Dev Benegal writes about his only guru in cinema the legendary cameraman Subrata Mitra who died December 08, 2001. This is the article which originally appeared in the MidDay, Bombay.
2001. What a year it has been!
George Harrison, Douglas Adams, Subrata Mitra.
Subrata who? Precisely.
The film festival in Bombay this year seemed incomplete. I was missing Subrata Mitra; a permanent fixture of any film festival.
I missed his presence, his kurta, the thick framed spectacles from another era, his stubby pencil, his fat address book which he stubbornly used even though we had tested all the possible digital diaries available on this planet, the way he stirred his coffee; holding his spoon in his nicotine stained fingers, stirring, pausing and then stirring again.
I missed someone who was passionate about films, someone who fretted about scheduling, about which films to see, about the quality of projection, of image, of lighting and about filmmaking itself. Someone who cared about every little detail that went into filmmaking.
Subrata Mitra was obsessive about details. “God is in the details,” he would say quoting the architect Mies van der Rohe and also echoing what Satyajit Ray said, “It’s details that make cinema.” It was the attention to detail that made Subrata what he was. On an Indian Airlines flight he took a white plastic cup cut it in half, fitted it onto his still camera converting it into an incident light meter. It was as accurate as the professional one he had which cost him over $400! In many ways he was a techno geek before they were even invented.
But where was cinema in all this?
Born in 1930 Subrata Mitra wanted to become an architect or a cameraman. When Jean Renoir was making ‘The River’ in Calcutta Subrata tried to get a job as a camera assistant but failed. Stubborn as he was, he would tell me years later, he didn’t take no for an answer, hung around and followed the unit with his little notebook in which he wrote and made meticulous sketches. This paid off, for later the cameraman Claude Renoir was asking Subrata for his notes on the film to check on his own lighting schemes. It was here that he met a young illustrator working in an advertising agency and planning his first feature film- Satyajit Ray. Ray wanted to break away from the conventional lighting styles followed in the commercial cinema of Calcutta and looked towards the 21 year old science graduate to photograph his feature ‘Pather Panchali.’
Henri Cartier Bresson was there inspiration and while the two had appreciated the light and contrast in Cartier-Bresson photographs they had never seen any of this in cinema. In Aparajito, Ray’s second film Subrata introduced ‘bounce lighting’ in cinema. He achieved his special quality of light by stretching a white cloth across the open courtyard of the set they had built in a studio. Placing studio lights below he bounced them off of the cloth to simulate a diffused daylight feel. Bounce lighting was born and people who saw those early Ray films in the 50′s and 60′s were shocked by the look and photography; they had never seen anything like this before! Subrata had begun a revolution.
In the days before instant video monitoring , instant video replay and digital gizmos, cinematography was the dark art and the cinematographer it’s wizard with the array of secret charms and spells he could bind you in.
Subrata Mitra mentioned to me that it was in nature and life around him that he found his inspiration for lighting. He’d always look for a natural source; a window, a skylight, a lamp and then use that to light up the scene. But more than lighting it was the quality of exposure, the texture of the skin, a fine eye for details that were an inescapable mark of films that he waved his wand over.
Unlike others at his time he didn’t keep this a dark secret either. His passion was to share information, to draw students, his crew and anyone else into his world. He’d take pains to explain his lighting style and in moments of doubt wouldn’t hesitate to turn to his assistants and say, “what should the exposure be?”
While filming Split Wide Open before we would set exposure, I would often turn to Sukumar Jatania (his protege, Anoop Jotwani who filmed English, August being the other one) and ask, “what would Subrata have done here?”
He photographed the famous Ray films, Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar, Charulata, Jalsaghar, Devi, Kanchenjunga- his first color film. For Merchant Ivory he filmed Shakespearwallah, Householder, The Guru and Bombay Talkie. In 1986 he filmed New Delhi Times for which he won the National Award and in 1992 became the only Indian to win the Eastman Kodak Lifetime Achievement for Excellence in Cinematography.
He was the master of light, a Jedi Master, quite simply the best.
There was a time in this country when we made them good.
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Hello Dev….
Been a great fan of English, August….not so much of Split Wide Open, though i respect the film for its rather bold treatment.
This too is an article on a man who deserves every letter that has been written about him. So much has been said about Subrata Mitra being what he is thanks to Ray. I wonder what Ray would have been without Mitra.
