soumitra chatterjee biography writing in english

• India Today
• Business Today
• Harper's Bazaar
• Brides Today
• Cosmopolitan
• India Today Hindi
• Reader’s Digest
• Aaj Tak Campus

Get 37% off on an annual Print +Digital subscription of India Today Magazine

Biography of soumitra chatterjee | the greatest showman, a biography of soumitra chatterjee by amitava nag sheds light on professional and personal aspects of the late actor’s life.

Visual Stories

• 13 wins & 1 nomination

• Apurba Roy (as Soumitra Chattopadhyay, Soumitra Chatterji in subtitles)

• Kshitish Sinha (as Soumitra Chattopadhyay)

• Amulya (segment "Samapti") (as Soumitra Chattopadhyay)

• Narsingh (as Soumitra Chattopadhyay)
• Post-production
• In Production

• Biswanath Sarkar

• Father of Rohini.

• Om's Grand Father

• Elocutionist

Personal details

• Encyclopedia (in S.Ray article)
• France's national library catalogue
• Soumitra Chatterji
• January 19 , 1935
• Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
• November 15 , 2020
• Kolkata, West Bengal, India (complications from COVID-19)
• Deepa Chatterjee 1960 - November 15, 2020 (his death, 2 children)
• Other works Lectured on "Acting in Cinema" in 1999, in the series "Nandini Sanyal Smarak Sanglap" organised by Nandini Sanyal Smarak Committee, in memory of Ms. Nandini Sanyal, a young and talented alumnus of Film & Television Institute of India, Pune.
• 1 Biographical Movie

Did you know

• Trivia Acted in 15 out of 34 films made by Late Satyajit Ray .
• When did Soumitra Chatterjee die?
• How did Soumitra Chatterjee die?
• How old was Soumitra Chatterjee when he died?

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Soumitra Chatterjee – His Life In Cinema And Beyond: A Biography

Please login to bookmark.

No account yet? Register

• March 31, 2023

Amitava Nag  is an independent film critic, film scholar and author based in Kolkata. He has already authored several books on cinema both in Bengali, his mother tongue and in English. Amitava is also the editor of an online magazine on cinema called The Silhouette and has published titles on poetry and short fiction in Bengali and English. His latest work is a biography of Soumitra Chatterjee based on his long interviews with the multi-faceted genius. Nag and Chatterjee shared a relationship that reached far beyond the ‘mentor-admirer’ equation. In a chat with the author he opens up on this long relationship with one of the greatest talents West Bengal has produced in the 20th century.  

Shoma: You have already done a lot of work on Soumitra Chatterjee. Two books, one translation of his book of poetry and one which includes him in Ray’s Heroes and Heroines. Are you obsessed with this great man? If not, what spurred you on to write ‘Soumitra Chatterjee – His Life In Cinema And Beyond?’ 

Amitava: My first book on Soumitra Chatterjee is essentially the first book on him in English – ‘ Beyond Apu’ . It picked up 20 of his favourite roles and explored each of them to showcase his range as an actor. My second book on him was titled ‘Murmurs: Silent Steals with Soumitra Chatterjee’ published in 2021 by Blue Pencil Publishers after he passed away. This is basically a very different sort of book which reflects the artist as a common man, his frailties, and insecurities. It was based on my decade long discussions with him almost like a friend. The new one ‘ Soumitra Chatterjee: His Life in Cinema and Beyond’ is a biography. So, in essence the three books are different.

Frankly, after writing ‘ Murmurs ’ I was drained out and did not plan a biography. My friend and editor of ‘ Beyond Apu’ , Mr Santanu Ray Chaudhuri called me up in December 2020, a month after Soumitra Babu passed away and requested me to write this book. When I wrote ‘Beyond Apu’, my goal was to portray him as an actor who was more than just an actor of Satyajit Ray’s films. With ‘ Soumitra Chatterjee: His Life in Cinema and Beyond’ I aspired to project him as an artist beyond the scope of cinema.

Also read: Five Poems by Soumitra Chatterjee

Shoma: Your association with Soumitra Babu turned from inquisitive inquiry to friendship. How did this happen?

Amitava: I think two things worked in my favour. First, I was far removed from the world of cinema in terms of its practicality. Secondly, I never shied away from the fact that I have a mind of my own and have my own opinions. After the initial years he would call me often and enquire if I was busy and whether I could come over to his place for an ‘adda’. Generally, it used to be on evenings when he was the loneliest, I felt. We discussed world cinema, poetry and what not. The best part of such exchanges was that we agreed to disagree on several things. I guess that fostered the friendship.

Shoma: In the beginning, you have mentioned the phrase “structured reading”. Can you please explain what this means in the context of Soumitra’s reading?

Amitava: I not only spent substantial time with him discussing his life and art, kept him company in some of his lonely times, but also read his prose writings and his plays with critically analytical precision. In parallel, I have the necessary understanding of the history and psyche of the Bengali film industry to draw correlations and connect the dots about his choices and his decisions. I hope the reader will agree once he/she reads the book.

