Montage : Life, Politics, Cinema

Contents: 1. Interview 2001. 2. ‘Unfamiliar Faridpur’. 3. ‘An uncertain journey’. 4. ‘Paradise café’. 5. ‘A terrible dearth of dreams and dreamers’. 6. ‘To say something new’. 7. Interview 1971. 8. Interview 1972. 9. ‘An old letter’. 10. Interview 1980. 11. Interview 1981. 12. ‘My son and I’. 13. Interview 1982. 14. Interview 1983. 15. ‘A world built or gained is but the world lost….’. 16. Interview 1986. 17. ‘Life, more life, and only life’. 18. ‘Apu. Eternal Apu’. 19. ‘New men in a new theatre’. 20. ‘A funny, bitter, allegory’. 21. ‘This space of silence’. 22. Interview 1987. 23. ‘Cinema par excellence’. 24. ‘Chaplin’s Odyssey’. 25. ‘Beyond easy solutions’. 26. Interview 1989. 27. ‘Shards of sound and scraps of seeing’. 28. Interview 2000. 29. ‘Cinema and literature’. 30. ‘This new, hybrid culture’. 31. Filmography.

"Even when I go outside my time, I cannot go outside history…I have seen history as a continuous, growing phenomenon, marching almost imperceptibly into the character of our own time. Above everything else, I am committed to my own time.

Veteran filmmaker Mrinal Sen has always seen his life and work as part of the social and political fabric of his time. As he has continued to experiment with cinema over the decades, evolving his own quest in response to the changing times, he has also maintained an acute social critique which shows in his films, writings and interviews. The enfant terrible of Indian cinema in the 60s and 70s, he is now known for his subtle, nuanced films which capture a moment of crisis, a moment of truth, in the ordinary lives of ordinary people.

This collection encapsulates close to half a century of filmmaking. It includes original writings--memoirs, letters, musings on politics, literature, theatre and cinema; critiques of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Chapl in and a host of other international film-makers, especially those from Latin America; and intensive interviews with scholars, critics and filmmakers such as Samik Banerjee, Swapan Mullick and Reinhard Hauff. In juxtaposition with intimate photographs of the artist at work and stills from his movies, these form a rare montage of the filmmaker and the man, mapping an unusual creative landscape which offers valuable insights into his films. There is also a complete filmography encompassing his features, telefilms and documentaries." (jacket)