Soumitra also received the prestigious award.
In spite of his love for the cinema, Soumitra always believed that it is the stage that made an actor. So he devoted a particular time of the year for stage. Many of his plays, including the ones adopted from Shakespeare ran for over 300 evenings at a stretch. It was Soumitra’s versatility which saw him mix both up with ease.
Besides working with Ray, Soumitra excelled in collaborations with other well-known Bengali directors such as Mrinal Sen and Tapan Sinha. He earned critical acclaim for his role of an impostor in Sen’s Akash Kusum (1965). He was equally confident in playing the swashbuckling horse-riding villain in Sinha’s Jhinder Bandi (1961) giving the legendary Uttam Kumar a tough challenge. In Teen Bhubaner Pare (1969), he again shared the screen with the Tanuja, and his flamboyant and peppy way of romance.
Well one can go on and on this iconic Bengali personality who always said that he did not want even once to stop acting. “It is my life, it is my breath, it keeps me going’ he repeatedly said in his interviews. With him has ended an era of Bengali cinema. He may have gone, his works will continue to live till time immortal.
What a man! Ah what a man indeed!