Shoma: What was your aim? Did you wish to open up to an English-reading readership of Soumitra they have a very limited view of, linking him only as an actor in Ray’s films? Or, did you wish to record for posterity, your own learning and absorbing the multi-layered persona of this great man which you wish to share with the world beyond the narrow confines of the Bengali identity? Or both? 

Amitava: Actually, both. The first is my philosophy in writing about cinema. I generally write on Bengali film personalities in English and on foreign films and personalities in Bengali. As a writer who writes in both languages, I want to tell the world about my culture in the globally accepted language vis-à-vis discuss the glorious international cinema in my vernacular language for my native reader. When I began reading Soumitra’s own writing, I formed my own ideas about this creative thought process which may help any future researcher.

Shoma: Did you plan and structure the entire book before getting down to writing it? Or, did you allow yourself to be guided organically by referring to the notes you took while having those long talks with him? Or, did you structure it to begin with and then, later, allow your thoughts and experience to flow naturally? 

Amitava: Generally, I plan a book in advance and structure it. It helps me in getting on with writing like a project with dates. I approach book writing based on the corporate training that I have. This book is no exception. I thought of two-three approaches, then decided to traverse the decades almost in chronological sequence and then created the Table of Contents. I did make some changes while writing, like everyone else, but on a whole the basic structure was followed. However, for a book like ‘ Murmurs ’, which is a deeply intimate book, nothing was planned. It flowed with me, and I just obeyed the torrent of emotions.

Shoma: His experience with the stage in Bengal is elaborated perhaps for the first time ever? 

Amitava: I am not sure if it is the first time, but I argued, in this book, that his venture into professional theatre as a serious endeavour from the late 70s was a conscious choice. It was the time when he was no longer the automatic choice as a hero, nor was he old enough to mature into a different character profile, which he did later. Younger characters began moving to newer actors. This is when he took to the theatre in a calculated way. There, he could be the hero of his own plays and essay characters he wanted to portray what cinema was not offering him in general. Though he was never removed from theatre in the ‘60s, this was a smart move to keep himself creatively relevant. Because he had this theatre, along with his poetry and his magazine ‘ Ekshan ’ he did not have to look outside to sustain himself.

Shoma: What is your biggest take-away from (a)the book (b) the personality you have written about, (c) the intensive and extensive research that went into it, (d) a combination of both? Please elaborate.

Amitava: My biggest disadvantage when I write about the Bengali cinema of the ‘60s and the ‘70s is that I have not lived in the time. Experiencing something as a contemporary and reading about it decades later is not the same. For this book, I re-read all his plays, his published essays and that opened up some new paths to him, so far undiscovered. I regretted that I had not read them earlier with such passion when he was alive. I could have validated a few theories of mine, dispelled a few confusions – not only about him but about the golden period of Bengali cinema in general.

Shoma: Among his countless talents which he mastered with his incredible commitment to whatever he laid his hands on, how would you personally rank him in terms of each of these talents and why?

Amitava: I think his primary identity was that of an actor – both on screen and on stage. He was a subtle playwright and a very competent theatre director as well. Also, not to forget his role as a magazine editor, the way he and the late Nirmalya Acharya could publish writings of contemporary artists and also republish old archival material. I found this aspect of his being an archivist equally fascinating. For someone who is a romantic hero in films, projection of the Self is all but natural. While the role of a magazine editor is that of projecting new writings, new voices by staying in the background. I guess it is not easy to perform both these roles in life with similar finesse. 

Shoma: How long did the research into the book take covering the personality apart from the interpersonal talks you had with him?

Amitava: This book was envisioned only after he passed away. It took me a year or so to put all my thoughts, collect all the materials that I used. 

Generally, I plan a book in advance and structure it. It helps me in getting on with writing like a project with dates. I approach book writing based on the corporate training that I have. This book is no exception. I thought of two-three approaches, then decided to traverse the decades almost in chronological sequence and then created the Table of Contents. I did make some changes while writing, like everyone else, but on a whole the basic structure was followed.

Shoma: In what way has the actual process of planning, organizing, drafting and writing of this book turned into a learning experience for you? 

Amitava: I think every individual is driven by a few basic decisions in life based on their character traits. It is important to try to understand and look for those traits and then pursue them to paint the picture of the artist as a common man. In the world of cinema the most popular style revolves around anecdotes and gossip or hiding behind the proverbial ‘academic’ curtain. For me, neither of these two is the primary role of a biographer. A biography, to me, will show where an otherwise ordinary person transcends his or her own limits, conquers the demons that eat the soul and become extraordinary. A biography in the end should give the reader that hope to take the leap himself.

Shoma: Any last words for our readers?

Amitava: Soumitra Chatterjee is a legend of Indian cinema. He acted in more than 300 films over six decades, he was the constant hero of the extraordinary Satyajit Ray, he was a theatre director and actor himself, a playwright with three volumes of plays, a poet with twenty anthologies of poems, a painter and a doodler. Yet, despite the worldly successes, awards and accolades, deep down, he had the curiosity of a child. He could keep the candle of renaissance of wonder within him, still burning. Probably, this singular trait of being humble and curious even after all the accomplishments intrigued me enough to write this biography.

