Mrinal Sen
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| Mrinal Sen | |
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 Mrinal Sen.
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| Born | May 14, 1923 Faridpur, (now in)Bangladesh |
Mrinal Sen (মৃনাল সেন, Mrinal Shen) is a famous Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on (May 14, 1923) , in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the Scottish Church College and at the University of Calcutta. As a student, he got involved with the cultural wing of the Communist party . Although he never became a member of the party, his association with the socialist Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA ) brought him close to a number of like-minded culturally associated people.
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[edit] Early life
His interest in films started after he stumbled upon a book on film aesthetics. However his interest remained mostly intellectual, and he was forced to take up the job of a medical representative, which took him away from Calcutta. This did not last very long, and he came back to the city and eventually took a job of an audio technician in a Calcutta film studio, which eventually launched his film carrier.
[edit] His directorial debut
Mrinal Sen made his first feature film, Raatbhor, in 1955. His next film, Neel Akasher Neechey (Under the Blue Sky), earned him local recognition, while his third film, Baishey Shravan (Wedding Day) was his first film that gave him international exposure.
[edit] Sen and New Cinema in India
After making five more films, he made a film with a shoe-string budget provided by the Government of India. This film, Bhuvan Shome (Mr. Shome), finally launched him as a major filmmaker, both nationally and internationally. Bhuvan Shome also initiated the “New Cinema” film movement in India.
[edit] Social context and its political influence
The films that he made next were overtly political, and earned him the reputation as a Marxist artist. This was also the time of large-scale political unrest throughout India. Particularly in and around Calcutta, this period underwent what is now known as the Naxalite movement. This phase was immediately followed by a series of films where he shifted his focus, and instead of looking for enemies outside, he looked for the enemy within his own middle class society. This was arguably his most creative phase.
[edit] Experimentation, recognition and acclaim
During this period, he won a large number of international awards. It could be argued that although his films show the development of ideas from Marxism, existentialism, French surrealism and Italian neorealism, in their stylistic nuances, these films parallel the cinema of Woody Allen in more ways than one. Although like Allen's cinema, Sen's cinema for the most, do not provide a happy ending (unlike many of the films of Sen's better known contemporary Satyajit Ray), unlike Allen who has a steady niche audience in the West, Sen's experimentation with parallel cinema had significantly cost him much of a devoted audience. Mrinal Sen never stopped experimenting with his medium. In his later films he tried to move away from the narrative structure and worked with very thin story lines. After a long gap of eight years, at the age of eighty, he made his latest film, Aamar Bhuban, in 2002.
During his career, Mrinal Sen’s film have received awards from almost all major film festivals, including (Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Montreal, Chicago, and Cairo). Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all major cities of the world. He has also received a number of honorary doctorate degrees (D.Litt Honoris Causa) from various universities, both in India and abroad. Mrinal Sen was also elected as the president of the International Federation of the Film Societies.
[edit] State honours
He is also the recipient of many personal honors. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Bhushan and in 2005, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honor given to an Indian filmmaker. He was also an honorary Member of the Indian Parliament from 1998 to 2003. The French government awarded him the Commandeur de l'ordre des Arts et letters (Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters), the highest honour conferred by that country. In 2001, The Russian government honored him with the Order of Friendship.
[edit] Trivia
- He is a friend of Gabriel García Márquez and had often been invited as a judge in international film festivals.
- In 2004, Mrinal Sen completed his autobiographical book, Always Being Born.
[edit] Select Filmography:
- Raatbhor (1955)
- Neel Akasher Neechey (1959)
- Baishey Sravan (1960)
- Punascha (1961)
- Abasheshe (1963)
- Pratinidhi (1964)
- Akash Kusum (1965)
- Matira Manisa (1966)
- Bhuvan Shome (1969)
- Ichhapuran (1970)
- Interview (1970)
- Ek Adhuri Kahani (1971)
- Calcutta 71 (1972)
- Padatik (1973)
- Chorus (1974)
- Mrigaya (1976)
- Oka Uri Katha (1977)
- Parasuram (1978)
- Ek Din Pratidin (1979)
- Akaler Sandhane (1980)
- Chalchitra (1981)
- Kharij (1982)
- Khandahar(1983)
- Genesis (1986)
- Ek din Achanak(1989)
- Citi Life - Calcutta My El Dorado (1989)
- Mahaprithibi (1991)
- Antareen (1993)
- 100 Years of Cinema (1999)
- Amar Bhuban (2002)
