Mrinal Sen – författare

One of the greatest ambassadors of Indian cinema on the global stage, Mrinal Sen has always seen his life and work as part of the social and political fabric of his time. Considered the enfant terrible of Indian cinema when he broke on the scene in the 1960s and ’70s, Sen today is known for his films that capture moments of truth in the ordinary lives of ordinary people. His masterfully subtle and nuanced portraits of urban class tension, leftist politics, and the city of Calcutta itself—which Sen has called his El Dorado—set his cinema apart from that of his contemporaries.Montage encapsulates half a century of filmmaking. A first-of-its-kind anthology, it includes original writings—memoirs, letters, musings on politics, literature, theater, and cinema; critiques of contemporaries such as Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, as well as inspirations such as Charlie Chaplin and a host of international filmmakers, especially those from Latin America—and intensive interviews with scholars and critics. The result is a unique montage, revealing both the filmmaker and the man, mapping a unique creative landscape, and offering valuable insights into his acclaimed films.

Time flies, films fill the cans. Chaplin continues to remain a little man, a clown, bewildered by a world that has no place for him. He looks around and stands before the mirror. He confronts his double. The double stands for untold evil. He paces back and forth and comes to realise that the world is sliding into crisis. The history of the world takes a turn, hopes and beliefs are belied, everything is topsy-turvy. He stands between the two Great Wars, the First and the Second. He knows that he will no more be quite so nice, that the people who have liked him vaguely will have to make up their minds, as the author does in this slim yet irreplaceable book on the eternal tramp.

An outspoken memoir by a much-celebrated Indian filmmaker.  “I am a filmmaker by accident and an author by compulsion,” claims Mrinal Sen, who became part of the great triumvirate of Bengali cinema—along with Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak—in the 1950s and ’60s when he founded the rebellious Indian New Wave. Throughout his career, he kept that fire of protest burning, his acute political awareness and left-wing orientation spurring his creativity. Over decades, the themes that pervaded his cinema mirrored the spectrum of human suffering and experience, and in turn crystallized the anger of a restive mind against social injustice, economic deprivation, and communal divide. In this memoir, a celebrated ambassador of Indian cinema on the global stage, for whom cinema became a lexicon that gave voice to the times, reflects on encounters with the legends of the world of images as well as his inspirations and obsessions—not least among them, the city of Calcutta. Always Being Born is a fascinating memoir of a great artist and a buoyant social commentator who continued to confront, fight, and survive on the very challenges that propelled him to look beyond and dream.