If Shyam Benegal had not existed, a generation would have had to invent him

He was also one of the few filmmakers who wore his fame lightly, with such elegance. It was a quality that marked all our conversations through the years, the last of which was an exchange this May churningIndia’s first crowd-funded film, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. After beginning to apologize for his “failed memory,” he regaled me with anecdotes full of warmth and reverence, and we left, promising to speak again soon. Now that will never happen.

He was sick, and extremely unwell out and out, but his happy 90th birthday images with Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah just two weeks ago made us feel like there’s still time. Time for another recovery for Benegal, and perhaps enough to add to his extensive filmography, which began in 1974. shootAnd spread all the way to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s 2023 bio-pic, Mujib: The Making of a Nation.

Farooq Rutlose, Karisma Kapoor, Shyam Benegal and Manoj Bajpayee on the sets of Zubeida. (Express Archive)

Calling shoot A game-changer, an overused phrase for anything and everything, never sounded like an exaggeration, because that’s exactly what it did. At a time when formulaic Lost and Found multi-stars were ruling (Nasir Hussain’s 1973 A procession of memories) and Amitabh Bachchan was embarking on his Angry Young Man journey (his chainAlso out in 1973, Exploding Off the Screen), shoot It was the plant that Hindi cinema desperately needed.

Benegal brought the ad man’s gift of being economical yet effective to his story-telling, which broke away from the loud, saccharine melodramas that entered the theaters in those days, to give us not only thematically but a whole other universe. Actor too. Had it not been for Benegal, fresh-off FTII graduates like Shabana-Nasir-Om (Puri) and a bunch of others (Amrish Puri, Kubhushan Kharbanda, Rajit Kapoor) would have had to invent him.

He began as if to move on. shoot Azmi, who had learned to live like a village lady, though her perfectly rich brows came from an urban parlor, looked like an overnight star. He followed it Nishant (Another disturbing story of the terrible disparity between class and caste) and churning (a terrific remake for Milk Revolution) in which Smita Patil shines across the screen with Girish Karnad and Naseer.

He takes us to places cinema rarely goes, especially after the Candyfloss 60s: to the villages, casting a critical lens on the power structures in those rural landscapes, putting marginalized people forgotten by Hindi cinema at the center of the story. Even with his later films, including the Goa-based Comedy of Manners, three timesand the Rajit Kapoor-Pallavi Joshi starrer The seventh horse of Suraj Remaining a firm favourite, his ability to defy social hypocrisy remained unsurpassed.

Other well-known pioneers of the parallel cinema movement like Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani were also in for a special treat. But Benegal, staying firmly outside the song-and-dance genre of Bollywood, managed to use big stars to power his films, never afraid to get the message out. His 2001 Jubeda Credits given to Karisma Kapoor; Kapoor in turn made a charming pair with Manoj Bajpayee, who had never played a royal before, and the palaces were never the same again.

Film director Shyam Benegal and Shashi Kapoor on the sets of Junoon. (Express Archive)

But one of my all-time favorites has to be Benegal’s own multi-starrer, 1981. Kali Yuga Which led to her reuniting with Shashi Kapoor. Another big star actor who aligned with Benegal’s vision of broadening the ideas of mainstream cinema was his 1857 mutiny saga. passion (1978); in Kali YugaA modern-day adaptation of MahabharataHe starred alongside Rekha and Raj Babbar, as well as Anant Nag, Kulbhushan Kharband, Akash Khurrana, and Victor Banerjee.

I could go on, and the day would never end. Today we mourn the passing of Benegal, and the man and his films, which created a map of India that did not exist in the same insistent, tender but piercing way, before he came on the scene. Even his most terrifying films were shot with a glimmer of optimism. And that, sometimes, is enough. Smiling through tears? She considered Shyambabu as if she called him with love.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com