Director with a difference

He is known for breaking stereotypes. He is recognised for his ability to move with the times. He did away with the formula mould in his very first movie, Ankur, in 1974. Saibal Chatterjee traces the three-decade-long journey of Shyam Benegal, who was recently honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to developmental and social issues.

When, after making 250-odd advertising films, shorts and commissioned documentaries, Shyam Benegal burst on the new Indian cinema scene with Ankur in 1974, his brand of filmmaking became an instant model for a whole generation of directors wanting to break out of the formula mould.

Defying stereotypes comes easy to Benegal. Ankur, located in a feudal Andhra Pradesh setting, presented a married woman who has a strong ethical base and yet sleeps with another man and bears his child. The filmmaker recalls: "The Ankur character demolished the moral parameters projected in Hindi films, but did so with such violence that the mainstream industry had great difficulty in accepting it".

Yet, Benegal did not baulk. In Nishant, he continued down virtually the same path. "The woman (in Nishant) is attracted to her abductor. It was the Stockholm syndrome that played out on the screen. And there was no condemnation of the choice she made. The industry did not take kindly to that characterisation either," he says.

Thirty years and a bit on, Benegal is still constantly pushing the envelope. His evolving work continues to be a beacon that lights the way for those seeking to survive on their own terms in a profit-driven industry. It is only befitting that the University Grants Commission and Consortium for Educational Communication has bestowed on the veteran filmmaker a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to developmental and social issues even as the widely applauded director is busy giving finishing touches to a Rs 20-crore Netaji biopic.

What is it that makes the 70-year-old Benegal tick? It is perhaps a combination of various factors: his ability to adapt to the changing times without compromising with the purity of his creative vision, his willingness to be adventurous when others of his ilk have tended to throw up their arms in despair and drift away, and his unwavering code of humanism and compassion, traits that have underpinned all his films.

That is precisely why Benegal occupies a very special place in the Hindi cinema. Despite the changes, good and bad, that have swept through the Mumbai film industry over the past three decades, Benegal has remained steadfast as much to his commitment to marginalised voices as to the urge to experiment with narrative structures and devices that are out of bounds for the less gifted. But above all, it has been his unerring sense of balance that has stood him in good stead through thick and thin.

Even when the veteran director made two commercially oriented films like Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2000) - both had successful music albums to bolster their viability - he came up with two typically uncompromising works, Samar (1998) and Hari Bhari (2000). Expect him to plunge headlong into another quiet little piece of personal cinema once he wraps up Netaji Subhash: The Last Hero, which is by far his most ambitious film to date.

"Although this is the biggest budget I have ever handled, it is not really that big if one considers the sweep and spread of the film," he says.

Unlike many directors of India's parallel cinema, who have often been misled into over-estimating their ability to survive mass apathy, Benegal has never ever discounted the validity of marketing. "It is not enough to make a film," he says. "Proper marketing is a must. If you make a film of your own choice and spend someone else's money in doing so, you cannot escape the responsibility of ensuring that the producer recovers his investment."

Benegal, however, does not believe that Bollywood is actually poised on the verge of conquering the global film mart. There is as much false hope as there is hype in that supposition, he asserts. "We are still on the margins. Bollywood films are still patronised only by south Asians. The global collections that are frequently cited do not provide a true picture of Bollywood's reach," he argues.

Formula Hindi films, Benegal feels, project a sweeping, pan-Indian, even globalised, vision and are, therefore, an inadequate vehicle for artistic self-expression. "In many of these films, nothing in the background is Indian. They shoot in Canada and pass it off as India."

"These films," he adds, "create a bridge between the expression of western aspirations and the assertion of the values of the East. They help NRIs make a connection with the culture they are heir to, but that doesn't mean Bollywood has become a global phenomenon."

Benegal is no admirer of contemporary television soap operas either although he admits that his modern, urban adaptation of The Mahabharata, Kalyug (1980), may have anticipated today's serials. "That was wholly unwitting," he says. "But Kalyug did have a multiplicity of characters and each of them had the potential of having numerous episodes devoted to him/her."

Like the emerging urban cinema, these soaps capture the aspirations of a section of society. "They are statements of style, the characters are seen as models of modernity," feels Benegal. But they are as far removed from reality as formula Hindi films.

Benegal, of course, has nothing to do with either because it is real, tangible voices that activate his creativity.

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