Good that you brought in focus Mitra’s craft and artistry. Even though i think you could have buttressed it with more information about how Mitra operated (the “god in the details” bit), being a journalist for five years now, i know newspaper place their own set of demands on the writer, space constraints for one. But thanks anyway, and looking forward to more interesting stuff from you….
shamik
Shamik,
Thanks! One would not believe what I had to go through to convince the newspapers to publish this. The Times of India flatly refused saying they do not publish obituaries and followed that statement by publishing one a few days later of a Bollywood star! It’s only when I argued, pleaded and begged did the resident editor agree to 400 words! 400 words for someone who has invented the concept of bounce lighting in cinema! MidDay was better and said 800 words would be fine. I do agree that a longer piece would have been better. But having been so close to the man what I’m killing myself about is not having taken a single photograph with him or of his! I guess that’s the whole point; we didn’t think much of ourselves. Cinema was religion!
Hi Dev,
I am great fan of the movie English,August.. It was hilarious and wonderfully directed. I was wondering if the movie is available in DVD/VCD format anywhere ? I remember having seen the movie some 7 years back on Star Movies.
I thought you must be right person to answer my query..
Thanks,
Ravi.
Dear Dev,
I am eagerly awaiting the release of English, August on DVD. Where can I buy it online, when it is released.
With kind regards
Dinkar.
Dinkar,
Thanks for that! Upamanyu and I are working on Mammaries of the Welfare State which is a kind of sequel to English, August. Check back here for the official release of English, August.
Would any readers / viewers like the directors commentary and some extra’s on the DVD or are you just happy with the film?
Hi Dev,
Thank you so much for this really interesting and informative article on Subrata Mitra, unarguably the greatest Indian cinematographer ever. I read about his innovative ‘bouncing light’ technique from Satyajit Ray’s famous book ‘Our Films Their Films’ and how he invented the “bounced” lighting technique in Ray’s Aparajito by a simple and inexpensive device as a white outstretched cloth, to achieve shadowless diffusion, even though Ray and Bansi Chandragupta were little doubtful of Subrata’s experiment. Ray went on to claim that this is the most effective technique in films made under realistic format. Subrata’s technique led him to innovate what became subsequently his most important tool – bounce lighting and this a whole 10 years before Sven Nykvist claimed to be its originator in American Cinematographer
Subrata can clearly be placed along side the great cinematographers of the world, like Sven Nykvist, Vittorio Storaro, Vilmos Zsigmond or Gregg Toland. I an avid Satyajit Ray fan (infact I worship him, like many others) and I am excited to read such an interesting article about Ray’s famed cinematographer. Thank you so much.
The fact that you have seen him, interacted with him, observed his work, and surely learnt a great deal in this process, is some kind of a life time opportunity, right?
When Ray died, I was 14 and didn’t see many of his films at that time (largely feeding upon Bollywood crap), though, being a Bengali, I had indubitably heard of him and his work as he became a household name. But after few years, I got introduced to the ‘World of Ray’ and his cinema, and that changed my perspective about cinema forever. Its interesting to note that Subrata Mitra is a distinguished sitar player and had composed music and played the sitar for The River and Pather Panchali!
One of the greatest cinematographer India ever had.
Thank you Dev. It is a pleasure to know more about this Master Cinematographer.
There is a rumor that Satyajit Ray & Subrata Mitra had split because of difference of opinion (Politically Correct?) or ego clash or something like that.
From your blog it is clear that you had been quite close to Subrta Mitra. Can you highlight more about this issue as it is extremely sad to find that Subrata Mitra was no longer with Satyajit Ray in his Urban Film Triligy (Soumendu Roy had done a marvelous job there, but something was missing in some particular places which I my not be able to explain)
Please highlight if it is possible for you.
Joyesh: Subrata da did speak about this. It was a sore point in their relationship. And an unfortunate one for which IMHO Mr. Ray was largely responsible. Do I really want to write about that? Perhaps not in a blog post but I’m sure there will be a time and place for that. More because I feel that Subrata da was misunderstood more than appreciated.
Dev, your personal rapport with the legendary Subrata Mitra is quiet enviable for photo-enthusiast as myself. Anyways, your write-up’s so heart-felt and informative, that I must thank you. Please keep us posted with such articles. It’s only Subrata Mitra’s association with Satyajit Ray that gifted us with such poetic saga on celluloid as Charulata, Mahanagar, apart from Apu trilogy and the likes. Sorry to say (although being an ardent admirer of Ray myself) that the later works of Ray’s missed the almost lyrical charm which Subrata Mitra could render magically. I feel, Mr.Mitra didn’t receive his due recognition! I also wonder, why Satyajit Ray had to part ways with him and compromised on the craft! Can you throw us some light?