Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Tollywood or Bengali cinema in India, is the segment of Indian cinema, dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Bengali language, widely spoken in the state of West Bengal and Eastern India. It is based in the Tollygunge region of Kolkata, West Bengal. The origin of the nickname "Tollywood"—a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood—dates back to 1932. It was a historically important film industry, at one time the centre of Indian film production. The Bengali film industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema's most critically acclaimed Parallel Cinema and art films, with several of its filmmakers gaining recognition at the Indian National Film Awards and earning international acclaim.
Bengali feature films have won the most National Film Awards with 22 wins in India. The history of Bengali cinema began in the early 20th century with the release of Billwamangal (also known as Bhagwat Gita) in 1919, which is widely regarded as the world's first Bengali film Produced by Madan Theatres and directed by Rustomji Dhotiwala, Billwamangal (1919) was a silent film and is generally regarded as the first Bengali feature film. Earlier film work in Bengal by Hiralal Sen included short actuality, advertising and recordings of theatrical performances rather than feature-length narrative films.
Ever since Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955) was awarded Best Human Document at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, Bengali films frequently appeared in international fora and film festivals for the next several decades.Desai, Jigna (2004), Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film, p. 38, Routledge, This allowed Bengali filmmakers to reach a global audience. The most influential among them was Satyajit Ray, whose films became successful among European, American and Asian audiences. His work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Carlos Saura, Isao Takahata, Wes Anderson and Danny Boyle being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising his work.
The "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy". Kanchenjungha (1962) introduced a narrative structure that resembles later hyperlink cinema. Ray's 1967 script for a film to be called The Alien, which was eventually cancelled, is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's E.T. (1982). Ira Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue (2005) was a loose remake of Charulata (1964), and in Gregory Nava's My Family (1995), the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of The World of Apu. Similar references to Ray films are found in recent works such as Sacred Evil (2006), the Elements trilogy of Deepa Mehta, and in films of Jean-Luc Godard.
Another prominent Bengali filmmaker is Mrinal Sen, whose films have been well known for their Marxist views. During his career, Mrinal Sen's films have received awards from major film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Montreal, Chicago, and Cairo. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in major cities of the world. Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak began reaching a global audience long after his death; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. Some of his films have strong similarities to later famous international films, such as Ajantrik (1958) resembled the Herbie films (1967–2005) and Bari Theke Paliye (1958) resembled François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959). Other eminent Bengali filmmakers included the trio of Tapan Sinha, Ajoy Kar and Tarun Majumdar, collectively referred as "TAT". Their films have been well known for Best Literature Adaptation and displaying larger than life perspectives. Ajoy Kar directorial numerous films created many new milestones and broke existing box office records in the Golden Era.
The cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who made his debut with Ray's The Apu Trilogy, also had an important influence on cinematography across the world. One of his most important techniques was bounce lighting, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets. He pioneered the technique while filming Aparajito (1956), the second part of The Apu Trilogy. Some of the experimental techniques which Satyajit Ray pioneered include photo-negative flashbacks and X-ray digressions while filming Pratidwandi (1972).
Following Kerala's Hema committee, similar proposal for setting up a committee in West Bengal's Tollywood has been proposed to the Chief Minister.
Etymology Tollywood was the very first Hollywood-inspired name, dating back to a 1932 article in the American Cinematographer by Wilford E. Deming, an American engineer who was involved in the production of the first Indian sound film. He gave the industry the name Tollywood because the Tollygunge district in which it was based rhymed with "Hollywood", and because Tollygunge was the centre of the cinema of India as a whole at the time much like Hollywood was in the cinema of the United States.
In that same March 1932 article, Deming was also considering the name "Hollygunge" but decided to go with "Tollywood" as the nickname for the Tollygunge area due to "Tolly being a proper name and Gunge meaning locality" in the Bengali language. It was this "chance juxtaposition of two pairs of rhyming syllables," Holly and Tolly, that led to the name "Tollywood" being coined. The name "Tollywood" went on to be used as a nickname for the Bengali film industry by the popular Kolkata-based Junior Statesman youth magazine, establishing a precedent for other film industries to use similar-sounding names. Tollywood later went on to inspire the name "Bollywood" (as the Bombay-based industry overtook the one in Tollygunge), which in turn inspired many other similar names.
