Creative Career
In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play Kalo sayar (The Dark Lake), and participated in a revival of the landmark play Nabanna. In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre Association ( IPTA ). He wrote, directed and acted in plays and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In early 1970s, he wrote and directed his last play Jwala (The Burning).The music director was Darbar Bhaduri,who was called by Ghatak 'Dada' or 'Guru' from his childhood.Ghatak was inspired by Darbar Bhaduri a lot.In Rajshahi,Bangladeh—his homeland Ritwik lived beside Bhaduri's house. Almost all time he was with Darbar Bhaduri.Darbar Bhaduri was 'King maker' who kept himself away from outside world.But,Ghatak by pressure made Darbar Bhaduri the music director of 'Jwala',and the music was extraordinary.
Ghatak entered the film industry with Nimai Ghosh's Chinnamul (1950) as actor and assistant director. Chinnamul was followed two years later by Ghatak's first completed film Nagarik (1952), both major break-throughs for the Indian cinema. Ghatak's early work sought theatrical and literary precedent in bringing together a documentary realism, a stylised performance often drawn from the folk theatre, and a Brechtian use of the filmic apparatus.
Ghatak's first commercial release was Ajantrik (1958), a comedy-drama film with science fiction themes. It was one of the earliest Indian films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story.
Ghatak's greatest commercial success as a script writer was for Madhumati (1958), one of the earliest films to deal with the theme of reincarnation. It was a Hindi film directed by another Bengali filmmaker Bimal Roy. The film earned Ghatak his first award nomination, for the Filmfare Best Story Award.
Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. His best-known films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961), and Subarnarekha (Golden Lining) (1962), a trilogy based in Calcutta and addressing the condition of refugee-hood, proved controversial and the commercial failure of Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) and Subarnarekha prevented him from making features through the remainder of the 1960s. In all three films, he used a basic and at times starkly realistic storyline, upon which he inscribed a range of mythic references, especially of the Mother Deliverer, through a dense overlay of visual and aural registers.
Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). During his year at FTII, he was involved in the making of two student films, viz., Fear and Rendezvous.
Ghatak returned to film making only in the 1970s, when a Bangladeshi producer financed the 1973 epic Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titas). Making films became difficult because of his poor health due to extreme alcoholism and consequent diseases. His last film was the autobiographical Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate And Story) (1974), in which he portrayed Neelkantha (Nilkanth) the lead character. He also had a number of incomplete feature and short films in his credit.
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