Images courtesy: Silhouette Magazine

• Amitava Nag , books , films , Shoma A. Chatterji , Soumitra Chatterjee

Shoma A. Chatterji

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

First name or full name Email

You may also like

Freedom Song

Power and Glory: Stories of India’s Women Athletes

‘The Last Courtesan: Writing My Mother’s Memoir’ by Manish Gaekwad

Laapataa Ladies: The Invisible Women

Flash Fiction 1: Cumin Seeds And Stolen Dreams

A Miniature India: Sahityotsav 2024

Photo story: Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry

Photo story: Collared Falconet

Lifestyle & gastronomique.

Where Have All The Saree-clad Pretty Women Of Kolkata Gone?

Burmese Pork Curries and Buddhist Monks

History & heritage.

Gaudi, Paella and A Little Bit of Messi Sums Up Barcelona

From An Historian’s Notebook: Netaji’s Treasure Box

As Minister, I Will Develop More Awareness on Animal Vaccinations: Rakul Preet Singh

Bird Nest – A Poem

Young minds.

A Bird’s Nest

Little Adventures of Huck Finn

Transcreations.

A Readable Translation With a Few Exceptions

The Clerk’s Wife (Keranir Bou) By Manik Bandopadhyay: Part 2

Fiction & poetry.

First Three Sonnets Of William Shakespeare

Poem: Memories

Letters and essays.

‘Amar Singh Chamkila’: A Story of Defiance Not Disrespect

From Revelry To Repentance – The Transition From Carnival To Lent

My Garden (Part Three)

Mumma’s Bindis IX: Over the Rainbow

© Copyright 2022 | Celcius Technologies Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Unauthorized copying or representation of any content, photograph, illustration or artwork from any section of this site is strictly prohibited.

Submit Your Content

Member login.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Soumitra Chatterjee – The Renaissance Bhadralok Of Bengal

2021, TMYS Review - March

For more than a month even the most atheists of Bengal have been praying for the recovery of the beloved legend Soumitra Chatterjee, hoping for a miracle. People's heart skipped a beat when on 15th November 2020, they received the news of the demise of the iconic personality, a news which they have been dreading to hear. Bengalis all over the world felt an insuperable sense of loss, a vacuum that is unbearable. Soumitra Chatterjee is a symbol of all the qualities that a progressive Bengali should encompass but is failing due to the hollow imitation of modernization of the west. He showed us the value of nourishing and respecting our own traditions and culture, yet have an insatiable zeal to know more, to embrace new ideas, have an open mind for liberal thoughts and, above all, faith in humanity. In spite of numerous personal disturbances including physical and mental health issues, he proved to every Bengali, every Indian at large, how to live a rich life. This article is a small attempt to capture Soumitra Chatterjee’s deep personality that goes beyond his role as an actor. Intentionally rejecting the path of stardom that every actor seeks, he chose a path less travelled, less popular, and perhaps that indeed made a lot of difference. With his collaboration with Ray, Chatterjee participated in the Indian New Wave films that gave Bengal a global recognition. The article is a peek into vast aesthetic spirit that is not just restricted to motion pictures. Bengal did not just lose a great actor that brought realism into fictional films, but also lost a gifted painter, a remarkable poet, a charming elocutionist, a brilliant thespian and, above all, a noble human.

Related Papers

Madhuja Mukherjee

This paper discusses the emergence and evolution of cinema in Bengal as a form of public culture since the early 20th century to its contemporary phase. Locating this cinema within the crosscurrents of political, historical and cultural transformation, the paper begins with reviewing the scholarship on Bengali cinema that has materialised over the last two decades. While a holistic history of Bengali cinema is still to be written, the scholarly works produced so far have revealed the problematic of writing such a history. We argue no linear narrative is possible, for so- called Bengali cinema, as the category of ‘regional cinema’ in India, is a product of conflicting forces, as regards to political conditions, industry, aesthetics, taste and target viewership. The construction of Bengali popular cinema, as distinct from a more widely circulated national cinema represented by the Bombay film industry, is an intriguing and complex process. This note summarising the scholarly contributions to the issue, proposes that a revisionist history of “Bengali” cinema could be possibly written, through an investigation of industry dynamics over the decades: technological transformations in filmmaking, changing economic networks of film production and distribution, publicity strategies, public cultures of film viewing, and the wide range of audiences the different forms of film have targeted, from the studio era to the present day. While shifting the focus from auteur studies and analyses of film texts as self-contained material, this ‘introduction’ propose that a new historiography of popular cinema in Bengal could be drawn by examining the dynamics of the emergence of stars and construction of stardom, along with a critical assessment of repeated success of certain genres and tropes over the decades.

