Bénarès, Indes (1928/1985) – Georges Thibaud and Roger Dumas

15 mins., b&w, silent, intertitles in French

Source :  Musée Albert-Kahn

The cameraman Roger Dumas was sent to India by Albert Kahn in 1927-28, mainly to film the golden jubilee of his friend, the Maharajah of Karputhala, Jagatjit Singh Bahadur. However while he was there he also visited various other places in India, mostly the palaces of other Maharajahs, but also Amritsar and Benares (today Varanasi).

This film appears to have been edited by Georges Thibaud on the basis of Dumas’ footage, and released by the Musée Albert-Kahn in 1985. Thibaud also appears to have edited another film about the the golden jubilee event  filmed by Dumas, which was also released by the Musée Albert-Kahn in 1985.

This film offers a general portrait of Varanasi that begins with scenes of everyday life  – the ghats, clothes washing, unloading of sand and wood, a snake charmer – and an account of the history of the city through inter titles, including the invasion of the city by Muslims in the 12th century. This is followed by scenes around a Hindu temple, and a sequence contrasting the cremation of the rich and the poor.

The film ends, curiously, with a sequence showing the construction of a mosque with mud bricks. It has been suggested that this sequence was not actually filmed in Varanasi by Dumas, but rather in the vicinity of Karputhala (Deprez 2017: 212)

The website of the Musée Albert-Kahn refers here to Indes divines, described as a montage of rushes shot by Dumas in India, but also possibly by Stéphane Passet, another Archives de la planète cameraman who travelled in India for two months in December 1913 and January 1914.

Text : Deprez 2017

 

 

© 2018 Paul Henley