Golden Era of Bollywood: Bimal Roy was a complete school of film making unto himself

Thursday 12 July 2018

Bimal Roy was a complete school of film making unto himself

Bimal Roy who gave Bollywood some of the iconic films like Do Bigha Zameen, Devdas, Madhumati, Bandini Sujata and more.He also gave Indian Cinema many great filmmakers and writers such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, Nabendu Ghosh, Salil Chowdhury and Basu Bhattacharya
He was born on 12 July 1909, to a Bengali Baidya zamindar family in Suapur, Dhaka, which was then part of the Eastern Bengal and Assam province of British India and is now part of Bangladesh.He moved to Calcutta and entered the field of cinema as a camera assistant with New Theatres Pvt. Ltd.. During this time, he assisted director P.C. Barua as Publicity Photographer, on the hit 1935 film Devdas, starring K.L. Saigal.
Bimal Roy’s debut feature film Udayer Pathe was made in Bengali in 1944.which was made in hindi as Hamrahi in 1945 by New Theatres Calcutta.Our National Anthem Jana Gana Mann before it was made the National Anthem was introduced in this film. Maa in 1952 was his first Bollywood film for Bombay Talkies. A year later, his own production company came into being with ``Do Bigha Zamin'' about a farmer struggling to survive the industrial revolution. His another film Parineeta was also released in the same year.
The immortal ``Devdas'' in 1955 based on Sarat Chandra's classic, has been fodder for several films over the years.Unlike film-makers of today, directors of that era made sure to not get stuck in a groove. So after the heartbreaking ``Devdas,'' Bimal Roy made a frothy musical, ``Madhumati'', probably the first film on re-incarnation.
He believed that there was no medium like cinema to promote the idea of human struggle. Noted for his realistic and socialistic films - Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta and Biraj Bahu - legendary filmmaker Bimal Roy is a celebrated institution in Hindi Cinema and has inspired many a movie maverick from Shyam Benegal to Hansal Mehta.
He was a very silent person,he spoke through his films.His works stand out for their photography. He took great care to reveal the light source and introduced a sense of time. More importantly, it connected one to reality. You could tell what time of the day a situation was taking place.
He is the only director who got Filmfare Best Director Award continuously for 3 years twice.

1953: Filmfare Award for Best Director – Do Bigha Zamin
1954: Filmfare Award for Best Director – Parineeta
1955: Filmfare Award for Best Director – Biraj Bahu

1958: Filmfare Award for Best Director – Madhumati
1959: Filmfare Award for Best Director – Sujata
1960: Filmfare Award for Best Director – Parakh

He died of cancer on 8 January 1966 at the age of 56. He was survived by four children,Just before his death Roy was working on one of his most ambitious project, a bi-lingual film titled Amrit Kumbh Ki Khoj Mein based on Samaresh Basu’s novel. He had shot one schedule with his unit during an actual kumbh mela in Allahabad in the early 60s.