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Iconic auteur Shyam Benegal dies aged 90

ByMeena Iyer
Dec 24, 2024 09:00 AM IST

Through his films, he grappled with the big questions that India grappled with, from feudalism, the cooperative sector, the war of 1857

Director Shyam Benegal, who created a new idiom for Hindi cinema and was one of the leading figures of the parallel cinema movement, died in Mumbai on Monday evening from kidney-related complications, his daughter Pia Benegal told news agency PTI. He was 90.

Benegal’s strongest cinematic influence came not from his cousin Guru Dutt’s emotion-saturated movies but from Satyajit Ray’s cinema of neo-realism. (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)
Benegal’s strongest cinematic influence came not from his cousin Guru Dutt’s emotion-saturated movies but from Satyajit Ray’s cinema of neo-realism. (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Benegal, who was filmmaker Guru Dutt’s cousin, started his career as an ad filmmaker before going on to make genre-defining films such as Ankur, Manthan, Mandi, Nishant, Junoon among others. He launched the careers of Shabana Azmi, and Smita Patil (in her first break as leading lady). A host of brilliant actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Sadhu Meher who would have otherwise been lost in the tinsel of Bollywood, found their metier working for Benegal through the 1970s and the 1980s. In response to a question about how he defined his kind of films, Benegal told HT in an interview last year, “I hate the term middle of the road cinema. I would say my cinema appeals to the urban, middle-class literate audience who does not need to be spoon-fed.”

Also read | This Shyam Benegal film was shot in 28 days, did silver jubilee in a theatre; starred Shabana Azmi

Through his films, he grappled with the big questions that India grappled with, from feudalism, the cooperative sector, the war of 1857. In later years his cinematic arc moved from the Nehruvian project in Bharat Ek Khoj, to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s life to Ambedkar’s and creation of the Indian constitution.

Born in Secunderabad, Shyam babu, as he was widely known, recalled in the HT interview how his father, an amateur filmmaker, would shoot something like a home video for each of his ten children. “Every child had a film devoted to them until the next child came along. So, it would invariably mean that from our birth until we were around two or two and-a-half-years old, each of us starred in a movie shot by our father.” The love for cinema was passed on to his children. Benegal’s older brother and he shot a short film which they called Chuttiyon Mein Mauj Maza (Fun in the vacations) when he was just 8 and his brother was 12.

Also read | Shyam Benegal dies: Manoj Bajpayee and Shekhar Kapur mourn demise of veteran filmmaker, call him 'legend'

Benegal who graduated from Osmania University moved to Mumbai in the 60s where he first worked as a copywriter and a prolific director. He shot close 900 commercials, made 11 corporate films before moving on to features. He was chairman of the Film and Television Institute in Pune for two consecutive terms and won 18 National Awards over his career that spanned six decades.

Benegal’s strongest cinematic influence came not from his cousin Guru Dutt’s emotion-saturated movies but from Satyajit Ray’s cinema of neo-realism. He discovered Pather Pachali on a trip to Kolkata in 1955 to represent his college at an inter-collegiate swimming competition. “My life and my vision changed after watching that film,” he had said.

Also read | From Ankur to Zubeidaa: Remembering Shyam Benegal through his 10 most iconic films

Ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar who was part of Benegal’s 90th birthday celebration in Mumbai on December 14, said he had lost his “guru.” “His 90th birthday was a great party. Shabana (Azmi), Kulbhushan (Kharbanda), Naseer and a whole lot of other actors, big and small, were all there to pay their respects to the clan chief. Shyambabu’s death is a collective loss for world cinema,” he said.

In addition to his 18 National Awards, Shyama Benegal was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2005. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 2006 to 2012. He is survived by his wife Nira and daughter Pia.

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