Shooting Star

Arindam Sarkar

It was like a scene out of a movie. A wooden panel door in the study slid aside and in walked Aparna Sen – the face that has launched a countless images and set into flutter a million hearts in the last five decades.

Dressed casually in a crushed salwar-kameez, Indian cinema’s acclaimed filmmaker and Bengali film’s femme fatale Aparna quipped, had she not been an actress she would have been an author.

“I write screenplays passionately. You know, I started acting from the age of 10,” said Aparna, as the table lamp beside her sofa cast a soft but a strange shadow on her face.

Her aptitude for acting blossomed on stage. She was 10. And, the act was Hojoborolo. Aparna told her father Chidananda Dasgupta, an eminent film critic, and mother Supriya, a cousin of poet Jibanananda Das, that she wanted to be an actress. They agreed.

Chidananda wanted her to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), London. But 13-year-old Aparna refused to go because a stint at RADA would mean absorbing “British mannerisms and behavioral patterns” that was unfit for the Asian stage. “To act in India, I would have to unlearn all that I would learn at RADA. Instead, I joined the Little Theatre Group before my debut film, Somapti, in 1961,” said the Padma Shree awardee.

Aparna believes self-confidence helped her to evolve as an actor and filmmaker. She thinks, if one is really passionate about something, there is no reason why the goal cannot be achieved. “So I am not surprised to be a director. I could have been an author as well,” said Aparna.

Though Aparna directed her first film 36 Chowringhee Lane in 1981, she began writing the script much before it happened. She showed the screenplay to her mentor Satyajit Ray. When Ray told her to make it a film, Aparna realized she could write well. “With a good screenplay, I can communicate with the audience,” said the filmmaker who has won a bouquet of national and international awards and is now into her second stint as an editor of a magazine.

But it was acting that drew Aparna to films.  As an actress she had no role model and consciously avoided imitating anyone on screen. “Every time, I faced the camera I got Goosebumps. I liked doing Somapti, Baksho Bodol and Akash Kusum. But when I started acting in commercial cinema, I found it was all about titillating the audience,” rued Aparna.

It soon dawned on her that instead of acting, she was learning how to exploit her physical features in the best possible way. Initially, acting was a challenge because people doubted her capabilities and she had a point to prove. But once she became a star, she lost interest.

“I lost interest in flirting with the audience. Lowering the head, the shy smile, singing songs and endlessly repeating the same emotional scenes,” an exasperated Aparna said with pauses and her typical mile-a-minute deliveries.

But she liked doing comedy, as it demanded good timing and intelligence. Acting was her livelihood and with time it gave her a celebrity status. “The celebrity status assured me a hearing when I wrote my first script,” confessed Aparna. 

At times, Aparna used to regret her decision to not go abroad for higher studies. “We grew up with a staple fare of world cinema. So I couldn’t relate to our cinema and that caused pain,” said Aparna with a sigh. But the dark side had a silver lining. Through acting, she picked up the threads of filmmaking. Acting for her has been like a film school.

Aparna’s co-stars helped her to become a star. And one of them was Uttam Kumar. According to Aparna, Bengal’s greatest star was a kind person and an interactive actor. She fascinatingly watched him on the shooting floor. “Uttam’s acting school was Hollywood. He intelligently adapted the style to Bengali cinema. He understood sound and taught me the subtleties of romantic acting,” she said.

One day, at the studio, Uttam was taking too long to memorize his lines. On seeing Aparna getting irritated, he asked her to sit beside him and said he had a little stammer so he had to learn his lines very well. “The confession of a great actor overwhelmed me and his kindness was a big turn on,” said Aparna.

She met Saumitra Chatterjee, Bengal’s another popular actor, during the making of Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar. Saumitra taught her footwork. “I learnt from him how to move with maximum economy and that equipment does not hinder acting but helps to elevate performance,” revealed Aparna.

Once, when a camera trolley jerked during shooting, Aparna stopped acting and told the director about the shake. But the cameraman disagreed. She was asked to focus on acting and not on camera movement. “It was ridiculous. We noticed the jerk during the rushes,” Aparna remembered.

How would Director Aparna react if her actor did the same? “She would tell them to check the monitor or, if the scene had gone well, keep the jerk because strong emotions can override tremors without anyone noticing it on the screen.”

“In Yuganta, the entire set shook in one scene. But I let it go. I knew the emotion was so overpowering, no one would notice it,” said Aparna. Yuganta bagged a national award. “My curiosity helped in learning the technical aspects of filmmaking as an actor.”

It was Satyajit Ray’s encouragement that saw the birth of 36 Chowringhee Lane. From Ray, Aparna learnt the nuances of script writing and camera movements. “I like few frames of Ritwik Ghatak and Ingrid Bergman, but my cinema is essentially Ray,” admitted Aparna.

Ray told her to make 36 Chowringhee Lane in English and approach Dada Saheb Phalke awardee Shashi Kapoor for production. In 1981, the film won the national award. And, till now, Aparna’s ten films have won many national awards.

Is Aparna Sen a woman’s director? No, she says. That is a perception but not the truth. She argued she has done films delving into the psyche of women because it is a subject she feels comfortable with. “My cinema is more about human psychology, where characters of men also got importance,” she said.

Images come rushing into her mind when she selects a subject. She dots them down and the script begins. For Paroma, an image of an adulteress with her head shorn hit Aparna and the screenplay was written. “Mr and Mrs Iyer, 15 Park Avenue, The Japanese Wife or Iti Mrinalini, Goynar Baksho have strong storyline and are not biased towards women,” Aparna stressed.

“I am not a feminist filmmaker. I am aware of feminist issues and sympathetic towards them. But for me feminist issues are very much a part of human condition. If women are protagonists in my films it is because I understand their psyche better, explained Aparna.”

The thinking director who was in the vanguard of the intellectual movement against the Left Front government said people voted for poriborton and expected a miracle. “But miracles don’t happen overnight. I am willing to give the chief minister and the new regime a chance. The alternative is a Left misrule and I am not for it,” said Aparna quite vehemently.

Does blooming of director Aparna mark the end of actress Aparna? Given a choice, she will not act. Her career in front of the camera is shorter than the one behind it. “I am better off as a director,” shot Aparna with her head tilted and face glowing with a smile that makes millions swoon over her.