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Filming a game of chess

The nitty-gritty of film production largely remain a behind-the-scenes affair with an occasional article or write-up by some member of…

Filming a game of chess

The nitty-gritty of film production largely remain a behind-the-scenes affair with an occasional article or write-up by some member of the production unit or a performance artist illuminating the reader with unknown and often very interesting details. But exceptions also happen once in a while when we get to read the details of how a film was conceived, produced and directed. It tells us about the love-hate relationship that often develops between the producer and director and members of his production team. The present book under review is written by Suresh Jindal who was the producer of Satyajit Ray’s only Hindi/Urdu film, Shatranj Ke Khilari.

An electronics engineer by training, Jindal got interested in cinema while studying at the UCLA, US, in the late 1960s and he was among the producers who made possible the dreams of filmmakers working outside the mainstream. So after his film Rajanigandha became a hit in 1974, and after listening to Satyajit Ray’s address delivered at the convocation of the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, he decided to approach Ray in case he was interested in making a film for a larger audience than his past films had been able to attract.

What followed next was his first meeting with Ray and how gradually his dream became true when the director agreed to make his first Hindi film based on a story by Premchand. Ray warned Jindal at the beginning that it would be a very expensive film and Jindal instantly agreed to finance it by offering an envelope with a contractual signing amount. He received his first shock when Ray told him clearly that he didn’t work that way.

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If he were to work together, Jindal would have to work his way. First he would write a draft of the screenplay and if it was satisfactory, then he would discuss money. From this point onwards began a long series of correspondence between Ray and Jindal. These letters tell us a lot about how a project begins, goes haywire in the middle due to minor misunderstandings, and then finally reaches a fruitful conclusion.

Beginning from 26 March 1975, these previously unpublished letters (signed initially as Satyajit Ray and then as Manik da) and continuing for almost a decade, along with Jindal’s replies, trace the trajectory of the film’s development and offer a peek into Ray’s mind and style of working. They piece together the inside story of the making of The Chess Players. We often read about people mourning the loss of the epistolary form of narrative, and here at least we feel thankful that the correspondence between Ray and Jindal (written in the pre-Internet days) were so meticulously preserved.

Though it is not possible to mention in detail everything that happened, some of Ray’s sentences are worth quoting here. At the outset he had warned Jindal that the adaptation was not going to be “an easy job”, that he would try to get “a working knowledge of Urdu” before he actually started shooting, and that “about 70 per cent of the film will have nothing to do with what one normally associates with a historical film, but for the rest (they) shall need all the trappings”. So for him, “the greatest problem, of course, was to interweave the background and the foreground.” Even when he was writing the script, Ray confessed to Jindal that he was “convinced that The Chess Players will be a landmark — and a simple film to understand — and not unmanageably expensive”. In the end he himself declared it to be “a great film” and for a “specialised audience”.

The small sections of Suresh’s narrative that come within the letters clearly profess the admiration and high esteem in which he held Ray. Some of his observations of course seem already well-known. For instance, he says, “A Ray film was solely his film: He wrote it, directed it, operated the camera (even if he had a designated cameraman), edited it, composed the music and designed the sets and the publicity materials.” At another point he states, “Ray was truly a Renaissance man.

There seemed to be nothing that he could not do.” And even though all decisions were made by him, he kept his ego out of the process; if someone came up with a better suggestion, he was open to it. He tried to resist being bullied by people who were bent on driving a wedge between Ray and him. Eventually when the misunderstandings were cleared and their relationship returned to an even keel, Jindal declared that for him, Ray would “always be a guru and a bodhisattva.” He said that he had never met a more practical filmmaker than him, nor had he seen or heard of a director more considerate towards his producers in his 25 years in cinema.

When the film was finally released Ray had wanted — and hoped — that the film would be shown in cinemas nationwide, but that was not to be. Though international response was generally very positive, Ray insisted that from their side they should create the impression that it was “a special kind of a movie”. From Jindal’s letter on 27 July 1978 we get to know that Shatranj ke Khilari had wiped out his total liquidity and the recovery depended on overseas sales.

He was, he states “on the verge of crumbling like a sugar cookie”. He even wanted to go back to the university to rebuild his optimism and drive for an ideal cinema but never doubted the final value of the film. Later when he wrote to Ray that he wanted to make another film with him, the director politely refused. In the end Jindal states that Manik da and he continued to be in touch throughout the remaining years of his life, by phone, by letter, at film festivals and during his visits to Calcutta. Their relationship remained as warm and friendly as it had been at the beginning, and thereafter, most of the time.

Here one must also add that 32 pages of colour photographs, a Foreword by Jean-Claude Carriere, an Introduction by Andrew Robinson and a very attractive cover design by Pinaki De, all add up to the appeal of the book. Written in a very lucid style, this volume is a collector’s item not only for all Ray fans but also for anyone interested to learn about the history of film production. As Carriere rightly points out, even if we don’t belong to the world of cinema (and we don’t need to in order to enjoy this book), we partake of the desires, the worries, the hesitations, the difficulties and also the joys these two men faced along the way in making a great film. A good read indeed.

 

(The reviewer is professor of English, Visva-Bharati University)

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