Sen & Sensibility

Indian Information Service officer Deepankar Mukhopadhyay’s book, lively andperceptive, seeks to understand Sen’s work in the context of his life and times. By and large, it succeeds. It identifies the important turning points of the filmmaker’s progress and analyses his celluloid output in relation to the pulls and pressures at work on him at different stages of his life.

The tale is told with great verve and passion: a young refugee with Marxist leanings struggles through his early years as a film-maker and then emerges as an uncompromising agent provocateur who defies all conventions and inspires an entire generation of filmmakers before earning the status of an elder statesman. Especially riveting is the section that deals with Sen's war of epistles with one-time friend Satyajit Ray over the latter’s digs at Akash Kusum.

The Maverick Maestro is a wide-angle view of the creative processes, the socio-political developments and the personal experiences that lay behind such brilliant films as Baishey Shravan, Akash Kusum, Bhuvan Shome, Interview, Padatik, Ek Din Pratidin and Aakaler Sandhaney. Although no work of uncommon literary merit— it is marred by a plethora of proofing errors, editing mix-ups and clumsypassages — Mukhopadhayay’s effort derives much of its strength from itssustained candour. While it is generous  with praise where it is due, it does not seek to gloss over the drawbacks of some of Sen’s films. And it is this, more than anything else, that makes The Maverick Maestro essential reading for all serious students of cinema.