History
The history of cinema in Bengal dates to the 1920s when the first "bioscopes" were shown in theatres in Calcutta. Within a decade, Hiralal Sen, considered a stalwart of Victorian era cinema set up the Royal Bioscope Company, producing scenes from the stage productions of a number of popular shows at the Star Theatre, Minerva Theatre, Classic Theatre. Following a long gap after Sen's works,Pioneers of Bangladeshi Cinema Dhirendra Nath Ganguly (known as D.G.) established the Indo British Film Co, the first Bengali-owned production company, in 1918. However, the first Bengali feature film, Billwamangal, was produced in 1919, under the banner of Madan Theatre. Bilat Ferat was the IBFC's first production in 1921. The Madan Theatre production of Jamai Shashthi was the first Bengali talkie. A long history has been traversed since then, with stalwarts such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Tapan Sinha, Ajoy Kar and others earning international acclaim and securing their place in the movie history.
Early development
Silent era (1919–1930)
Hiralal Sen, India is credited as one of Bengal's, and India's first directors. These were all silent films. Hiralal Sen is also credited as one of the pioneers of advertisement films in India. The first Bengali-language movie was the silent feature Billwamangal, produced by the Madan Theatre Company of Calcutta and released on 8 November 1919, only six years after the first full-length Indian feature film, Raja Harish Chandra, was released.
The early beginnings of the "talking film" industry go back to the early 1930s when it came to British India, and to Calcutta. The movies were originally made in Urdu or Persian to accommodate a specific elite market. One of the earliest known studios was the East India Film Company. The first Bengali film to be made as a talkie was Jamai Shashthi, released in 1931. At this time the early heroes of the Bengali film industry like Pramathesh Barua and Debaki Bose were at the peak of their popularity. Barua also directed movies, exploring new dimensions in Indian cinema. Debaki Bose directed Chandidas in 1932; this film is noted for its breakthrough in recording sound. Sound recordist Mukul Bose found a solution to the problem of spacing out dialogue and frequency modulation.
Rise of the talkie (1931–1947)
The Bengali film industry has made significant contributions to the cinema of India. The first Bengali talkies were the short film Jamai Shashthi released on 11 April 1931 at Crown Cinema Hall in Calcutta, and full-length feature Dena Paona released on 30 December 1931 at Chitra Cinema Hall in Calcutta. The industry was based in Tollygunge, an area of South Kolkata, West Bengal that is more elite and artistically inclined than the usual musical cinema fare in India. Kanan Devi was an early female star of Bengali film, alongside Chandrabati Devi, Molina Devi and Chhaya Devi. The most popular Bengali male actors were Sisir Bhaduri, Chhabi Biswas, Ahindra Choudhury, Dhiraj Bhattacharya and Pahari Sanyal. Popular filmmakers include Debaki Bose, Nitin Bose, Madhu Bose, Premankur Atorthy and Premendra Mitra.
Golden era (1952–1981)
Bengali cinema enjoyed a large, even disproportionate, representation in Indian cinema during this period. They produced directors like Ajoy Kar, Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Mrinal Sen, Tarun Majumdar, Premendra Mitra. Satyajit Ray is an Academy Honorary Award winner and the recipient of India's and France's greatest civilian honours, the Bharat Ratna and Legion of Honor respectively, and Mrinal Sen is the recipient of the French distinction of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and the Russian Order of Friendship. The revival in Bengali Mainstream cinema dates from the rise of directors such as Tarun Majumdar along with Arabinda Mukhopadhyay and Shakti Samanta. Other prominent filmmakers in the Bengali film industry at the time included Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha and Ajoy Kar. The Bengali film industry has produced classics such as Nagarik (1952), The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), Kabuliwala (1957), Jalsaghar (1958), Ajantrik (1958), Neel Akasher Neechey (1959), Devi (1960), Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Saptapadi (1961), Jhinder Bondi (1961), Saat Pake Bandha (1963), Jatugriha (1964), Atithi (1965), Hatey Bazarey (1967), Malyadan (1971), Nimantran (1971), Shriman Prithviraj (1973), Calcutta trilogies (1971–1976), Mrigayaa (1976), Ganadevata (1978), etc. In particular,Calcutta trilogies, The Apu Trilogy, Shriman Prithviraj, Saptapadi are frequently listed among the greatest films of all time."The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" . The New York Times. 2002.
The most well-known Bengali superstars to date have been Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee.Uttam is considered the most popular and Soumitra the finest.Suchitra Sen is regarded as the most beautiful and influential actress of Bengali cinema. Kumar and Sen were known as "The Eternal Pair" in the late 1950s. This pair worked in the 1961 epic Romantic drama Saptapadi (1961 film) by Kar besides others. Suchitra Sen got her first International Award for Saat Pake Bandha (1963) by Kar. Apart from Sen, Sabitri Chatterjee and Sumitra Devi were very popular actresses.
Soumitra Chatterjee, who was considered one of the greatest actors in the history of Indian and world cinema, became a recurring face of Satyajit Ray’s works and a prominent force in Bengali cinema for over sixty years.