South Asian History and Culture

Kaustav Bakshi

Film International, Vol 10, 4&5

Sayandeb Chowdhury

Uttam Kumar had a rewarding artistic career as the leading figure in the Bengali film industry...

Aatreyee Karmakar

As a global discourse and not merely a postcolonial phenomenon, the genres of Third cinema and Parallel cinema have been explored by Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Mrinal Sen and others to understand the struggle of lower and middle classes of Bengal. Melodrama characterizes the division between socio-political hierarchies and has been an important film form. With the new Nehruvian regime, migration of Bengali refugees from Bangladesh, massive industrialization and deindustrialization, Calcutta became a hotbed of political and social changes in the late 20th century. Howrah was the booming industrial center in the northeast because of the Hooghly industrial belt. The gap between affluent and the lower-income groups broadened. Increasingly the vicious capitalists who controlled the city disregarded the distinguished, educated middle-class bhadralok. Subalterns like women and lower classes got exploited. As much as the generation of great men were proud of their past, they lost significance in the modern and industrialized Calcutta. Through third cinema and parallel cinema the socially inferior found representation in media while melodrama recognised the changing values and aesthetics in Bengal.

Anustup Basu

This essay is a critical genealogy of Bengali cinema roughly between 1955 and 1965, as the story unfolded in the pages of Filmfare, the preeminent mainstream cinema periodical in India. It locates the question of Bengali cinema in a greater textualization of a burgeoning Indian film in the world. The account covers three lines of vision, in terms of how Bombay, as film capital, was looking to Calcutta to supply a literaryreformist guidance to an emerging national form, how Calcutta was conversing with Europe and America in a manner that almost totally bypassed the pan-Indian scenario, and how the west was also frequently looking at the cinematic universe of Satyajit Ray and his peers without any necessary refractive mediation by an all-India prism. Along the way, the essay also revisits crucial moments in the history of the Bengali film industry, both in terms of its commercial and artistic accomplishments as well as its failures to set up regular lines of exchange with other major industries like Bombay and Madras, as well as neighbours like Orissa, Assam, Burma, and what eventually became the independent country of Bangladesh.

SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

This article presents an overview of early industrial conditions in Bengal, focuses on the major studios and draws attention to emergent genres and genre overlaps. While a study on New Theatres Ltd. (NT) shows how the establishment aspired to produce ‘respectable’ films, the research conducted on Sree Bharat Lakshmi Pictures (SBLP) shows how we might reconsider the themes, styles and concerns of ‘literary’ versus ‘popular’ cinema in Bengal. Arguing for the persistence of the popular in relation to what I describe as ‘literary’, the article refers back to NT films, discusses their formal explorations and underscores the circulation of a range of other generic elements within the Bengali public sphere. I particularly examine SBLP’s Abatar (d. Premankur Atorthy, 1941), which on one hand, could be seen as a loose adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Muktadhara (The Waterfall, 1922), and on the other hand, mixes diverse elements of futurist films, comedy, documentary, etc., with the mythology. By locating Abatar within cinema-modernity deliberations, the article analyses how it operates through multiple registers and generates a complex field of possibilities. Studying the ways in which Bengali cinema borrowed from heterogeneous cultures of literature, theatre and ‘the bazaar’, this article reads Bengali films, film cultures and the mode of ‘genre-mixing’.

Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques

Binayak Bhattacharya

The article engages with the question of an exclusivity, an 'otherness' of the Bengali culture, in the available representative modes of Indian cinema. It studies the socio-cultural dynamics through which this 'otherness' can be found reorienting itself in recent years in a globalized perspective. It takes two contemporary films, Kahaani (Hindi, 2012) and Bhooter Bhobishyot (Bengali, 2012) to dwell upon. The analysis aims to historicise the construction of a cultural stereotype called 'Bengali-ness' in Indian cinema by marking some significant aspects in the course of its historical development. Using the films as cases in point, the article attempts to develop a framework in which the changing landscape of the city of Kolkata, shifting codes of the cultural habits of the middle class and reconfigured ideas about a 'Bengali nation' can be seen operating to develop a refashioned relationship between the state of Bengal and the rest of the country. It suggests that the global cultural inflow, along with the localized notions of the new, globalized Bengali-ness, are engaged in developing a new politics of representation for the city and the Bengali society in the cinemas of India.

Acta Orientalia Vilnensia

Anugyan Nag

Sabeena Gadihoke

This essay explores the rich archive of photographer Nemai Ghosh whose production stills on the sets of Satyajit Ray kept his cinema alive in popular memory. While it might appear that Ghosh was overwhelmed by the vision of Satyajit Ray, the essay explores how the documentary impulse in his work created continuity as well as rupture with the cinema of Ray and others in Bengal. Nemai Ghosh's forte lay in capturing candid moments of actors just before and after filming on the sets. These interstitial moments caught between the vision of the director and the photographer shooting a production still could be used to tease out other deeper meanings about star personas. As we look through Nemai Ghosh's larger body of work, particularly at images which may not have found public circulation as film stills, we see other kinds of mediations between the photographer, the camera and his subjects. By extricating still frames out of motion, Ghosh's photographs invite us to contemplate certain tensions between female actors, their roles and their extra cinematic lives. Recollections of these stars are layered by stories, anecdotes and popular myths. In this essay, I explore what it might mean to look back at Nemai Ghosh's images through the prism of these overlapping memories.

