Nayak : The Hero (1966) – A Journey Within
If you talk of Bengali movies there are directors whom you watch out and then there is The Director, whom you look up to. If you talk of Bengali movies there are actors whom you watch out and then there is The Actor[1], whom you watch with dropping jaws. And when these two gods of Bengali filmdom meet what you have is – “The Movie”. The orchestrated product of two biggest geniuses, titled Nayak [The Hero] stands out in the test of time, an equally favourite among the generations gone by and the generation next. Blame it on my Bengali genes but that’s exactly what you can summarize Nayak in a few lines.
Plotline
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A famous film actor Arindam Mukherji (Uttam Kumar), a star of Bengali films, has been invited to the capital to receive a prestigious award. As all the flights are booked, he is forced to travel by a train from Calcutta to New Delhi. He is in a foul mood as the morning’s papers are filled with his being involved in an altercation and his latest film is slated to become his first flop.In the restaurant car, he meets Aditi (Sharmila Tagore), a young journalist who edits a serious women’s magazines. Filled with contempt for the likes of him, she secretly plans to interview him because she thinks it would make a saleable ‘copy’. It soon leads to him pouring out his life history. Aditi takes notes, surreptitiously. Critical of the star, she interrogates him and the star ends up re-examining his life. In a series of conversations with Aditi, he reveals his past and guilt.
He talks about Shankarda, his mentor, taking us back to his early youth. His selling out to films and giving up theatre against the wishes of his old teacher… His first day’s shoot, and he being snubbed by a successful actor Mukunda Lahiri. A few years later Mukunda Lahiri, now a forgotten actor after a series of flops, comes to him to beg for a small part. He rejects the ageing actor in revenge. His taking refuse in alcohol. And his refusing to help a friend in politics.
In the fag end of the train journey, he is drunk and contemplates suicide. He asks the conductor to fetch Aditi. He begins to confess an affair with a married woman. But Aditi stops him. It was an affair with a heartless and ambitious Promila, which ended in a brawl with her husband.
As the star re-lives and examines his life with Aditi, a bond develops between them. Aditi realises that in spite of his fame and success, Arindam is a lonely man, and needs her sympathy and understanding. Out of respect for his frank confession, she chooses to suppress the story and tears up the notes she has written. She lets the hero preserve his public image.
[sourced from SatyajitRay.org]
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If you watch the movie it does not take a Sherlock Holmes to guess that when Ray wrote the lead role he had written it entirely with Uttamkumar in mind. So it’s no wonder that Uttamkumar while playing his own persona adds flesh to character with all that he had in his armory – His glamour, His trademark mannerism and His larger-than-life screen presence. See the way he simply sits casually by the glass window in the dinning-car with the people jumping to catch a glimpse of their favourite star when the train stops at a station. It looks just like an ordinary day in a rather used to exposure super-star’s life than a person trying to impersonate that non-chalancy.
Almost like the actor is sleep-walking the role. But what distinguishes Nayak from other Uttamkumar films is, what is not seen in anywhere else to this extent, that he portrays the character’s (or rather his own ) inner conflicts as well. Just take the scene where he’s talking to his friend about his frustration after his first release when is telling that the role could’ve been executed in a better way. He knows at the same time that his established co-actors are deliberately trying to pull him down by down-playing him and that he could’ve done the role in much better manner. In one single scene he brings out his hunger for success, his frustration and determination. To think of it, all of this done in a crisp 2-3 minutes of screen time.
Another scene that jumps to the mind is when he’s on the verge of committing suicide and stands in the train door, with light-and-shade playing on his face for a few moments. No dialogue, no music except for the chugging noise of train’s motion. And in that moment even the most cold-hearted of the viewers will feel sorry for this man, who even after achieving all that he could and perhaps more is still a sad lonely man. A great movie is always like a journey, where the lead character(s) pull(s) you with the strongest grip into the engrossed voyage of the script. Maybe the Nayak’s train journey could be interpreted just a metaphor to this voyage.
