Bhumika
Encyclopedia
Bhumika is a 1977 Indian film directed by Shyam Benegal
. The movie stars Smita Patil
, Amol Palekar
, Anant Nag
, Naseeruddin Shah
and Amrish Puri
.
This film is broadly based on the memoirs of the well-known Marathi Stage and screen actress of the 1940s, 'Hansa Wadkar' who led a flamboyant and unconventional life and focus at an individual's search for identity and self-fulfillment. Smita Patil
gave the strong performance of transforming herself in its course from a vivacious teenage girl to a wiser but deeply wounded middle-aged woman.
The film won two National Film Awards
and Filmfare Best Movie Award
, it was invited to Carthage Film Festival 1978, Chicago Film Festival, where it was awarded the Golden Plaque 1978, and in 1986 it was invited to Festival of Images, Algeria.
actress, Usha (Smita Patil
),who is the granddaughter of a famous female singer of the old tradition from Devadasi
community of Goa. Usha's mother married to an abusive and alcoholic Brahmin. Following his early death, and over her mother’s objections, Usha is taken to Bombay by family hanger-on Keshav Dalvi (Amol Palekar
) to successfully audition as a singer in a Bombay studio: the first step in a process, watched approvingly by her doting grandmother and with horror by her mother, that will eventually carry her to on-camera adolescent stardom, and to an ill-starred love marriage with Keshav. Usha’s motives for stubbornly pursuing this relationship (culminating in a pre-marital pregnancy) with the unattractive and much older Keshav—who appears to have lusted after her since childhood—are not spelled out. Presumably she feels indebted to him for his loyalty to her family (of which he frequently reminds her) and for her own worldly success; she is also a headstrong girl who clearly enjoys her acting career and is bent on challenging her uptight mother (who opposes the match because,Keshav does not belong to their caste, just as she opposes the cinema itself on the grounds of its supposed dis-respectability).
Once the two are wed, Usha is shocked to find Keshav continuing to act as her “business manager,” arranging starring roles for her opposite hunky heartthrob Rajan (Anant Nag
), who is himself in (unrequited) love with her. Since Keshav’s other business ventures are unsuccessful, the family remains entirely dependent on Usha’s earnings — a fact that Keshav clearly resents. He thus becomes both a jealous husband with a fragile ego and nasty temper, as well as (in effect) a greedy pimp who compels his wife to take risqué work despite her dislike of her costar and her protests that she “only wants to be a housewife” now that their daughter has been born. Not surprisingly, the relationship becomes increasingly poisoned, particularly by Keshav’s assumption (fed by star-magazine gossip) that she is in fact having an affair with Rajan. Verbally and physically abused by her husband and periodically obliged to live in a hotel, separated from her daughter and mother, the desperately unhappy actress eventually does instigate two unsatisfying liaisons—with the nihilistic and self-centered director Sunil Verma (Naseeruddin Shah
), with whom she plots a double-suicide (which he foils), and then with the wealthy businessman Vinayak Kale (Amrish Puri
), who keeps her as a pampered mistress on his palatial estate. Here Usha briefly finds a kind of “respectability” as a de facto
second wife, earning a measure of love and admiration from Kale’s mother, son, and bedridden first wife—but (as she learns one day when she tries to take the boy to a nearby fair) at the cost of even the most rudimentary freedom. Unable to abide by Kale’s hypocritical domestic rules, she finds her only hope of escape to lie in the intervention of the hated Keshav, who promptly brings her back to a Bombay festooned with billboards of her own face, and to the same drab hotel and lonely prospects. As Kale’s bitter wife remarks to Usha as the latter prepares to leave, “The beds change, the kitchens change. Men’s masks change, but men don’t change.”
One thing the movie could not clarify was the reason why Usha liked and then disliked Rajan. The climax of the movie is gloomy and the viewer is left out to seek the message of the movie on their own.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/Bhumika.html
Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...
. The movie stars Smita Patil
Smita Patil
Smita Patil was an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Regarded among the finest stage and film actresses of her times, Patil appeared in over 75 Hindi and Marathi films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a...
, Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar is an Indian actor of the 1970s and a director of Hindi and Marathi cinema.-Theater career:Palekar began in Marathi experimental theatre with Satyadev Dubey, and later started his own group, Aniket, in 1972 [citation needed]...
, Anant Nag
Anant Nag
Anant Nagarkatte popularly known as Anant Nag is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the all time greatest actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. As a result, he is popularly known as an actor with...
, Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah is an Indian / Bollywood film actor and director. He is considered to be one of the finest actors of Indian cinema. In 2003, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.-Early life:...
and Amrish Puri
Amrish Puri
Amrish Singh Puri , ; 22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005 was an iconic theater and film actor from India, who was a key player in the Indian theater movement that picked up steam in the 1960s. He worked with notable playwrights of the time, such as Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad...
.
This film is broadly based on the memoirs of the well-known Marathi Stage and screen actress of the 1940s, 'Hansa Wadkar' who led a flamboyant and unconventional life and focus at an individual's search for identity and self-fulfillment. Smita Patil
Smita Patil
Smita Patil was an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Regarded among the finest stage and film actresses of her times, Patil appeared in over 75 Hindi and Marathi films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a...
gave the strong performance of transforming herself in its course from a vivacious teenage girl to a wiser but deeply wounded middle-aged woman.
The film won two National Film Awards
National Film Awards
The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it is administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorate of Film Festivals since 1973.Every year, a national panel...
and Filmfare Best Movie Award
Filmfare Best Movie Award
The Filmfare Best Film Award is given by the Filmfare magazine as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films.The award was first given in 1954. Here is a list of the award winners and the nominees of the respective years...
, it was invited to Carthage Film Festival 1978, Chicago Film Festival, where it was awarded the Golden Plaque 1978, and in 1986 it was invited to Festival of Images, Algeria.
Plot
Bhumika tells the life story of a BollywoodBollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
actress, Usha (Smita Patil
Smita Patil
Smita Patil was an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Regarded among the finest stage and film actresses of her times, Patil appeared in over 75 Hindi and Marathi films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a...
),who is the granddaughter of a famous female singer of the old tradition from Devadasi
Gomantak Maratha Samaj
Gomantak Maratha Samaj is a Konkani speaking community found in Indian state of Goa.They are known as Naik Maratha Samaj and Nutan Maratha Samaj Karwar in Karnataka and Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra respectively.-Origin:...
community of Goa. Usha's mother married to an abusive and alcoholic Brahmin. Following his early death, and over her mother’s objections, Usha is taken to Bombay by family hanger-on Keshav Dalvi (Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar is an Indian actor of the 1970s and a director of Hindi and Marathi cinema.-Theater career:Palekar began in Marathi experimental theatre with Satyadev Dubey, and later started his own group, Aniket, in 1972 [citation needed]...
) to successfully audition as a singer in a Bombay studio: the first step in a process, watched approvingly by her doting grandmother and with horror by her mother, that will eventually carry her to on-camera adolescent stardom, and to an ill-starred love marriage with Keshav. Usha’s motives for stubbornly pursuing this relationship (culminating in a pre-marital pregnancy) with the unattractive and much older Keshav—who appears to have lusted after her since childhood—are not spelled out. Presumably she feels indebted to him for his loyalty to her family (of which he frequently reminds her) and for her own worldly success; she is also a headstrong girl who clearly enjoys her acting career and is bent on challenging her uptight mother (who opposes the match because,Keshav does not belong to their caste, just as she opposes the cinema itself on the grounds of its supposed dis-respectability).
Once the two are wed, Usha is shocked to find Keshav continuing to act as her “business manager,” arranging starring roles for her opposite hunky heartthrob Rajan (Anant Nag
Anant Nag
Anant Nagarkatte popularly known as Anant Nag is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the all time greatest actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. As a result, he is popularly known as an actor with...
