Having successfully “dabbled in theatre, film acting, songwriting and film-making”, Anjan Dutt has now created a new detective, Subrata Sharma, for the web series Danny Detective Inc (streaming on KLIKK from November 3) and launched himself as a fiction writer in Bengali. “Much of the inspiration has come from my main actor, the detective himself, played by Suprobhat, who had been pestering me to write stories,” smiles Anjan. A t2 chat.
As a lover of detective fiction since childhood, you have created a new detective. But when the web space is packed with tons of detectives and thrillers, why come up with another detective now?
As a lover of detective fiction since youth, at the age of 66 with time running out, I cannot wait till the fad subsides. Since web is essentially about series and therefore inevitably a franchise character becomes important, I decided to write and film my ultimate detective story. One which is my own and not borrowed from others. Incidentally, I will be coming out with books on this new detective. Printed stories of his various cases will be launched at the upcoming book fair. Stories of the various cases handled by Detective Danny’s agency.
The detective here is actually Subrata Sharma. But he is not the know-all, suave, broad shouldered private eye. Why create a character like this and why cast Suprobhat as a detective?
The agency is named after Subrata’s boss, who dies and Subrata is literally forced to take over the agency. The first story or season is about the making of a detective. I have been inspired by Erle Stanley Gardner’s initial stories on how Perry Mason became a lawyer.
Now to get to your question, I have had interactions with real detective agencies to realise that they are not the know-all, suave, tall, broad shoulder types as usually portrayed in British and Bengali detective fiction. My detective is an agency-based guy. Legally there are certain cases he can actually take up which the police will not.
Thereby it has to be very real. I am a lover of the American detective fiction of the 1960s, like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe. Not the “know-all” Sherlock but the average, middle-class guy who cannot make a career elsewhere because he is a misfit.
By being a misfit, cynical, loner yet tough, he becomes a detective. He therefore depends on his instincts and inherent uncompromising nature to take care of others’ dirty secrets for a few bucks and ends up confronting corruption beyond his control. The joy of having a small-time guy win ethically against big-time corruption is highly emotionally stirring for the audience, for me.
I wrote this series with Suprobhat in mind not only because he is a fabulous actor but he combines this “Bengali middle-class, next door guy image” with “very experienced angst”. In fact, my Subrata is a little old-fashioned like Suprobhat. An actor who took his own time to become one. He is not in a hurry to impress.
How did Suprobhat prepare for the character?
He did not need to prepare. He is like Subrata Sharma. Since 2018, when I met him, I have always made him change his look, physique, grow a French bread for Ami Ashbo Phirey, grow six packs for Finally Bhalobasha, slim down and become scruffy for Shaheber Cutlet, change his walk for the hardboiled PT teacher for Murder In The Hills.
For each role he changed himself physically, taking about a month’s time. That’s what I personally have done for Nabendu Chatterjee’s Shilpi or Aparna Sen’s Yuganto. It’s the job of any decent actor to change himself for a role. Yet, given the scenario, I am utterly grateful that he did that.
For Subrata Sharma I told him just to be himself. Not to do any month- long exercise. I simply reminded him of his days when he was struggling with his job in Delhi. He just had to be the Suprobhat who had taken a lot of beating from life. The rest flowed naturally. In fact, I rewrote and changed certain scenes to make Subrata like Suprobhat. The scenes were enhanced and became more dynamic.
My amoral standard is pretty high. Suprobhat’s moral standards higher. The result was that my dark Subrata became brighter by Suprobhat’s moral dignity. My cinematographer, Probhat, was so comfortable with him that he also started looking at Suprobhat as Subrata Sharma and kept telling him to do whatever he feels like doing. During the intimate scenes Suprobhat, my actress Ankita Chakravarty and the cinematographer took over. I was more concerned about the cigarette in his lips and whether the ashtray was on his bare chest like the way Jean-Paul Belmondo had it in Breathless. It was acting... acting is a strange art where for some roles you have have to discard much of yourself and for some, just be yourself. For Subrata, Suprobhat has to keep being himself.
Anjan and Suprobhat discuss a scene Sourced by the correspondent
Interestingly, Suprobhat also plays Ajit in another Byomkesh series. So did you have specific instructions for him? Did you ask him to unlearn anything?
Nope. I did not discuss his Ajit, which by the way is very convincing. To me he is the most convincing Ajit after Saswata Chatterjee. Suprobhat is too matured to confuse characterisation.
You had created Rudra Sen in the 1980s and it ran on a television channel. How was the feedback then? What made you create Rudra Sen in the first place?
Frustrated with my career as an actor, my first directorial venture was Rudra Sener Diary in the late ’80s. For Doordarshan. Sabyasachi Chakrabarty was an immediate success. Later we both did a few more for ETV.
I made or wrote Rudra Sen with the fervour of any first directorial venture.
My love for detective fiction made me do it during a time no one was really bothered about a detective apart from Ray. Restricted by budget and time we churned out some good stuff which many liked. Sabyasachi went on to become Feluda. By the time I got a producer to make a film on Rudra Sen, Sabyasachi had aged.
With immense love and respect for him, I did not do it with any other actor. That’s me.
Is life coming full circle for you with the new detective in Subrata Sharma?