South Asian Review

Torsa Ghosal

RELATED PAPERS

Khaled Ghedira

Xenia Hernandez

Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology

Terry Preston

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry

Gonzalo Ochoa

THELMA FENSTER

Assiut Scientific Nursing Journal

The Journal of Economic History

Knick Harley

Patricia Xi

Cuadernos de filología clásica: Estudios latinos

Benjamín García-Hernández

ISIJ International

Sebastian Sebastian medina

tufhfgd hfdfsd

Ingeborg Schwenzer

Revista da Faculdade Mineira de Direito

Carlos M Romeo Casabona

Manoel Teixeira

Eugenie Graceillia

Anales de Historia Contemporánea

Ángeles Ramírez

Shodh Sanchar Bulletin

anjali pareek

原版复制ufv毕业证书 菲莎河谷大学毕业证硕士学历原版一模一样

Ligita Jancoriene

Drude Fugelseth

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Verbal Ability

• Interview Q

Family And Relations

He was born to Ashalata & Mohit Kumar Chatterjee. His daughter Poulami Bose was born in 1960, during his marriage to actress Deepa Chatterjee.

• Chatterjee screened positive for Covid-19 in October 2020 and is currently treated at the Belle Vue Clinic in Kolkata.
• He did not respond to the second Covid-19 test, which was performed on October 14.
• The condition became critical due to his comorbidities (urinary tract infection, changes in salt potassium levels, etc.), necessitating his admission to the intensive care unit (ICU).
• However, his health improved starting on October 13, and on October 14, he was moved from a Covid unit to a non-Covid one.
• He was kept on invasive ventilation and BiPap support for his care during the most crucial times.
• But the therapy methods changed as his health began to improve. A 16-person medical staff has been in charge of looking after him.
• His condition deteriorated on October 25.

On November 15, 2020, Chatterjee passed away in Kolkata.

Interesting Facts About Soumitra Chatterjee

• He has received the highest honor of the Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres.
• He remains the main character in most of Ray's films.
• His admission to the hospital was caused by COVID-19.

• Send your Feedback to [email protected]

Help Others, Please Share

Learn Latest Tutorials

Transact-SQL

Reinforcement Learning

R Programming

React Native

Python Design Patterns

Python Pillow

Python Turtle

Preparation

Interview Questions

Company Questions

Trending Technologies

Artificial Intelligence

Cloud Computing

Data Science

Machine Learning

B.Tech / MCA

Data Structures

Operating System

Computer Network

Compiler Design

Computer Organization

Discrete Mathematics

Ethical Hacking

Computer Graphics

Software Engineering

Web Technology

Cyber Security

C Programming

Control System

Data Mining

Data Warehouse

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Those We’ve Lost

Soumitra Chatterjee, Globally Acclaimed Indian Film Star, Dies at 85

His roles in classic movies directed by Satyajit Ray won him admiration from cinephiles and made him a hero to his fellow Bengalis.

By Alex Traub

Soumitra Chatterjee, an Indian actor who incarnated the beauty and fragility of youthful idealism in films by the director Satyajit Ray and helped solidify Mr. Ray’s place in cinematic history, died on Sunday at a hospital in Kolkata, India. He was 85.

His daughter, Poulami Bose, said the cause was brain damage and organ failure brought on by Covid-19.

Mr. Chatterjee, who appeared in more than 350 movies, rose to fame playing the title character in “ The World of Apu ” (1959). The film, the third in Mr. Ray’s famous “Apu" trilogy, cast Mr. Chatterjee in an epic role familiar from canonical works of literature: A young man imagines a glorious literary career from a shabby garret apartment in a capital city but then encounters the hard realities of adult life, which he struggles to transcend.

The role was Mr. Chatterjee’s film debut, and it catapulted him to critical notice abroad and celebrity in India.

In one memorable scene, while delivering a monologue about the novel he plans to write, Mr. Chatterjee furrows his brow with intellectual severity, strikes the faraway look of an imagination at work, pauses and points for emphasis as he narrates the plot, and finally, with arms raised in triumph, smiles with joy at the act of creation. The sequence appears to have the naturalness of improvisation, but it was actually the product of laborious preparation.

Mr. Ray’s son, Sandip, said he saw the work that Mr. Chatterjee put into his roles when he peeked at one of the actor’s scripts. “It was full of handwritten notes,” he told The Telegraph, Kolkata’s English-language daily, in a recent interview. “Every minute detail of voice modulation, pause, look, movement and whatnot was in there.”