), who is himself in (unrequited) love with her. Since Keshav’s other business ventures are unsuccessful, the family remains entirely dependent on Usha’s earnings — a fact that Keshav clearly resents. He thus becomes both a jealous husband with a fragile ego and nasty temper, as well as (in effect) a greedy pimp who compels his wife to take risqué work despite her dislike of her costar and her protests that she “only wants to be a housewife” now that their daughter has been born. Not surprisingly, the relationship becomes increasingly poisoned, particularly by Keshav’s assumption (fed by star-magazine gossip) that she is in fact having an affair with Rajan. Verbally and physically abused by her husband and periodically obliged to live in a hotel, separated from her daughter and mother, the desperately unhappy actress eventually does instigate two unsatisfying liaisons—with the nihilistic and self-centered director Sunil Verma (Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah is an Indian / Bollywood film actor and director. He is considered to be one of the finest actors of Indian cinema. In 2003, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.-Early life:...
), with whom she plots a double-suicide (which he foils), and then with the wealthy businessman Vinayak Kale (Amrish Puri
Amrish Puri
Amrish Singh Puri , ; 22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005 was an iconic theater and film actor from India, who was a key player in the Indian theater movement that picked up steam in the 1960s. He worked with notable playwrights of the time, such as Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad...
), who keeps her as a pampered mistress on his palatial estate. Here Usha briefly finds a kind of “respectability” as a de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
second wife, earning a measure of love and admiration from Kale’s mother, son, and bedridden first wife—but (as she learns one day when she tries to take the boy to a nearby fair) at the cost of even the most rudimentary freedom. Unable to abide by Kale’s hypocritical domestic rules, she finds her only hope of escape to lie in the intervention of the hated Keshav, who promptly brings her back to a Bombay festooned with billboards of her own face, and to the same drab hotel and lonely prospects. As Kale’s bitter wife remarks to Usha as the latter prepares to leave, “The beds change, the kitchens change. Men’s masks change, but men don’t change.”
One thing the movie could not clarify was the reason why Usha liked and then disliked Rajan. The climax of the movie is gloomy and the viewer is left out to seek the message of the movie on their own.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/Bhumika.html
Cast
- Smita PatilSmita PatilSmita Patil was an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Regarded among the finest stage and film actresses of her times, Patil appeared in over 75 Hindi and Marathi films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a...
as Usha - Anant NagAnant NagAnant Nagarkatte popularly known as Anant Nag is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the all time greatest actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. As a result, he is popularly known as an actor with...
as Rajan - Amol PalekarAmol PalekarAmol Palekar is an Indian actor of the 1970s and a director of Hindi and Marathi cinema.-Theater career:Palekar began in Marathi experimental theatre with Satyadev Dubey, and later started his own group, Aniket, in 1972 [citation needed]...
as Keshav Dalvi - Amrish PuriAmrish PuriAmrish Singh Puri , ; 22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005 was an iconic theater and film actor from India, who was a key player in the Indian theater movement that picked up steam in the 1960s. He worked with notable playwrights of the time, such as Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad...
as Vinayak Kale - Naseeruddin ShahNaseeruddin ShahNaseeruddin Shah is an Indian / Bollywood film actor and director. He is considered to be one of the finest actors of Indian cinema. In 2003, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.-Early life:...
as Sunil Verma - Kulbhushan KharbandaKulbhushan KharbandaKulbhushan Kharbanda is an Indian actor, who worked in Hindi and Punjabi films, and is known as character Shakaal in Shaan inspired by the character of Blofeld from James Bond movies...
as Film Producer
Accolades
- 1978 - Filmfare Award for Best Movie
- 1978 - National Film Award for Best ActressNational Film Award for Best ActressThe National Film Award for Best Actress is an honor presented annually at the National Film Awards of India to an actress who has delivered the best performance in a leading role within the Indian film industry...
for Smita PatilSmita PatilSmita Patil was an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Regarded among the finest stage and film actresses of her times, Patil appeared in over 75 Hindi and Marathi films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a... - 1978 - National Film Award for Best ScreenplayNational Film Award for Best ScreenplayThe National Film Award for Best Screenplay winners:-References:...
for Satyadev DubeySatyadev DubeySatyadev Dubey is an Indian theatre director, actor, playwright, screenwriter, and film actor and director. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1971....
, Shyam BenegalShyam BenegalShyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...
and Girish KarnadGirish KarnadGirish Raghunath Karnad is a contemporary writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor and movie director in Kannada language...