NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Ritwik Ghatak

Ritwik Ghatak (Bengali: ঋত্বিক ঘটক, Rittik Ghotok) (November 4, 1925 – February 6, 1976) was a Bengali Indian writer and filmmaker. Ghatak's stature among Bengali directors is comparable to that of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. Image File history File links Ritwik_ghatak. ... November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Dhaka (previously Dacca; Bangla: à¦¢à¦¾à¦•à¦¾ Ähaka; IPA: ) is the capital of Bangladesh and the Dhaka District. ... East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly included the modern state of Bangladesh. ... February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... (IPA: [] Bengali: à¦•à¦²à¦•à¦¾à¦¤à¦¾) (formerly ) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. ... Bengali or Bangla (à¦¬à¦¾à¦‚à¦²à¦¾, IPA: ) is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from Prakrit, PÄli and Sanskrit. ... November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... The Bengali people are the ethnic community from Bengal (divided between India and Bangladesh) in Indian subcontinent with a history going back more than two millennia. ... (Bengali: à¦¸à¦¤à§à¦¯à¦œà¦¿à¦¤à§ à¦°à¦¾à¦¯à¦¼ Shottojit Rae) (May 2, 1921â€“April 23, 1992) was an Indian filmmaker who is widely regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. ... Mrinal Sen (Bangla: à¦®à§„à¦£à¦¾à¦² à¦¸à§‡à¦¨) is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. ...

Early Life

Ritwik Ghatak was born in Dhaka in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). He and his family moved to Kolkata just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic 1943 famine and the Partition of India in 1947. Identification with this tide of refugees was to define his practice, providing an overriding metaphor for cultural dismemberment and exile that unified his subsequent creative work. Dhaka (previously Dacca; Bangla: à¦¢à¦¾à¦•à¦¾ Ähaka; IPA: ) is the capital of Bangladesh and the Dhaka District. ... East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly included the modern state of Bangladesh. ... (IPA: [] Bengali: à¦•à¦²à¦•à¦¾à¦¤à¦¾) (formerly ) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. ... Britains holdings on the Indian subcontinent were granted independence in 1947 and 1948, becoming four new independent states: India, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Pakistan (including East Pakistan, modern-day Bangladesh). ... Look up metaphor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Creative Career

In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play Kalo sayar (The Dark Lake), and participated in a revival of the landmark play Nabanna. In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre Association ( IPTA ). He wrote, directed and acted in plays and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In 1957, he wrote and directed his last play Jwala (The Burning). IPTA - or Indian Peoples Theatre Association was one of the products of the political ferment of the 40s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol (Russian: Николай Васильевич Гоголь) (March 31, 1809 - March 4, 1852) was a Ukrainian-born Russian writer. ...

Ghatak entered film industry with Nemai Ghosh's Chinnamul (1950) as actor and assistant director. Chinnamul was followed two years later by Ghatak's first completed film Nagarik (1952), both major break-throughs for the Indian cinema. Ghatak's early work sought theatrical and literary precedent in bringing together a documentary realism, a remarkable stylized performance often drawn from the folk theatre, and a Brechtian use of the filmic apparatus. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. His best-known films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (Cloud-Capped Star) (1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962), a trilogy based in Calcutta and addressing the condition of refugee-hood, proved controversial and the commercial failure of Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) and Subarnekha prevented him from making features through the remainder of the 1960s. In all three films, he used a basic and at times starkly realistic storyline, upon which he inscribed a range of mythic references,especially of the Mother Deliverer, through a dense overlay of visual and aural registers.

Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). During his year at FTII, he was involved in the making of two student films, viz., Fear and Rendezvous. The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) is a film school in Pune, India. ...

Ghatak returned to film making only in the 1970s, when a Bangladeshi producer financed the 1973 epic Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titash). Making films became difficult for his poor health, due to extreme alcoholism and consequent diseases. His last film, and perhaps his most unusual, was the 'autobiographical' Jukti Takka ar Gappo (Reason, Debate And A Story) (1974).He had a number of incomplete feature and short films in his credit. Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and Story) is a bengali film directed by Ritwik Ghatak. ...

He belonged to an illustrious family. His father Suresh Chandra Ghatak was a district magistrate and also a poet and playwright, mother's name was Indubala Devi. He was their 11th and youngest child. His elder brother Manish Ghatak was an acclaimed radical writer of his time, a professor of English and a social activist who was deeply involved with IPTA theatre movement in its heyday and later on headed the famous Tebhaga Andolan of North Bengal. Manish Ghatak's daughter is the legendary writer and activist Mahasweta Devi.Ritwik's wife Surama was a school teacher and his son Ritaban is a film-maker. Poster by the National Tebhaga Movement 50th Anniversary Committee, Bangladesh Tebhaga movement, a militant campaign initiated in Bengal by the Kisan Sabha (peasants front of Communist Party of India) in 1946. ... Mahasweta Devi (born 1926 in Dacca now known as Bangladesh) is an Indian writer. ...

Impact and Influence

At the time of his death (February 1976), Ghatak's primary impact would seem to have been through former students. Though his stint teaching film at FTII was brief, one-time students Mani Kaul, John Abraham, and especially Kumar Shahani (among many others), carried Ghatak's ideas and theories, which were further elaborated upon in his book Cinema And I, into the mainstream of Indian art film. Mani Kaul (born 25 December 1944 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India) is an Indian film director. ... John Abraham (August 11, 1937 - 31 May 1987), was a Malayalam film director and writer. ...

Ghatak stood entirely outside the world of Indian commercial film. None of the elements of the commercial cinema (singing and dancing, melodrama, stars, glitz) featured in his work. He was watched by students and intelligentsia, not by the masses. His students have also tended to work in the art cinema or independent cinema tradition. The Indian film industry is the largest in the world in terms of number of films (877 feature films and 1177 short films made in India were released in the year 2003 alone);[1] compared with 473 films released in the US in 2003. ...