For “The World of Apu,” Mr. Chatterjee kept a diary in which he specified what Apu was doing every moment he was offscreen. He brought the same intensity to “ Charulata ” (1964), a Ray movie about tensions in an upper-class family set in 1879, in which Mr. Chatterjee plays an aspiring poet and essayist. He spent six months mastering the 19th-century style of Bengali handwriting so that the scenes that depicted him in the act of composition could appear authentic.

The young writers Mr. Chatterjee played in “The World of Apu” and “Charulata” set a template for other characters he became known for. In Mr. Ray’s “ The Golden Fortress ” (1974), about kidnappers looking for a long-forgotten treasure, Mr. Chatterjee plays a private eye whose ambition is softened by high-mindedness and impracticality. In “ Days and Nights in the Forest ” (1969), which follows young friends on a vacation, Mr. Chatterjee’s businessman character is sardonic and self-confident but, like the aspiring writers, yearns for a different life.

His characters often wore a shabby-chic outfit of sport coats and scarves — even when, in one movie, he briefly appeared as an ash-covered coal miner.

Mr. Chatterjee had the ability to project guilelessness, sometimes as a naïf but on other occasions as a selfless hero. His performance as Feluda, Mr. Ray’s riff on Sherlock Holmes, enshrined the character as a standard-bearer of Bengali cultural values. For a crime-fighting detective, Feluda was unusually intellectual, the sort of sleuth who would blow open a case by discovering, as he does in “The Golden Fortress,” a spelling mistake in a hotel register.

Mr. Ray invented Feluda as a character in a series of children’s stories he began writing in the 1960s, which he adapted into two movies starring Mr. Chatterjee, “The Golden Fortress” and “ The Elephant God ” (1978). Since Mr. Ray’s death in 1992 at 70, there have been more than a dozen new Feluda movies with a succession of new stars, but none have come close to supplanting Mr. Chatterjee’s portrayal of Feluda in the hearts of fans.

Internationally, Mr. Chatterjee attracted an admiring audience, but it was composed mainly of critics and connoisseurs who followed Mr. Ray’s work and lived near theaters that showed foreign movies.

The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael praised Mr. Chatterjee as Mr. Ray’s “one-man stock company” and wrote in 1973 that Mr. Chatterjee and his frequent co-star, Sharmila Tagore, were “modern figures with overtones of ancient deities.”

When some of Mr. Ray’s early films were first released in the United States in the 1960s, New York Times critics called Mr. Chatterjee’s performances “ strikingly sensitive ” and “ timid, tender, sad, serene, superb .” American filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson have cited as inspirations some of the Ray movies that starred Mr. Chatterjee.

In 2015, “The World of Apu” returned to theaters across the United States as part of a restoration of the trilogy. American outlets like Criterion have made subtitled copies of movies by Mr. Ray starring Mr. Chatterjee available for streaming online.

Despite the success of their partnership, Mr. Chatterjee spoke later in life about not wanting to be seen as “a Satyajit Ray puppet.”

And yet the line between the two men sometimes blurred. While looking at Mr. Ray’s early drawings of Feluda, Mr. Chatterjee remarked that the character resembled Mr. Ray himself. “Really?” Mr. Ray replied . “Several people have told me that I’ve drawn him with you in mind.”

Soumitra Chatterjee was born on Jan. 19, 1935, in Krishnanagar, a small town in what was then the British province of Bengal. His father, Mohit Kumar Chatterjee, was a lawyer and a member of the Indian Independence Movement; his mother, Ashalata, was a homemaker. She named Soumitra after a character from Bengali literature and would, rather than sing him lullabies, recite poems by the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore .

Soumitra starred in plays held in the family’s courtyard, where bedsheets had been transformed into curtains and the aluminum foil of his parents’ cigarette packets became crowns for him and his young relatives to wear as part of their costumes.

He avoided schoolbooks, but he was reading Tolstoy at 14. He skipped class to watch movies not meant for children, but got caught when he overheard a conversation between his parents about a particular scene and chimed in.

Mr. Chatterjee moved to Kolkata to attend City College and graduated with a degree in Bengali literature. He was inspired to become a professional actor after coming under the tutelage of the Bengali actor and director Sisir Bhaduri , who advised him to understand the roles he was assigned by scanning a script for subtext like a detective searching for clues.

In 1960 he married Deepa Chatterjee, his childhood sweetheart.

After Mr. Ray launched Mr. Chatterjee to Bengali superstardom and international art-house renown, Mr. Chatterjee’s artistic ambitions expanded. He founded, with a college friend, a literary magazine, Ekkhon (Bengali for “Now”), which published the work of eminent writers like Mahasweta Devi and illustrations and scripts by Mr. Ray.

Mr. Chatterjee also wrote more than a dozen books of poems and wrote, translated, directed, produced and starred in plays. He exhibited his watercolor paintings across India.

Later in his film career, he became typecast as a genial grandpa who upheld the noble values of a bygone era in roles that were, by his own admission, “ hackneyed ” or even “ detestable .” “One feels sad for Soumitra,” one Bengali reviewer wrote.

