Soumitra Chattopadhyay: Bangla cinema’s Alt Superstar (OBITUARY)

BY VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY He was the alt superstar of Bangla cinema in its glory years, the affable Bhadralok icon who crafted a towering stature ironically banking on down-to-earth, believable characters that represented middle-class Bengal. The brand of stardom was in stark contrast to the other shining luminary of contemporary cinema in the state — Uttam Kumar — whose position as Mahanayak in the Bengali psyche was primarily cemented in idol worship and mass hysteria.
Soumitra Chattopadhyay — Chatterjee to anglicised India — answers to the term ‘phenomenon’ as absolutely as few actors do, for the sheer ease with which he defied the cliches of image. His stardom was sensational, and yet born out of realism. He was the mascot of the peerless Satyajit Ray’s oeuvre, having worked with the maestro in 14 films, and yet he scored with the same assuredness in works of contemporary commercial powerhouses as Ajoy Kar and Tarun Mazumdar. He is the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (2012) and Padma Bhushan (2004) recipient who was also honoured with the Legion d’Honneur (2018) in France for his contribution to world cinema.
Importantly, Soumitra Chattopadhyay’s greatness as a screen icon will survive the test of time in Bengali pop lore because he had something for everyone. For, he was not just Satyajit Ray’s Apu. Beyond such a nuanced portrayal, he could also simply become Ray’s Feluda and reach out to every audience, eight to 80.
It took a Ray to bring to life Soumitra’s greatness, and yet the account of their first meeting is a well-known story in Bengal. Ray was looking for his adult Apu in “Apur Sansar”, final part of the Apu trilogy that started with “Pather Panchali”. A friend introduced Soumitra to the master filmmaker who promptly declared the budding actor looked too old to be Apu, a college student according to his script. Soumitra would eventually bag the role opposite Sharmila Tagore, of course, and the rest is history.
Soumitra’s cinematic fate is overwhelmingly dictated by the great cinema of Satyajit Ray, so much so the maestro’s filmography through his most important phase outlines the actor’s career graph. Soumitra made his debut with “Apur Sansar” (1959) and, over the next three decades, would work in Ray projects as “Devi” (1960), “Teen Kanya” (1961), “Abhijan” (1962), “Charulata” (1964), “Kapurush O Mahapurush” (1965), “Aranyer Din Ratri” (1969), “Ashani Sanket” (1973), “Sonar Kella” (1974), “Joy Baba Felunath” (1978), “Hirak Rajar Deshe” (1980), “Ghare Baire” (1984), “Ganashatru” (1989) and “Shakha Proshakha” (1990).
It was a filmography that Ray, one of the world’s greatest filmmakers ever, shared with his chosen on-screen emissary. But if Ray worked with Soumitra 14 times, almost every major filmmaker the actor collaborated with also tended to repeat him. If anything, beyond underlining his credential as an artiste that fact stands a testimony to his professionalism and disposition as a human being.