Soumitra Chatterjee was Satyajit Ray’s favourite actor. He made his debut in the Bengali master’s Apur Sansar in 1959 and went on to star in 13 more productions. But when Ray came up with Nayak in 1966, he cast Bengali icon Uttam Kumar, both as a version of himself and a composite of matinee idols past and present. Who else but Uttam Kumar, then at the peak of his career, to play a movie star at the peak of his career?
Nayak (Hero) marked Ray’s final collaboration with the gifted cinematographer Subrata Mitra. For Nayak, Mitra created some of his most haunting close-ups, evocative lighting patterns and mirror shots. Nearly every frame of the movie can admired in of itself.
The black-and-white film, one of the six collaborations between Ray and producer RD Bansal, has been restored and re-released in cinemas. Nayak is a sophisticated psychological portrait of a movie star who looks back on his progress from the summit of his popularity, disaffected by what he sees.
Arindam Mukherjee (Kumar) is on his way from Kolkata to Delhi to receive an award. Having swapped a plane for a train, Arindam sportingly makes small talk with his fellow travellers, only to be challenged by journalist Aditi (Sharmila Tagore).
Despite her serious black spectacles and prim manner, Aditi isn’t impervious to Arindam’s celebrity. In her attempt to score an interview, Aditi becomes a therapist of sorts for Arindam, encouraging him to reveal hidden aspects of himself.
The film is too wise to create binaries about the popular hero and the snob, the image on the poster and the fans thronging it. Arindam is habituated to people fawning over him, asking him for favours or sneering at him. Arindam’s persona is contrasted with the other passengers, especially the advertising executive desperate to crack a deal with a wealthy Anglophile traveller (“Pritish rhymes with British”).
The travellers gawk, gossip and pass easy judgement about the sexy man in the suit and the goggles. Arindam – highly self-aware, mischievous but also contemptuous – plays along with public expectations. We live in a world of shadows, it’s best not to show people our flesh and blood, Arindam tells Aditi.
With tremendous economy, Ray reveals Arindam’s distance from his formative years and his disquiet over his success. One of the most telling flashbacks revolves around Mukunda (Bireswar Sen), a senior actor from Arindam’s earliest film. In just two scenes, one of which is magnificently lit by Mitra, Ray examines one of the most fundamental anxieties about the acting profession.
The 116-minute film is famous for two dream sequences, one of which looks creaky by contemporary standards. But Ray’s study of the vagaries of stardom, smooth while also deep, precise in its impact, has barely aged.
In Arindam’s conversations with Aditi – he all bluster in the beginning and then thoughtful, she cool and eventually empathetic – Ray’s pointed writing and understanding of human psychology come vividly alive. Arindam correctly describes Aditi as the “voice of conscience in village plays”. Aditi’s gentle ripostes – and Sharmila Tagore delivers these beautifully – wear down Arindam, compelling him to introspect in a way he hasn’t since he began churning out the hits.
Ray’s crisp storytelling is completely imbibed by Uttam Kumar, who brilliantly uses controlled gestures and expressions to depict the gamut of Arindam’s public and private selves. Whether in a scene revolving around aspiring actor Promila (Sumitra Sanyal) or simply in regal repose, Kumar is mesmerising. Subrata Mitra does full justice to Kumar, casing one of Indian cinema’s most alluring faces in arresting close-ups.
Even the minor actors are memorable, whether it’s the toothless gentleman (Jogesh Chatterjee) who hasn’t seen a film in over 20 years or the grasping advertising man (Kamu Mukherjee). Ray packs a world into the train’s cramped compartments, creating a lasting chronicle of the reality behind the artifice in actors and beyond.
