From Medicine To Mivie Making, Mrinalda Was A Genius With A Vision

The veteran maverick filmmaker Mrinal Sen passed away today at the ripe age of 95 in Kolkata. Not many of today’s generation are aware that Mrinalda was the guy who had discovered the latent talent in Mithun Chakraborty who had passed out of the portals of the Pune Film & Television Institute. To mark his memory, we reproduce this rare interview taken first 36 years ago with the veteran filmmaker by Jyothi Venkatesh.

“If you do not have the passion for the tools that you use, you cannot become a good filmmaker. I like the camera, sound recorder etc”, Mrinal Sen said when I talked to him at Calcutta where his Bengali film Chaalchitra was screened as an entry in the Indian Panorama of the Filmotsav 82.

“Before coming to films, I was a salesman of medicine, without knowing or liking anything about medicine. I quit the job soon and gate crashed into films because I found the medium more fascinating. My business is to serve my own conscience. I am basically a communicator. That’s what exactly the nature of my job is. I do not know if I have any special aptitude for exporting my thoughts outside. What I aim at as a filmmaker is to break the barriers that exist around us.

“I am not a Gandhian. I do not want to live in a fool’s paradise and indulge in wish fulfillment. Nowadays I find that the wealthy persons are coming to see me with proposals to make films for therm. Who does not wish to go commercial? Godard wants his films to reach a wider audience. The trouble as well as the tragedy with the pseudo intellectual filmmakers is that they form a kind of mechanism around them and proclaim that they make films only for their personal satisfaction if their films do not do well at the box office.

“Shashi Kapoor wants to make a film- a comedy with me. I believe he has a lot of money to make good films like Kalyug and 36 Chowringhee Lane. Even G.P. Sippy now wants to make a good small film with me after making blockbusters like Sholay and Shaan. Today, thanks to some of my films winning accolades and awards at some of the foreign film festivals which really matter, I find that I as a filmmaker am being watched not only by minority spectators as in the past when I was known only within and around Calcutta, but also by a sizeable section of the audience abroad.

“To make your mark as a filmmaker on the international level is quite a herculean task. It is primarily important to build up a case for a particular kind of cinema, for a particular kind of filmmaker to sell his film abroad. Even three or four years ago, it was difficult for me to sell my films abroad. Today it has been made possible thanks to an international agency based on Europe-Cactus Films.

“Last year at the festival, Guney’s film was released in India.Yet nobody even knew who Guney is. This year at the Calcutta Filmotsav, people have become aware of him because of his retrospective section. It is imperative that the agency which sponsors you and your films to an international clientele believes in continuity and building up the maker’s case to make its point felt.

“Can a filmmaker do without press and publicity? As an honest filmmaker, I feel that you just cannot do without publicity. It is very important to project your image not only within the country but also abroad. Even a celebrated filmmaker like Akiro Kurosawa needs publicity. Last year in Cannes, my film Ek Din Pratidin was screened in the competition section and Kurosawa’s Kagemusha was there as Japans’ entry. You know what Kurosawa did? At a get together hosted by him, he presented to each and every one of the 200 odd guests-mostly from the various newspapers and magazines from all over the world- a transistorized clock. Did he really need to do that?

“Today a few filmmakers like Ray, Benegal and I have fortunately managed to create a clientele abroad for the kinds of films that we make here. However what inhibits the sale of Indian films abroad are the stringent government rules. Moreover the films being selected and sent abroad for film festivals aren’t at all up to the mark. Will you believe it; I find it cheaper to make a print of mine in a foreign laboratory than in India. Moreover the quality is also far better if you make a print
there.

“To be austere is part of your aesthetic approach. I am not as austere as I was earlier. I admit it. Yet, within the existing format, I find that the maximum budget of a film of mine has only been six lacs which is chicken feed compared to what some of the commercial extravaganzas cost the maker in terms of crores of rupees.

“I project the national milieu in my films. Critics accuse me of attacking the middle class morality in most of my films. I tell them that since I myself am belonging to the middle class even today, I am actually attacking myself. I am only being true to myself. My next film will be based on a rural theme.

“By telling about the irresistible human compassion in Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray had not sold our poverty abroad. The fact is that everybody abroad wants to know about Indian reality as it exists today without any clap trap. What is important for us to capture on the screen is the enormous ability and determination to exist here in spite for illiteracy and poverty.

“I have made only one film each in Telugu and Assamese and two in Hindi- Bhuvan Shome and Mrigaya, because it is difficult to make a film in a language which is not your own especially in a country like that of ours in which we have a queer habit of not making an attempt to understand the nuances of one’s neighbor’s language.

“To make an impact as a filmmaker and convey your point objectively to the audience, you ought to have a detached involvement with the medium. I have achieved at times about failed many times as far as my films are concerned. As and when I make a couple of enemies after my films are released, I feel that I have made my point successfully. It is the barometer of your success as a maker.

According to Mrinal Sen, the moment an artiste becomes a star, he loses track of his objectivity and commitment to the medium. “I made Mrigaya with Mithun when he was a nobody. I paid him only 4000 rupees. Today he draws around 4 lacs per film and hence I do not want to cast him in my films. Do you know it was I who had paid Amitabh Bachchan his first remuneration in the film industry? Amitabh was working for K.A. Abbas’s Saat Hindustani. I asked Abbas to recommend a guy who could give a commentary in Hindi for my Bhuvan Shome. Amitabh who overheard our conversation stepped in and introduced himself and asked me to consider him. He did the job and I paid him Rs 150”.

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