In a way, yes. I started off creating my own detective in late ’80s. Went on to adapt from Sharadindu Bandopadhyay’s Byomkesh series in 2009. All these happened when detective fiction was not very much in vogue, except for Sandip Ray. Then from 2014 almost everyone started making detective fiction. I stopped making Byomkesh and decided on writing my own detective.
Despite the fact that perhaps the market is saturated with detectives, I cannot ignore my genuine love for the genre. Now I feel experienced enough to write my own detective stories, film them, and even publish them.
KLIKK offered me space and I tried to make full use of it. Now, as for the circle being complete, once you have written your own detective books, there is no need to find other detectives. Subrata Sharma will be my last detective franchise, till Suprobhat gets too old or I am no more.
Whenever you write screen detectives, you go back to the great American detectives, Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. You talk about Chinatown, hard-boiled fiction. Do the world of modern detectives — seen in the form of spies (The Americans) or CIA operatives (Homeland) or Mentalist — not interest you at all?
Most storytellers and film-makers has his or her favourite ‘time’. A time or legacy they are born into, which is not a restriction but their strength. I am constantly aware of what is happening in film and web all over the world. Through Film Society, then VHS, then DVDs, and now the Fire TV Stick. I have been deeply influenced by the Hong Kong new age cinema of the ’80s.
Then I was further influenced by the Mexican makers, then Turkish... then suddenly rediscovered Ram Gopal Varma and his influences. Despite all, I somehow love and carry the ’60s retro American tradition. The post- Depression pulp literature of America, its style, popular jazz, existential loneliness and morality of the flawed hero struggling against a hugely corrupt world. I identify with that milieu and find a strange parallel in my own old, crumbling yet neo rich city. That is why I keep going back to Hammett, Chandler, James Hadley Chase... I saw Homeland on DVD years ago and still think its one of the finest series produced. Have seen Homeland and The Americans almost five times. The entire series. Claire Danes is perhaps one of the finest actors I have seen. But I am not as well versed in the spy or the intelligence. Police, to a certain extent, yes, and will be doing a cop thriller soon but I don’t know much about Indian intelligence.
The so-called heroes of today in the web world are the anti-heroes, like Dexter. When the charming Dexter is not helping solve crimes, he is a serial killer. The moral compass is constantly shifting. What’s your take on the so-called modern detectives and their ways and methods?
My attraction for the anti-hero was there since my boyhood. From the complex Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, to Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver. The conventional, moralist hero has never been interesting to me. My own movies are primarily about flawed characters, though not killers. The moral compass was questioned severely by Verdoux and has to keep shifting since society at large is getting increasingly permissive and brutal. Therefore our superhero vigilante is no longer the affluent Batman but the deprived, brutalised Joker. Irrespective that it was done brilliantly and performed with perfection, it had to become grosser since it captures the spirit of our lopsided, inherently unequal society. Characters like Dexter or Walter White (Breaking Bad) are inevitable to creep into popular fiction and storm the market, since the so- called ‘goodness’ is bovine. The essentially good will have to come in the garb of bad or vice versa. The American gangster cinema started this, was stylised by the Nouvelle Vague and then the Koreans have mastered it. Ram Gopal Varma and his descendants have managed to create the Indian anti-hero but our detective fiction has not been able to truly absorb it.
How has the idea of the detective evolved in your oeuvre?
My detective has evolved in many ways. For one, unlike all other Bengali detectives created, he acquires all his skills from a alcoholic, womanising, failed police officer who had a brilliant mind, called Danny Bannerjee. My Subrata Sharma therefore, is in his elements among the bad guys. He can deal with violence and corruption not by his intelligence or gun but because he is at ease with evil. Being a bohemian, not a careerist, he can face a gun with a wisecrack. A very Bengali Jake Gittes (Chinatown). Secondly, for the first time in Bengali detective fiction, he is not asexual. His sexuality and relationships with women become integral to the cases he solves. Thirdly, unlike others, he simply loves his cheap alcohol which comes handy when beaten, which he is very often. Then again, I owe much of my moral understanding to John Steinbeck and Hammett. So like detective William Somerset (played by Morgan Freeman in the film Seven), Subrata manages to rise above the prevalent immorality and return to his humdrum existence and ‘start another day’. His Calcutta is poor, dirty but still manages to survive by not compromising.
Your series Danny Detective Inc was shot in Dooars. How was your shooting experience there? Did the place inspire story ideas?
I shot most of it in Dooars, Siliguri corridor, which is highly unscrupulous yet scenic. We chose Rocky Island since it has rarely been used as a film location. I wanted a cloudy, gloomy look but it kept raining heavily and we had to keep juggling our schedule. Most of my shootings have never been highly smooth. Either I changed the script at the last moment or the weather forced us to shuffle the schedule. That I manage to finish in time and within budget is a trick I’ve learnt from being an assistant to Mrinal Sen.
Also I have been lucky to have the right executive or creative producer and a good production team. That most of my actors claim that they have a lot freedom and fun during my shoot anywhere within the district of Darjeeling is because they witness my connection with the locals and forget about the inconvenience. I am grateful to Suprobhat and Barun Chanda and all others concerned for managing to shoot perfectly despite the rains. Neel Dutt has come up with a stunning jazz background score that I always longed for in my cinema, which is steeped in the noir.