A Selective Study in Post-Colonial Bengali Cinema - always yours

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25|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 Bhanu from 1960s). That 1931 film indeed had a Bhanu Bandyopadhyay in its cast, but it had to be someone else, it was another Bhanu Bandyopadhyay. This image comes with a wrong caption A collage of the images of the senior Bhanu Bandyopadhyay (Kalish Mukhopadhyay 115) (Kalish Mukhopadhyay 145) A little research on the part of the present writer reveals that there indeed was another Bhanu Bandyopadhyay, who played the role of a friend of Pahari Sanyal and Pramathesh Barua, called Samir (a minor character with very little dialogues, but he shared ample screen space with the two lead characters) in Rajat Jayanti. IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) page of Rajat Jayanti however, makes the same mistake again and hyperlinks the concerned actor's name with the profile of our familiar Bhanu Bandyopadhyay, the comedian. If that database was made by a Bengali after watching the movie, then it is an unfortunate mistake, but by no means an uncharacteristic one (absence of history normally paves way to such confusions: for example, as I am writing this article on 8/8/2012, the current Wikipedia entry on Dhiren Ganguly shows the image of Robin Majumdar, the actor-singer). Anyhow, further studies reveal that film historian Rabi Basu in his Shat Rong speaks of a “Bhanu Bandyopadhyay (elder)” in the cast of a double version film of New Theatres (made in both Bengali and Hindi) titled Obhigyan – the Hindi version was called Abhagin – that was made in 1938 (1: 127). In Kalish Mukhopadhyay's book, on page 145, there is indeed a collage of multiple images of this senior Bhanu Bandyopadhyay. It seems that he was a favourite actor of
26|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 New Theatres. Dhiraj Bhattacharya's memoir Jokhon Nayok Chhilam also mentions the elder Bhanu Bandyopadhyay (69), who worked in Madan Theatres as well (84). The above example indicates two things. First, Bankim's well known lament about the Bengalis' lack of history and historical consciousness applies perfectly to the historiography of Bengali cinema. Secondly, absolute lack of support from establishments, institutions, academia and intellectual quarters (all dominated by left-liberal ideology) ensures that whatever little bits of the history of early Bengali cinema survives in the form of anecdotes, catalogues, personal memoirs, popular tabloid features and public relations, they are collected by individuals in mostly journalistic endeavours under the auspice of various magazines and newspapers patronized by common readers. There had never been any systematic writing down of the early history of Bengali film industry. As a result, a critical and scholarly query into early film history has never been undertaken. A serious historiography of Bengali cinema (prior to 1950s) has not been attempted. Quite expectedly, Kalish Mukhopadhyay's book too is journalistic in nature. It is quite interesting to note that Kalish Mukhopadhyay, editor of the renowned Bengali film and theatre magazine Rup-Moncho, was involved with revolutionary nationalist movement and a close follower of Subhash Bose. In fact Kalish Mukhopadhyay started this film magazine in 1939 under the instruction of Subhash Bose himself who felt that such a magazine was needed in Bengal, and who instructed him to take an early retirement from revolutionary politics and devote his full time and energy to this magazine (Bangla Cholochchitroshilper Itihash 370-371). There were fundamental reasons behind this decision of Subhash Bose. The great leader could not have failed to notice the tremendous import of this new marvel of modernity called cinema for the common people. The star system of cinema is a commonly shared currency of popular recognition and cultural symbolism. Common people love cinema and dote on the stars. A star is a symbol of the aspirations of a community, and in fact plays a huge role in the formation of a culturally coherent community of spectators. Thus Hollywood used its star system as a successful
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Writing a Biography of Bengali Film
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A Selective Study in Post-Colonial Bengali Cinema - always yours

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