Satyajit Ray, commonly held to be the greatest of the Bengali neo-realist directors, succeeded in creating an audience outside India during his lifetime and winning many prestigious international awards. Ghatak was not so fortunate. While he was alive, his films were appreciated primarily within India. (Satyajit Ray did what he could to promote his colleague, but Ray's generous praise did not translate into international fame for Ghatak.) Ghatak's impact began to spread beyond India much later; beginning in the 1990's, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience.

Filmography

Feature Films

Nagarik (Bengali: à¦¨à¦¾à¦—à¦°à¦¿à¦•),also spelled as Nagorik, The Citizen in English, was the first full length feature-film directed by Bengali Indian director Ritwik Ghatak. ... Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Covered Star) is a 1960 film by director Ritwik Ghatak. ... Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (Bengali: , A river name Titash) is a Bengali movie directed by Ritwik Ghatak. ... Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and Story) is a bengali film directed by Ritwik Ghatak. ...

Short Films and Documentaries

Billwamangal (Pronounced Billomongol) was a 1919 Bengali silent film by Jyotish Banerjee. ... Dena Paona is a 1931 Bengali film directed by Premankur Atarthi, starring Amar Mullick, Durga Das Bannerjee, Jahar Ganguly and others. ... Dhirendra Nath Ganguly, better known as D.G, was a Bengali Film enterpreuner who set up the Indo British Film company in 1918. ... Hiralal Sen Hiralal Sen (Bengali:à¦¹à§€à¦°à¦¾à¦²à¦¾à¦² à¦¸à§‡à¦¨) (1866 â€“ 1917) was a Bengali photographer generally considered one of Indias first filmmakers. ... The Indo British Film Co was a film production company set up by Dhirendra Nath Ganguly in 1918. ... Kanan Devi (1916? - July 17, 1992) was among the early singing stars of Indian cinema, and is credited popularly as the first star actress of Bengali Cinema. ... The Madan Theatre Company has its roots in 1902 when Jamshedji Framji Madan, a wine merchant who came to Calcutta from Bombay as a child, started his entertainment business by acquiring two theatre companies in Calcutta and then beginning film exhibitions . ... The Minerva Theatre is a is a theatre in Calcutta, built in 1893. ... New Theatres, Calcutta was formed by B. N. Sircar (Birendranath Sircar, the recipient of Dadasaheb Phalke Award of 1970). ... Pramathesh Chandra (P.C.) Barua (1903â€“1951) was a famous actor, director, and screenwriter of Indian films in the pre-independence era. ... The Royal Bioscope Company was the first film production company in Bengal, and possibly the first in India, set up by Hiralal Sen, along with Matilal Sen, Deboki Lal Sen and Bholanath Gupta, in 1898. ... The Star Theatre is a theatre in Calcutta, built in 1883. ... Bengali cinema, or the Bengali film industry, is one of the earliest film industries in India. ... 36 Chowringee lane is a movie produced by Shashi Kapoor. ... Aparajito (aka The Unvanquished), the 2nd part of the Apu trilogy, was directed by Satyajit Ray in 1957. ... Third and last of the famous Apu Trilogy, a series of films about a boy named Apu in early twentieth century Bengal by Satyajit Ray. ... Billwamangal (Pronounced Billomongol) was a 1919 Bengali silent film by Jyotish Banerjee. ... Charulata (The Lonely Wife) is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, featuring Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee and Sailen Mukherjee. ... Chokher Bali (meaning Eye Sore) is the movie version of a novel called Binodini by Rabindranath Tagore, the acclaimed Bengali author and poet. ... Dena Paona is a 1931 Bengali film directed by Premankur Atarthi, starring Amar Mullick, Durga Das Bannerjee, Jahar Ganguly and others. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) is a 1984 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novel Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) by Rabindranath Tagore. ... Hansuli Banker Upokotha is a 1962 film made by Tapan Sinha starring Kali Bannerjee, Dilip Roy, Robi Ghosh and others. ... Saptapadi is a 1957 Bengali film by Ajoy Kar, starring Suchitra Sen, Uttam Kumar, Utpal Dutt and Pahari Sanyal. ... Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Covered Star) is a 1960 film by director Ritwik Ghatak. ... Neel Akasher Neechey is a 1959 film directed by Mrinal Sen, starring Kali Bannerjee, Manju Dey, Bikash Roy and others. ... Pather Panchali, released in 1955, is the first film of director Satyajit Rays Apu trilogy. ... Saptapadi is a 1961 Bengali film by Ajoy Kar, starring Suchitra Sen, Uttam Kumar, Chhabi Biswas and Pahari Sanyal. ... Tahader Katha is an award winning bengali feature film directed by Budhhadeb Dasgupta. ... Titli Review Image:Http://www. ... Unishe April (19th April) (1994) is an award-winning feature film directed by Rituparno Ghosh. ...

External links

Categories: Bengali film producers | Bengali film directors | Bengali film actors | Bengali writers | Indian film score composers | Bengali-language writers | Kolkata culture | People from Dhaka | 1925 births | 1976 deaths | University of Calcutta alumni Image File history File links Example. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria. ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about motion pictures, actors, movie stars, TV shows, TV stars, production crew personnel, as well as video games. ... November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Dhaka (previously Dacca; Bangla: à¦¢à¦¾à¦•à¦¾ Ähaka; IPA: ) is the capital of Bangladesh and the Dhaka District. ... East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly included the modern state of Bangladesh. ... November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... (IPA: [] Bengali: à¦•à¦²à¦•à¦¾à¦¤à¦¾) (formerly ) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. ...

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