Bimal Roy
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Best films:
7.0 Do Bigha Zamin (1953) 6.5 Devdas (1955) 7.0 Madhumati (1958) | Links: |
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Bimal Roy (India, 1909) was perhaps the leading exponent of Kolkata's school of cinema during the 1940s.
His cinema was able to reconcile mass spectacle and social commitment.
Bimal Roy, inspired by Italian neorealism, directed Maa/ Mother (1952), Do Bigha Zamin (1953), scripted by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and based on Rabindranath Tagore's Bengali poem "Dui Bigha Jomi", a melodramatic story, faitful to the conventions of traditional Indian melodrama (pathetic, musical, romance), but at the same time capable of capturing the essence of life in the working-class neighborhoods of the city, the social backwardness of the countryside, and the struggle of the rural world when he is immersed in the urban world. The vicissitudes of the poor man desperately struggling to support his family were reminiscent of those of the unemployed of DeSica's Ladri di Bicicletta. He then made two literary adaptations: Parineeta (1953), starring Meena Kumari and based upon Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novella (1914), and Biraj Bahu (1954), based on a Bengali novel by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay. He directed three films with actor Dilip Kumar: Devdas (1955), based on Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel "Devdas", also starring Vyjayanthimala, Madhumati (1958), written by Ritwik Ghatak and another highlight of his career, and Yahudi (1958), based on Agha Hashar Kashmiri's Urdu play "Yahudi Ki Ladki" (1913). Then came: Sujata (1959), the satirical Parakh (1960) and Bandini (1963). Prem Patra (1962) was a Hindi remake of Agragami's Bengali hit Sagarika (1956).
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