Being a Ray movie there always is touch of his brilliance where he brings home his ideas with simplicity of a Kindergarten teacher. Like when the one-time-great-now-past-by-expiry-date actor Mukunda Lahiri (who incidentally tried to down-play Arindam in his struggling years) comes to Arindam’s house to ask for a role. Mukunda is still hopeful that his voice that had mesmerized viewers for so long still holds the magic. Arindam tells him, quite rudely, that modern movie is not about voice modulations but rather about expressions and the aged actor can forget his second comeback.[2] Again in a 3-4 liner conversation Ray encompasses a journey of Bengali movie-making when it shred the excess baggage of melodramatic theatrical dialogue-based past. In fact Ray strongly believed, “The best technique is the one that’s not noticeable”. This movie in a quite contradictory way carries a testimony of his belief, which is noticed after multiple viewing and dissection of each and individual scenes.
Even each one of the small cameos has their share of screen presence, that Ray uses this film to bring out the hypocrisy that exists at different levels of society. To make his point he has a snob corporate boss who thinks that film stars are all sub-human creatures of low moral standards. At the same time he is equally flattered by the gesture of a advertising executive who pushes his wife to do the sales pitch. This vendor played by the hugely talented Kamu Mukherji[3] hates his wife’s acting ambition yet forces his wife to put an extra acting effort to be extra-friendly towards the prospective client. Any movie that forays from the genre of mediocre to classic, be it yesteryear’s Sholay or present day’s Omkara leaves its unique mark not only by acting skills of lead protagonists but equally strong performances by the so-called one-dimensional side-characters. Nayak scores an almost perfect ten in this rating scale too.
The only scene in the entire movie that might be a prospective score in the game of odd-man-out is probably Arindam’s dream sequence where he is visited by his mentor Shankar-da. This one scene is a bit far-fetched although the justification could possibly be being a dream sequence the director took his liberties. And this was the 60s, when the Freudian influence of dreams and interpretation on creative folks was yet to wear off. ( Try to remember the usage of recurring image the galloping horse in Zanjeer. And that was a even later 1973 production. ) . Also Sharmila Tagore’s potrayal of the journo could be in a politically correct fashion described as just appropriate. In other words she never added any extra dimension to this character, leaving a scope of the viewers to yearn for more. [4]
And I might rot in hell if I don’t mention that the whole train journey scenes (except for one or two shots of the train from outside) were actually shot inside a studio set. Although not very much aware of how much technologically advanced Tollygunge studios might have been in 1966, but my most optimistic guess would be way-way below water-mark. Yet no where, not a single shot in the frame, not a single time in multiple viewing the artificiality of an indoor shot is to be revealed. Ray’s favourite team members of art director Bansi Chandragupta and cinematographer Subrata Mitra showed their usual high-standards of technical brilliance.
Before I’m carried away with all superlative adjectives in my vocabulary for all most everything in the movie, let me cut it short by sharing one trivia about this movie. The movie ended with Uttamkumar getting down from the train with his suitcase in his hand. In a later day interview he said to one of the journalists, that if the movie was about his life, then this is where even the great Ray had gone wrong. Ever since he attained his stardom, Uttam Kumar never carried his own briefcases himself. But no-one would ever know that why he didn’t share this view with the director. Was it that he wanted to save it for a later day revelation of a mistake from an almost perfect director? Or like all other actors who acted in his films, Uttamkumar too was much more awestruck with the great director to remind him of a change in an otherwise nearly perfect movie?
Do watch it; it’s one of those movies that never grow old even after repetitive views.
[1] In case someone thinks he’s over-hyped in Bengal and a big failure at Hindi movies, it was because neither his looks nor his Hindi dialouge delivery had that edge that is needed for a typical or even non-typical Bollywood hero. But that no way takes away the iconic status he attained in Bengali movies. Infact at his peak he was single handedly responsible for the golden era of Bengali mainstream movies.
[2] This could be a fictional account of the initial rivalry that Uttam Kumar faced with that time Tollygung biggie Bikas Roy whose main stress in acting was on his voice modulations rather than other aspects of the trade. Ironically later years Bikas Roy played villian character to many Uttam starer hits.
[3]Sadly his movie appearances were only restricted to a couple of Ray’s movies. He was one of the regular members of Ray’s production unit. The only movie where he got a full fledged role was Sonar Kella [The Golden Fortress] and till date the movie is remembered for power-packed performance from Kamu and Santosh Mukherji (whose potrayal of the character Jatayu in this Feluda movie prompted Ray to change the illustration of later books to resemble this actor).