In addition to Ms. Bose and his wife, Mr. Chatterjee is survived by his son, Sougata, and two grandchildren.

Mr. Chatterjee, who was 14 years younger than Mr. Ray, regarded him as a mentor and paid him a visit at his home every Sunday morning.

His admiration was not “based on external considerations, like how successful he was, how many awards he got or how wild people were about him,” Mr. Chatterjee said in a video interview . “I could see his artistic vision right before my eyes. It was a vast, universal vision. He had an ability to understand all of life.”

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Soumitra Chatterjee, legend of Indian cinema, dies at 85

FILE- A May 22, 1984 file photo of Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee, taken during the presentation of the Indian film “Ghare-Baire"by Bengali director Satyajit Ray at the 37th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Chatterjee, the legendary Indian actor with more than 200 movies to his name and famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, has died. He was 85. (AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz, File)

FILE- In this May 3, 2012 file photo, Bengali language film actor Soumitra Chatterjee, center, gestures after receiving the Dadasahab Phalke Award for the year 2011, as Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari, right, and Indian Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni look on, during the 59th National Film Awards in New Delhi, India. Chatterjee, the legendary Indian actor with more than 200 movies to his name and famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, has died. He was 85. (AP Photo/ Manish Swarup, File)

• Copy Link copied

NEW DELHI (AP) — Soumitra Chatterjee, the legendary Indian actor with more than 200 movies to his name and famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, died Sunday of complications from the coronavirus. He was 85.

Chatterjee’s daughter, Poulami Bose, said her father died at a hospital in the city of Kolkata in West Bengal state where he had been staying since testing positive for the virus in early October. He is also survived by his wife and a son.

Chatterjee had a career in Bengali-language films that spanned six decades and was best known for his work with Ray, one of the world’s most influential Indian directors, whose films garnered critical acclaim and won multiple awards worldwide, putting India on the global cinema map.

Chatterjee’s films with Ray that won global recognition include “Apur Sansar” (“The World of Apu”), the third in the director’s internationally recognized Apu Trilogy, “Charulata” (“The Lonely Wife”), “Aranyer Din Ratri” (“Days and Nights in the Forest”), “Ghare Baire” (“The Home and the World”) and “Ganashatru” (“Enemy of the People”).

Telegraph India, an English-language newspaper published in Kolkata, wrote in its obituary for Chatterjee that he had a 14-title body of work with director Ray “that would have ensured him immortality even if he hadn’t done anything else in life.”

Despite his immense popularity in Bengali-language cinema, Chatterjee stayed away from Bollywood. But for 90 million Bengalis, he was a cultural icon and an unforgettable star.

“International, Indian and Bengali cinema has lost a giant,” tweeted Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal’s chief minister. “We will miss him dearly. The film world in Bengal has been orphaned.”

In 2012, Chatterjee was awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honor in Indian cinema. In 2017, he became the first Indian film personality conferred with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest award for artists.

Before embarking on his film career in 1959, Chatterjee worked as an announcer at All India Radio in Kolkata. He was also an accomplished playwright and a poet.

In a 2016 interview, Chatterjee displayed his indomitable spirit to act even at an old age.

“I have a fear: If I don’t work, I won’t exist,” he said.

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Sheikh Saaliq, Associated Press Sheikh Saaliq, Associated Press

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/soumitra-chatterjee-legend-of-indian-cinema-dies-at-85

Soumitra Chatterjee, legend of Indian cinema, dies at 85

NEW DELHI — Soumitra Chatterjee, the legendary Indian actor with more than 200 movies to his name and famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, died Sunday of complications from the coronavirus. He was 85.

Chatterjee’s daughter, Poulami Bose, said her father died at a hospital in the city of Kolkata in West Bengal state where he had been staying since testing positive for the virus in early October. He is also survived by his wife and a son.

Chatterjee had a career in Bengali-language films that spanned six decades and was best known for his work with Ray, one of the world’s most influential Indian directors, whose films garnered critical acclaim and won multiple awards worldwide, putting India on the global cinema map.

Chatterjee’s films with Ray that won global recognition include “Apur Sansar” (“The World of Apu”), the third in the director’s internationally recognized Apu Trilogy, “Charulata” (“The Lonely Wife”), “Aranyer Din Ratri” (“Days and Nights in the Forest”), “Ghare Baire” (“The Home and the World”) and “Ganashatru” (“Enemy of the People”).

Telegraph India, an English-language newspaper published in Kolkata, wrote in its obituary for Chatterjee that he had a 14-title body of work with director Ray “that would have ensured him immortality even if he hadn’t done anything else in life.”

Despite his immense popularity in Bengali-language cinema, Chatterjee stayed away from Bollywood. But for 90 million Bengalis, he was a cultural icon and an unforgettable star.

“International, Indian and Bengali cinema has lost a giant,” tweeted Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal’s chief minister. “We will miss him dearly. The film world in Bengal has been orphaned.”

