Satyajit Ray (2 May
1921-23 April 1992) was a Bengali Indian
filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the
greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema.[1]
Born in the city of Kolkata (then known
as Calcutta in English, though Kolkata in
Bengali) into a Bengali family prominent
in the world of arts and letters, Ray studied
at Presidency College and at the Visva-Bharati
University. Starting his career as a commercial
artist, Ray was drawn into filmmaking after
meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and
viewing the Italian neorealist film Bicycle
Thieves during a visit to London.
Ray directed thirty-seven films, including
feature films, documentaries and shorts.
Ray's first film, Pather Panchali, won eleven
international prizes, including Best Human
Document at Cannes film festival. Along
with Aparajito and Apur Sansar, the film
forms the Apu trilogy. Ray did scripting,
casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction,
editing and designed his own credit titles
and publicity material. He was a fiction
writer, publisher, illustrator, graphic
designer and film critic. Ray received many
major awards, including an Academy Honorary
Award in 1992.
Early life
Satyajit Ray, 1932
Satyajit Ray's ancestry can be traced back
at least ten generations. Ray's grandfather,
Upendrakishore Raychowdhury was a writer,
illustrator, philosopher, publisher, an
amateur astronomer, and a leader of the
Brahmo Samaj, a religious and social movement
in nineteenth century Bengal. Sukumar Ray,
Upendrakishore's son, was a pioneering Bengali
writer of nonsense rhyme and children's
literature, an illustrator and a critic.
Ray was born to Sukumar and Suprabha Ray
in Kolkata. Sukumar Ray died when Satyajit
was barely three, and the family survived
on Suprabha Ray's meager income. Ray studied
economics at Presidency College in Kolkata,
though his interest was always in fine arts.
In 1940, his mother insisted that he study
at the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan,
founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Ray was
reluctant due to his love of Kolkata, and
general low impression about the intellectual
life at Santiniketan. His mother's persuasion
and his respect for Tagore finally convinced
him to try this route. In Santiniketan,
Ray came to appreciate oriental art. He
later admitted that he learnt much from
the famous painters Nandalal Bose[4] and
Benode Behari Mukherjee on whom Ray later
produced a documentary film, "The Inner
Eye". With visits to Ajanta, Ellora
and Elephanta, Ray developed an admiration
for Indian art.Ray left Santiniketan in
1943 before completing the five-year course
and returned to Kolkata, where he took a
job with a British advertising agency, D.J.
Keymer. He joined as a "junior visualiser",
earning just eighty rupees a month. Although
on one hand, visual design was something
close to Ray's heart and, for the most part,
he was treated well, there was palpable
tension between the British and Indian employees
of the firm (the former were much better
paid), and Ray felt that "the clients
were generally stupid". Around 1943,
Ray became involved with Signet Press, a
new publishing house started up by D. K.
Gupta. Gupta asked Ray to create cover designs
for books published from Signet Press and
gave him complete artistic freedom. Ray
designed covers for many books, including
Jim Corbett's Maneaters of Kumaon, and Jawaharlal
Nehru's Discovery of India. He also worked
on a children's version of Pather Panchali,
a classic Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan
Bandopadhyay, renamed as Am Antir Bhepu
(The mango-seed whistle). Ray was deeply
influenced by the work, which became the
subject of his first film. In addition to
designing the cover, he illustrated the
book; many of his illustrations ultimately
found their place as shots in his groundbreaking
film.
Along with Chidananda Dasgupta and others,
Ray founded the Calcutta Film Society in
1947, through which he was exposed to many
foreign films. He befriended the American
GIs stationed in Kolkata during World War
II, who would inform him of the latest American
films showing in the city. He came to know
a RAF employee, Norman Clare, who shared
Ray's passion of films, chess and western
classical music. In 1949, Ray married Bijoya
Das, his first cousin and longtime sweetheart.
The couple had a son, Sandip, who is now
a film director. In the same year, Jean
Renoir came to Kolkata to shoot his film
The River. Ray helped him to find locations
in the countryside. It was then that Ray
told Renoir about his idea of filming Pather
Panchali, which had been on his mind for
some time, and Renoir encouraged him to
proceed. In 1950, Ray was sent to London
by D.J. Keymer to work at its head office.
During his three months in London, he watched
99 films. Among these was the neorealist
film Ladri di biciclette Bicycle Thieves
(1948) by Vittorio De Sica which had a profound
impact on him. Ray later said that he came
out of the theater determined to become
a filmmaker.
The Apu Years (1950-1958)
Main article: Filmography of Satyajit
Ray
Ray during his years at Santiniketan.
Ray had now decided that Pather Panchali,
the classic bildungsroman of Bengali literature,
published in 1928 by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay,
would be the subject matter for his first
film. This semi-autobiographical novel describes
the growing up of Apu, a small boy in a
Bengal village.
Ray gathered an inexperienced crew, although
both his cameraman Subrata Mitra and art
director Bansi Chandragupta went on to achieve
great acclaim. The cast consisted of mostly
amateur artists. Shooting started in late
1952, using Ray's personal savings. He had
hoped once the initial shots had been completed,
he would be able to obtain funds to support
the project; however, such funding was not
forthcoming. Pather Panchali was shot over
the unusually long period of three years,
because shooting was possible only from
time to time, when Ray or production manager
Anil Chowdhury could arrange further money.
