Director's act

There’s an actor in every director, says film maker Goutam Ghose about his new role.

Role reversals in the Indian film industry usually take place in one direction: actors turn into directors. But national award-winning film maker Goutam Ghose has done the opposite. Having directed great films like Paar, Antarjali Yatra, Kalbela, Padma Nadir Majhi, Abar Aranye and Moner Manush, some of which have a cult following, Ghose is now facing the camera as an eccentric poet in Srijit Mukherjee’s 22shey Srabon.

Ghose does not consider it to be a “transformation” of a director to an actor? “It’s a director’s job to make people act and I, from behind the camera, have directed hosts of actors, from stalwarts to novices. I believe there’s an actor in every director,” he says.

 

In 22shey Srabon, Ghose plays a failed poet of Bengal’s Hungry Generation. “Srijit Mukherjee (economist-turned-actor-director) and Bumba (Prosenjit Chatterjee) requested me to do the role and I was impressed with the character of this Hungryalist poet,” says Ghose. The Hungryalist Movement was an avant-garde literary movement in Bengali that was launched in 1961.

“I personally knew many poets of the Hungry Generation; why were they rejected and condemned by society? Srijit gave me a free hand to improvise on the character with my own experience and inputs,” says Ghose. His close association with members of the Hungry Generation has enabled him to capture meticulous details of a poet’s frustrations and his rejection of society. Ghose has himself penned the two poems on the lines of the Hungryalist poets which are part of the film.

This, however, isn’t Ghose’s first film as an actor. He has earlier acted in Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Grihajuddha. The 1984 film based on the Naxal movement in Bengal had him playing a reporter.

Ghose says he owes his understanding of acting to his guru Prithvis Bhattacharjee. “I did receive some stage acting training from Prithvisda and did theatre earlier. Perhaps this has helped me understand the various angles of acting,” says Ghose.

“Goutamda is one of the most prepared actors. He is incredibly focused, yet he puts everyone on the sets at ease,” says Mukherjee whose earlier film, his directorial debut Autograph (2010), was a huge hit. “The character he plays is from Bengali cultural past and only he could have done justice to it,” he says.

Ghose, however, says Indian film acting is yet to meet international standards. “The Indian film industry is stardom-based. A film is not judged by the acting, and actors are conscious in front of the camera in comparison to their Iranian counterparts who have attained great heights. Their acting is natural and devoid of any conscious effort,” says Ghose. “The actors, ideally, must be like a blank sheet of paper on which a director must be allowed to install the character.”

Ghose is currently working in Sandipan Roy’s Ekla Akash where he plays the role of a teacher. He is also working on his next directorial project, Simply Lala. “It’s an Indo-Italian multi-linguistic co-production in English, Hindi and Italian and is expected to hit the screens by next year,” he says.

So does Ghose’s screen presence add to the success of film? “I have been a cinematographer, a music composer, a photographer and now an actor. I have enjoyed each and every role, but I prefer to remain a director,” says Ghose. “I am in no competition and have no competitor.”