Bhumika: The Role
| Bhumika | |
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"Bhumika" poster
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| Directed by | Shyam Benegal |
| Produced by | Lalit M. Bijlani Freni Variava |
| Written by |
Shyam Benegal, Girish Karnad, Satyadev Dubey (dialogue) |
| Story by | Hansa Wadkar |
| Based on |
Sangtye Aika by Hansa Wadkar |
| Starring |
Smita Patil Amol Palekar Anant Nag |
| Music by |
Vanraj Bhatia Majrooh Sultanpuri, Vasant Dev (lyrics) |
| Cinematography | Govind Nihalani |
| Edited by | Bhanudas Divakar, Ramnik Patel |
| Distributed by | Shemaroo Movies |
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Release date
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Running time
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142 min. |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
Bhumika ('The Role') 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 Marathi-language memoirs, Sangtye Aika of the well-known Marathi stage and screen actress of the 1940s 'Hansa Wadkar', who led a flamboyant and unconventional life, and focuses on an individual's search for identity and self-fulfilment.Smita Patil gives a strong performance of transforming from a vivacious teenager 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.
Bhumika tells the life story of an 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 (Sulabha Deshpande) is 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 audition successfully as a singer in a Bombay studio: the first step in a process, watched approvingly by Usha's 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 cinema itself because of its presumed disreputability).
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