Mithun Chakraborty On His Unique Experience With Buddhadeb Dasgupta

Bangla avant-garde director Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s death has affected Mithun Chakraborty profoundly. “As you know, I don’t speak to the media at all nowadays. Not because I don’t respect the media but because I’ve nothing to say. But Buddhadeb Dasgputa’s passing away prodded my memory of working with him. So, when you called I spoke to you. I have to tell my film with him Tahader Katha where I played a freedom fighter was a unique learning experience for me,” says Mithunda about the director who seldom approached actors in Mumbai for his cinema.

“With me he knew he could come any time. He had that much confidence in me. I was a superstar in Mumbai when he approached me. There was no money in doing Tahader Katha. I did it for peanuts. We all stayed together in a circuit house in a small town. The charge per room was Rs 6. But there are some films one does for reasons other than money,” says the actor emotionally. Also read: Mithun Chakraborty Has NOT Tested COVID-19 Positive, Confirms Son Mimoh Chakraborty; Says The Rumours Of Are Wrong And Baseless

Dwelling on the uniqueness of working with the Maestro,Mithunda said, “He shot his film in a style I have not seen in any other filmmaker. His camera range would include long-shots, mid-shots and closeups sometimes in the same scene so that we were looking at a frame not as cinema but how it looked in life. His use of wide-angle lenses to encompass all the characters and their emotions in one frame was something I never saw again in any filmmaker.”  Also read: Veteran Actor Mithun Chakraborty Tests Positive For COVID-19; Goes Into Home Quarantine-REPORT

Sighs Mithunda, “I wish I got to work with Buddhadebda more. But such is life. I’ve always shared a unique relationship with the Bengali masters be it Mrinalda(Sen), Buddhadebda or Rituparno Ghosh. My God!I’ve worked with the best of them in Bengal except Satyajit Ray who passed away before I came in. Buddhadebda always said I was a brilliant actor. It was gracious of him to see me as capable of communicating his vision. I won my second National award for best actor for Tahader Katha. I have won my first National award for Mrigayaa which was also directed by a Bengali master Mrinal Sen.”