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Maestro and the Muse
Rituparno Ghosh’s new film Abohomaan (Eternal) explores the relationship that often evolves between a director, who shapes a young girl into a fine actress, much like the sculptor takes fistfuls of clay to mould them to create a figure of exquisite beauty. But once the girl attains fame and glory, she leaves her anchor and flies away to make her own nest in her own new world. Is this a reflection of what has happened in real life between directors and their heroines down the ages? TWF Correspondent Shoma A. Chatterji takes a journey into the past to find out some famous director-actress liaisons that have made history.
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) is one of the most moving self-reflexive films made in India. It is a fine and subtle tribute to the glorious days of the studio era, using its history from about the 1930s to the 1940s as its backdrop. The film is an introspective and retrospective journey of Suresh, a once-celebrated film director who is currently going through a bad patch both professionally and personally. He is estranged from his wife and daughter, while Shanti, the leading lady who he had groomed to fame and glory, and had subsequently fallen in love with, has drifted away. He discovers that the studio floors are his last recourse, and seeks refuge there, tracing back his journey. He finally comes to terms with the reality that fame and success are as ephemeral as life itself. By then however, it is too late.
Kaagaz Ke Phool has strong autobiographical elements. It is almost like a celluloid elegy. Dutt wrote for himself with his screenplay, his images, his music and his lyrical pacing of the film. He is said to have had an intense relationship with Waheeda Rehman, one of his leading ladies, as shown in the film. This brought about phases of estrangement with his wife Geeta Dutt from time to time. He began to drink when he was not working. He suffered from long periods of depression. He became a chronic insomniac. It is said that his premature death by suicide was foreshadowed in the film. The film was a failure. Now it enjoys a cult following in India and France where it was commercially released in the 1980s. Strangely however, one finds that Shanti functions as the sacrificing woman who falls desperately in love with him but fails to rescue him from a tragic death. Suresh is in love with Shanti the actress and not Shanti the woman. Waheeda Rehman stepped out of his life to perform some of the best roles of her career in Guide, Khamoshi and Lamhe.
Rituparno Ghosh’s just released Abohomaan, produced by Reliance Big Pictures, explores the same director-actress issue.
“Abohomaan explores the nuances of relationships. Aniket (Dipankar De) is one of Bengal’s finest directors. He is married to Deepti (Mamata Shankar), an actress he fell in love with when she was young and they have a young son (Jisshu Sengupta). He falls in love with Shikha (Ananya Chatterjee), an actress as young as his son, when he chooses her to play the role of Binodini, the famous theatre actress of the Bengali stage,” narrates director Rituparno Ghosh.
“Binodini’s life and her links with Natasamrat (famous dramatist) Girish Chandra Ghosh essayed by Shikha reminds Aniket of his wife Deepti when she was young. This sets off a chain of incidents and events that tends to upset the equanimity of what was, till then, what one would call a ‘happy family,” says Rituparno Ghosh.
The Western world offers endless examples of director-actress liaisons. Famous French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard discovered Karina when she was a model and, in the early '60s, cast her in a series of masterpieces and near masterpieces, including Vivre Sa Vie. They married in 1961, but the marriage was over by the time the English version of the film was ready. Still, their collaboration, even in their last film together, was alive. He enriched her screen image with beautiful close-ups. She returned the favour with beautiful performances. The interaction between the two in screen made for powerful fireworks, complex and filled with history, a blend of the archaic and the obsessive.
Federico Fellini met Giuletta Masina in 1942. In 1943, they were married, marking one of the greatest creative partnerships in world cinema. Fellini and Giulietta hid in her aunt’s apartment until Mussolini's fall on July 25, 1943. Fellini died on the day after his 50th wedding anniversary while Giuletta died six months later. Their personal tragedies after marriage, with Masina having suffered a miscarriage followed by the birth of their son Peir Federico who died a month after he was born, are said to have inspired La Strada (1954). It is one of Fellini's most accessible and humane works, a film of understated beauty and profound insight. Masina’s portrayal of the funny, pathetic, poor and exploited Gelsomina is considered one of the best ever performances in the history of world cinema.
Roberto Rossellini, the internationally noted Italian filmmaker, received a letter in 1948-49 that would change his life. Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman wrote to the Italian director that she wanted to be in one of his films. Rossellini was writing a script at the time with Anna Magnani in mind, but rewrote it for Bergman. The script was for the film Stromboli (1949). During the filming, Rossellini and Bergman fell in love. Rossellini was still married to Marcella De Marquis, and was also involved with Magnani. Bergman was married to Petter Lindstrom, a neurosurgeon. Rossellini had his first marriage annulled, and Bergman divorced her spouse in 1950. Before working with Rossellini, her roles in Hollywood films as wife and mother contributed to her seeming fulfillment of her audience’s expectations from the heroine and the moral codes that dominated the times. But this stereotyped on-screen image and the public’s perception of her family life changed dramatically when she linked with Rossellini in films and in personal life.
She worked exclusively in Rossellini’s films between 1950 and 1955. Among these was Europa 51. But Ingrid returned to the US in 1956. The two divorced in 1957. Interestingly, Ingrid’s best works came after she left Rossellini. Anastasia brought her the Best Actress Oscar, Murder on the Orient Express fetched Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She starred in the 1978 Bergman movie Autumn Sonata which she completed while she was dying of breast cancer. Ingrid Bergman is one example where the creation flourished after she had left her director-husband.
Indian cinema offers classic examples. Notable ones are – Himangshu Rai, founder-director of Bombay Talkies and actress Devika Rani, who did not work under any other production banner, Sohrab Modi and Mehtaab, Mehboob Khan and Sardar Akhtar, Roop K. Shorey and Meena Shorey and the most tragic of unions, Kamaal Amrohi and Meena Kumari.
For Kamaal, it was a marriage born of convenience. He was married with grown sons as old as Meena Kumari herself. Long after they had separated, he used his emotional influence to persuade her to work in Pakeeza by paying her a token amount of a silver rupee coin. The film became a hit but Meena Kumari died in penury.
Amrohi met Meena Kumari at a shooting when she was 19 and he was 34. They fell in love and married in 1952. The marriage ended in 1964. They remarried, but Meena Kumari had become an alcoholic by then. She died on 31 March 1972, and Amrohi died on 11 February 1993 in Mumbai. He was buried next to Meena Kumari in an Iranian graveyard.
These actresses after marrying the directors, either worked exclusively in their husbands’ films, or, separated in course of time and made great films embellished by great performances.
(Shoma A Chatterji is a National Award winning film writer. The views expressed in the article is of the author and not of the agency.)
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