Deep insight

A year before he started his creative life as an artist with Satyajit Ray’s iconic children’s magazine Sandesh, Ujjal Chakraborty spent much of his summer vacation watching Ray’s poignant take on the Great Bengal Famine.

Writer and film academician Ujjal Chakraborty puts together a comprehensive guide to filmmaking

A year before he started his creative life as an artist with Satyajit Ray’s iconic children’s magazine Sandesh, Ujjal Chakraborty spent much of his summer vacation watching Ray’s poignant take on the Great Bengal Famine. Asani Sanket, over and over again. “I watched it about 100 times at various cinema halls across the city,” states Chakraborty at the launch of is book The Director’s Mind this Tuesday.

The year was 1974 and Chakraborty, then barely out of teens, knew that this was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him. “I closely observed him at work. That was education enough,” states Chakraborty.

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The Director’s Mind, Chakraborty’s 4th book, attempts to guide aspiring directors in a method “employed by masters like Ray, Kurosawa and Godard”. “I have tried to delve behind the great works of cinema and literature. I hope it appeals to serious movie lovers,” says Chakraborty.

Chakraborty tries to address different aspects of filmmaking in this book. “I wanted to write book which would help aspiring filmmakers in all departments-writing lucid screenplays, chiseling ideas and even adopting a trouble-free method of putting sets together,” says Chakraborty. He also adresses filmmaking , through his most native reactions. “One should never disregard ones’ immediate reaction to films. It’s important to cultivate these feelings,” Chakraborty claims.

Some of the stalwarts discussed in the books are : Vittoria De Sica, Alfred Hitchcock and Toshiro Mifune.