[4] After Ray’s death, Sharmila Tagore raised a quite a furore among Bengali movie lovers when she said that Ray never allowed freedom to his artists. Regular actors in Ray’s movies like Soumitra Chatterji, Rabi Ghosh, Madhavi said otherwise. Me thinks Ray gauged the capabilities and limitations of his actors and allowed them degrees of freedom they deserve.
Tags: Bengali
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Great article Bishu. Keep it coming. Keep recommending movies which u tht are classics.
Thanks, Bishu. Didn’t really liked Ray until I rediscovered him through Shonar Killa. Then hunted the bookshops to read up all his Feluda stories and discovered Shonku in the process. Goopi gayn, Bagha bayn – can we have a post on that please?
Hi Bishu
Thanks for this.
Ray is the singular most exhaustive resource on cinema available in India.
His films are addictive yet painful to absorb.
I have seen the Apu trilogy, Nayak, jana aranya, devi and charulata.
Its funny but I have a Bengali friend called Bishu who introduced me to Ray.
Talking about Nayak, I would not say it is the best as to me, all of his films work wonders in one way or the other,
and create some hard to erase memories of celluloid.
Nayak worked because of its simplistic tone, a conversationalist approach, a subtle sarcasm and social commentary,
and brilliant performances. The film veers to some fantastical realms when it begins to take the protagonist to self-doubt.
The things that simply blew me away were the depth of research and detailing,
the realistic portrayal of a
@Sudhir: Thanx a lot yaar. Hang on to your seat belt….PFC-ians are comming with more and more recommenadations at a PC near you
@WB: Yes Ray’s stories are some of the finest in Bengali lit.His “Dozen” series of short stories leaves the reader stunned.A friend is going to Kolkata soon…will ask him to get me the GuGa-BaBa DVD.
@Tushar: The simplistic tone was a trademark for Ray.And maybe that’s why most of his films worked commercially as well. My friend Arnab aka GreatBong did a series on Apu trio, that was quite an honest review of Ray. Will try to post on more of his films, especially Charulata that could be a wonderful study of how a 3 page story can be converted to a 3 hrs movie script.
ps: Bishu is very a common Bong nick-name. Infact somebody once told me that 99% of Tagore’s lunatic characters has the name Bishu…hmm, that quite explains my character traits. :d
Bishu, nice post. Very informative and intersting. Have seen the film ages ago.But now when I think back the first visual that comes to mind…is the dream sequence. Dont know why but that scene has stuck with me n to some extent shaped my life’s philosophy as well….currency notes all across…flying n lying all over…n uttam kumar enjoying that first and then trying to escape it…but cant.
Oh…i never knew that it was shot in studio.
Phoenixnu: The reason the dream sequence didn’t
work for me was the plain-ness that was used to
depict Arindam’s greed. It’s a dream – you can
have more surreality than showing a guy getting
drowned in money stacks.Then again that’s my
char-anni.. maybe I’m spoilt by Ray’s greatness.
However a lot of folks I know swear by that
scene.
Thank you, Bishu! I’ve watched GGBB almost 15 years ago, when it was shown on DD one late night (must be when Ray passed away, not sure).. and I still remember that demons dance scene from the movie, till date.. awesome effects… in black & white! Hard to find a bong movie rental place – I should say a good desi movie rental place – in this land, where BF is yet to be released and Happy Feet is the biggest hit.
Bishu, u r rit. Damn rite. Anyone can do that. But i remember watching it during my school days when i almost a kiddo but dont know why n how that image has since then stuck with me.
wb…i love teh music piece too of GGBB…i still like hmming it in that nasal tone…the way the ghost sings. I think its himesh reshammiya reborn!!
LOL, phoenix!!!=))
In those technologically challenged days of no
computer graphics the ghost scene in GGBB was
done with people wearing black
dresses dancing with the lights . In a black and
white film it looked like a lot of lights
flickring around giving it a spooky feeling.I
read somewhere that the voice of the Ghost King
was by none-other than Ray himself (ofcourse with
a little bit manupulation in the studio for the
nasal cue).
If that’s true Reshmiya atleast boast where he got
his inspiration from :d
I once saw the video of the sequence from GGBB on youtube. it was way better than any of the trance or psychedelic videos that we have ever seen.
pucca-drugged. my praise for Ray went ‘high’er.