Soumendu Roy : Tribute!
Soumendu Roy acclaimed cinematographer and greatest influencer on Indian Cinema Visuals passed away at the age of Ninty on 27th Sptember 2023.
Soumendu Roy became Satyajit Ray’s cinematographer after Subrata Mitra’s departure. An apprentice and assistant to Subrata Mitra in Pather Panchali.
Once Soumendu Roy shared his experience working with Subrata Mitra…”I helped Subrata-babu with the lighting. He was an extraordinary cameraman. It is difficult to use a Mitchell camera without proper training. He had never even seen one. Yet he was handling it with ease and expertise. Earlier I had heard that Nemai Ghosh was supposed to be the cameraman for Pather Panchali, with Subrata-babu as assistant. Nemai Ghosh had directed a film titled Chhinnamul. But he went to Madras and Subrata-babu joined as cameraman”.
Soumendu Roy won National Awards for cinematography multiple times!
National Awards
1973
Best Cinematography (Color) – Ashani Sanket
1974
Best Cinematography (Color)- Sonar Kella
1977
Best Cinematography – Shatranj Ke Khilari
1992
Best Cinematography- Suchitra Mitra ( Best Non feature film)
Cinematographer Soumendu Roy was born in Kolkata in 1932. Known for his collaboration with Satyajit Ray, his first interest with photography was when he persuaded his classmate Ashish Raha, in Class 8, to teach him the basics of photography as Ashish’s older brother had a photography studio with the latest cameras. Roy’s first personal camera was a Kodak that was presented to him when he passed his matriculation exam. He would process his photographs himself in a dark room and slowly his interest in photography grew.
Even though he attended college he was not inclined to academics and wanted to get into cinematography. A filmmaker called Hiranmay Sen attended a family wedding and Soumendu Roy persuaded his mother to speak to him about him working on a film. One thing lead to another and Roy found himself working at the Technician’s studio thanks to a word put in by the cinematographer Ramanand Sengupta. He first met Ray on the sets of “Pather Panchali” where he had been hired as the caretaker of the camera. He learned on the job and he had the good fortune to have three great teachers – Subrata Mitra, Bansi Chandragupta and Satyajit Ray. His first project with Satyajit Ray as a cinematographer was the documentary on Rabindranath Tagore that released in 1961 and his first feature film was Ray’s “Teen Kanya” (1961) when he stepped into Subrata Mitra’s shoes as Mitra developed detachment of the retina preventing him from shooting. Being his first film and the fact that it had three different stories that had to be shot in keeping with three different moods, he was nervous. Ray told him to study paintings of the great masters which would help him to learn about lighting, composition and set design. Soumendu Roy went on to work on 21 films with Satyajit Ray including . “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” (1969), “Aranyer Din Ratri” (1970), “Ashani Sanket” (1973), “Sonar Kella” (1974), “Shatranj Ke Khilari” (1977) and “Ghare Bhaire” (1985). Over the course of his career, Roy also worked with other directors like Tapan Sinha, Tarun Majumdar and Buddhadeb Dasgupta.
Soumendy Roy also did two Tamil Feature films Kan Sivanthaal Man sivakum and Iravu Pookal both directed by Sreedhar Raajan.
SICA pays rich tribute to the great master Soumendu Roy.
Article by
CJ Rajkumar
Author/Cinematographer