In 2012, Chatterjee was awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honor in Indian cinema. In 2017, he became the first Indian film personality conferred with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest award for artists.

Before embarking on his film career in 1959, Chatterjee worked as an announcer at All India Radio in Kolkata. He was also an accomplished playwright and a poet.

In a 2016 interview, Chatterjee displayed his indomitable spirit to act even at an old age.

“I have a fear: If I don’t work, I won’t exist,” he said.

Support Provided By: Learn more

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

Advertisement

Soumitra Chatterjee, legend of Indian cinema, dies at 85

The Associated Press Staff

FILE- In this May 3, 2012 file photo, Bengali language film actor Soumitra Chatterjee, center, gestures after receiving the Dadasahab Phalke Award for the year 2011, as Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari, right, and Indian Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni look on, during the 59th National Film Awards in New Delhi, India. (AP Photo/ Manish Swarup, File)

NEW DELHI -- Soumitra Chatterjee, the legendary Indian actor with more than 200 movies to his name and famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, died Sunday of complications from the coronavirus. He was 85.

Chatterjee's daughter, Poulami Bose, said her father died at a hospital in the city of Kolkata in West Bengal state where he had been staying since testing positive for the virus in early October. He is also survived by his wife and a son.

Chatterjee had a career in Bengali-language films that spanned six decades and was best known for his work with Ray, one of the world's most influential Indian directors, whose films garnered critical acclaim and won multiple awards worldwide, putting India on the global cinema map.

• Newsletter sign-up: Get The COVID-19 Brief sent to your inbox

Chatterjee's films with Ray that won global recognition include "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu"), the third in the director's internationally recognized Apu Trilogy, "Charulata" ("The Lonely Wife"), "Aranyer Din Ratri" ("Days and Nights in the Forest"), "Ghare Baire" ("The Home and the World") and "Ganashatru" ("Enemy of the People").

Telegraph India, an English-language newspaper published in Kolkata, wrote in its obituary for Chatterjee that he had a 14-title body of work with director Ray "that would have ensured him immortality even if he hadn't done anything else in life."

Despite his immense popularity in Bengali-language cinema, Chatterjee stayed away from Bollywood. But for 90 million Bengalis, he was a cultural icon and an unforgettable star.

"International, Indian and Bengali cinema has lost a giant," tweeted Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal's chief minister. "We will miss him dearly. The film world in Bengal has been orphaned."

In 2012, Chatterjee was awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema. In 2017, he became the first Indian film personality conferred with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest award for artists.

Before embarking on his film career in 1959, Chatterjee worked as an announcer at All India Radio in Kolkata. He was also an accomplished playwright and a poet.

In a 2016 interview, Chatterjee displayed his indomitable spirit to act even at an old age.

"I have a fear: If I don't work, I won't exist," he said.

Full coverage at CTVNews.ca/Coronavirus

Tracking every case of COVID-19 in Canada

'It's time for the hammer' to get second wave under control: Dr. Sharkawy

Record 494 COVID-19 cases reported in Manitoba Sunday

Ontario reports spike in COVID-19 deaths, more than 1,200 new infections

COVID-19 counts continue to rise as Canada approaches 300,000 cases

COVID-19-positive B.C. woman on ventilator gives birth via emergency C-section

BioNTech scientist: Vaccine could halve virus transmission

German ads hail 'couch potatoes' as heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic

Pandemic aggravates opioid crisis as overdoses rise and services fall out of reach

As pharmaceutical execs sell shares worth millions, questions arise

Five provinces break COVID-19 records as new measures take effect

How a COVID-19 vaccine could change travel for good

Canadian companies uncover market for mask accessories amid COVID-19

More Entertainment Stories

'Wheel of Fortune': Vanna White bids an emotional goodbye to Pat Sajak

Bell Media's 10 FAST channels set to launch on Plex, Roku Channel

Frustrated soccer fans sue over Lionel Messi no-show at Vancouver Whitecaps game

Netflix faces US$170 million 'Baby Reindeer' defamation lawsuit

Bell's fall/winter lineup adds Arnett comedy, drops Screen Award-winning 'Bria Mack'

Drake places $500K bet on Edmonton Oilers to win Stanley Cup Final

Que. students accuse teacher of profiting off their artwork

Car thefts in Canada: Insurance companies face criticism

$50K reward offered in case of missing Barrie, Ont. woman

Ctvnews.ca top stories.

Lecce out as education minister in major Ontario government cabinet shuffle

Search suspended for overdue mountaineers near Squamish, B.C.

Ont. powerlifter battles back after catching mild cold that turned into rare and deadly disease

2 dead after crash at private motorsports park in B.C.'s Okanagan

Ontario woman forced to pay $23K medical bill after heart attack abroad despite travel insurance

Over 1.2 million rechargeable lights are under recall for fire hazards, following one reported death

Caught on cam: Giraffe picks up toddler during feeding

N.Y. magnet fisher strikes gold, reels in safe full of cash

Motorcyclist recalls jumping off bridge to avoid road rager