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

41|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2
hackneyed old patterns. But this has not happened and is not likely to happen for some
decades yet, unless some chance revolution should bring about the process. So the
mythologicals and devotionals will stay and continue to provide the staple fare for the
majority of Bengal's film public. What, then, should the srious film maker do? Should he
accept the situation and apply himself to the making of serious mythologicals and serious
devotionals, keeping the popular ingredients and clothing them in the semblance of art? This
is obviously a way out of the impasse, but it raioses an important question: can a serious
film maker, working inIndia, afford to shut his eyes to the reality around him, the reality that
is so poignant and so urgently in need of interpretation in terms of the cinema? I do not think
so.
For the truly serious, socially conscious film maker, there can be no prolonged
withdrawals into fantasy. He must face the challenge of contemporary reality, examine the
facts, probe them, sift them and select from them the material to be transformed into the
stuff of cinema. (Our Films Their Films 40-41)
Let us remember the days when Bengali films were successful, delivered hits in all those
intellectually prohibited genres, and the industry was thriving (not just due to the black money
flowing from war-contracts). Tapan Sinha joined New Theatres in 1946 as an assistant to the
legendary sound recordist Bani Dutta. The first play back machine in India was manufactured in
New Theatres studio by Bani Dutta and Mukul Bose, at a time when the rest of India simply used to
import these machines from the West; Tapan Sinha recollects fondly in his memoir that some of the
best talents from Calcutta University's science college used to join Bengali film industry as
technical experts in those days (33). Tapan Sinha furthers draws our attention to the fact that New
Theatres produced some of the best technicians in the Indian film industry (36), most of whom later
had to migrate to Bombay while some went to Madras.
Now I shall turn to the memoir of Asit Sen: this book records both the height of Bengali film