Ritwik Ghatak’s Cinematic Sensibility

The Bengali filmmaker, Ritwik Kumar Ghatak (1925-1976), wrote, produced, directed and/or acted in plays, feature films and documentaries in Bengal during the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s through the mid-1970s. Why Ghatak? Within the contexts of Bengali, Indian and world cinema, Ghatak is considered an innovative, revolutionary master of the cinematic medium who possessed a singular cinematic sensibility. He composed numerous essays on film and filmmaking in English and Bengali. Dozens of interviews have been recorded that present an artist who was contemplative, outspoken, at times misunderstood, at turns obstinate and contradictory.

From his first film, Nagarik (＂The Citizen,＂ 1953) through his final film, Jukti Takko ar Gappo (＂An Argument, a Debate, and a Story,＂ 1974), Ghatak constructed detailed visual and aural filmic commentaries about modern Bengali culture and society. Twice during his lifetime Bengal was physically rent apart - in 1947 with the Partition of India engendered by the departure of the British and in 1971 by the Bangladeshi War of Independence. In Ghatak’s films, the ambivalence and contradictions of Bengali society in post-1947, post-Partition, post-Independence India are pointedly portrayed. Against this frequently adverse milieu, Bengal’s modern cultural memory, identity, and history are interrogated and continually reassessed in his cinema.

Erin O’Donnell is Associate Professor in the History & Geography Department at East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, USA. Her research interests include the history of 19th-early 21st century visual culture - particularly photography and film - of India (specifically West Bengal/Kolkata) and Bangladesh.