‘Nayak’ and Gene Hackman

Tirthankar Mitra

Nayak, Satyajit Ray’s 13th feature film and his first collaboration with Uttam Kumar was re-released recently today in 15 theatres if Kolkata together with halls in Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

This is a restored version of the 1966 film. It is considered to be one of Ray’s best works.

The re-release will be an introduction of the iconic film to the younger generation. Many of the older generation and the young who had seen it on television will appreciate it all the more on the big screen.

It took quite some time for this all-time classic to reappear on big screen. It was restored way back in 2013.

Known for his unerring eye to spot the pluses and shortcomings of an actor, Ray had once said that Uttam Kumar had the ability to get under the skin of any character.

Strangely enough, Kumar yet to be crowned Mahanayak by the film fraternity did not need to get under the skin of the character he played in Nayak. For the matinee idol was enacting his everyday life on the screen and off it.

Nayak remains a landmark work in celluloid in which a matinee idol’s life is deconstructed. Uttam Kumar delivers a masterly performance arguably the best of his career as an insecure and lonely thespian, Arindam.

Arindam is at the top of his career. Yet he has to take sleeping pills to forget the spectre of failure dogging his footsteps.

Nayak goes into issues of acting on stage and screen. The theme of fragility of fame runs throughout the film.

Sharmila Tagore in the role of an aspiring journalist finds unexpected access to Arindam during a train journey. The darling of the crowd is on his way to Delhi to pick up a national award.

The scribe senses a story and comes across a side of the matinee idol which he would have revealed to her under everyday circumstances. It can be ascribed to Arindam’s insecurity, inebriation and his unexplained urge to open his heart to an individual who cares two hoots about the glamour and glitter of the film world.

Gene Hackman
Son of a pressman in a local newspaper and a waitress, Eugene Allen Hackman better known as Gene Hackman was found dead with his wife and dog at Santa Fe, New Mexico on 26 February. Playing ordinary characters with a subtlety that was deceptive, intensity and often charm most of his notable films hit the screen in the ’70s and ’80s, was 95.

Nominated for five Academy Awards and having won two during his 40 -year- long career, Hackman never fit the mould of a Hollywood top drawer star.

Remembered for his roles in The French Connection, Bonnie and Clyde, Unforgiven, Hoosiers and Poseidon Adventure to name a few; he was Hollywood’s perfect Everyman. War hero, sheriff, convict, steel worker, spy and Minister are some of the roles he had essayed with a rare credibility.

Hackman seemed to have been born middle-aged, neither all or handsome. He was a tall man who would not stand out in a crowd.

But Gene Hackman was his own man all the same. He served in Marine Corps in 1946 after lying about his age.

Hackman served in China, Hawaii and Japan. At one point of time, he worked as a disc jockey in his unit’s radio station.

He studied journalism at the University of Illinois for six months after his discharge. Thereafter, he went to New York to learn television production.

In his screen performances, good guys are not always nice guys. And his villains had charm.

There is no identifiable quality which made him stand out. Gene Hackman just made himself outstandingly vital and real.

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Vol 57, No. 38, March 16 - 22, 2025