With a loan from the West Bengal government,
the film was finally completed and released
in 1955 to great critical and popular success,
sweeping up numerous prizes and having long
runs in both India and abroad. During the
making of the film, Ray refused funding
from sources who demanded a change in script
or the supervision of the producer, and
ignored advice from the government (which
finally funded the film anyway) to incorporate
a happy ending in having Apu's family join
a "development project". Even
greater help than Renoir's encouragement
occurred when Ray showed a sequence to John
Huston who was in India scouting locations
for The Man Who Would Be King. The sequence
is the remarkable vision Apu and his sister
have of the train running through the countryside.
It was the only sequence Ray had filmed
due to his small budget. Huston notified
Monroe Wheeler at the New York Museum of
Modern Art that a major talent was on the
horizon.
Wide open eyes, a continual motif in the
Apu Trilogy
In India, the reaction to the film was enthusiastic,
The Times of India wrote that "It is
absurd to compare it with any other Indian
cinema Pather Panchali is pure cinema".
In the United Kingdom, Lindsay Anderson
wrote a glowing review of the film.However,
the reaction was not uniformly positive.
After watching the movie, François
Truffaut is reported to have said, "I
don't want to see a movie of peasants eating
with their hands." Bosley Crowther,
then the most influential critic of The
New York Times, wrote a scathing review
of the film that its distributor Ed Harrison
thought would kill off the film when it
got released in the United States, but instead
it enjoyed an exceptionally long run.
Ray's international career started in earnest
after the success of his next film, Aparajito
(The Unvanquished). This film shows the
eternal struggle between the ambitions of
a young man, Apu, and the mother who loves
him. Many critics, notably Mrinal Sen and
Ritwik Ghatak, rank it even higher than
the first film. Aparajito won the Golden
Lion in Venice. Before the completion of
the Apu Trilogy, Ray completed two other
films. The first is the comic Parash Pathar
(The Philosopher's Stone), which was followed
by Jalsaghar (The Music Room), a film about
the decadence of the Zamindars, considered
one of his most important works.
Ray had not thought about a trilogy while
making Aparajito, and it occurred to him
only after being asked about the idea in
Venice. The final installation of the series,
Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) was made
in 1959. Just like the two previous films,
a number of critics find this to be the
supreme achievement of the trilogy (Robin
Wood, Aparna Sen). Ray introduced two of
his favourite actors Soumitra Chatterjee
and Sharmila Tagore in this film. The film
finds Apu living in a nondescript Kolkata
house in near-poverty. He becomes involved
in an unusual marriage with Aparna, the
scenes of their life together forming "one
of the cinema's classic affirmative depiction
of married life", but tragedy ensues.
After Apur Sansar was harshly criticised
by a Bengali critic, Ray wrote an article
defending it-a rare event in Ray's film
making career (the other major instance
involved the film Charulata, Ray's personal
favourite). His success had little influence
on his personal life in the years to come.
Ray continued to live with his mother, uncle
and other members of his extended family
in a rented house.
From Devi to Charulata (1959-1964)
Reversal of the gaze, Charulata looking
at Amal
During this period, Ray composed films on
the British Raj period (such as Devi), a
documentary on Tagore, a comic film (Mahapurush)
and his first film from an original screenplay
(Kanchenjungha). He also made a series of
films that, taken together, are considered
by critics among the most deeply felt portrayal
of Indian women on screen.
Ray followed Apur Sansar with Devi (The
Goddess), a film in which are studied the
superstitions in the Hindu society. Sharmila
Tagore starred as Doyamoyee, a young wife
who is deified by her father-in-law. Ray
was worried that the censor board might
block his film, or at least make him re-cut
it, but Devi was spared. In 1961, on the
insistence of Prime-minister Jawaharlal
Nehru, Ray was commissioned to make a documentary
on Rabindranath Tagore, on the occasion
of the poet's birth centennial, a tribute
to the person who probably influenced Ray
most. Due to limited real footage of Tagore
available, Ray faced the challenge of making
a film out of mainly static material, and
he remarked that it took as much work as
three feature films. In the same year, together
with Subhas Mukhopadhyay and others, Ray
was able to revive Sandesh, the children's
magazine his grandfather once published.
Ray had been saving money for some years
now to make this possible. A duality in
the name (Sandesh means both "news"
in Bengali and also a sweet desert popular
in Bengal) set the tone of the magazine
(both educational and entertaining), and
Ray soon found himself illustrating the
magazine, and writing stories and essays
for children. Writing became his major source
of income in the years to come.
In 1962, Ray directed Kanchenjungha, which
was his first original screenplay and colour
film. The film tells the story of an upper-class
family spending an afternoon in Darjeeling,
a picturesque hill town in West Bengal,
where the family tries to engage their youngest
daughter to a highly-paid engineer educated
in London. The film was first conceived
to take place in a large mansion, but Ray
later decided to film it in the famous hill
town, using the many shades of light and
mist to reflect the tension in the drama.
An amused Ray noted that while his script
allowed shooting to be possible under any
lighting conditions, a commercial film contingent
present at the same time in Darjeeling failed
to shoot a single shot as they only wanted
to do so in sunshine.
In the sixties, Ray visited Japan and took
particular pleasure in meeting filmmaker
Akira Kurosawa, for whom he had very high
regard. While at home, he would take an
occasional break from the hectic city life
by going to places like Darjeeling or Puri
to complete a script in isolation.
In 1964 Ray made Charulata (The Lonely Wife),
the culmination of this period of work,
and regarded by many critics as his most
accomplished film. Based on Nastanirh, a
short story of Tagore, the film tells the
tale of a lonely wife, Charu, in 19th century
Bengal, and her growing feelings for her
brother in law, Amal. Often referred to
as Ray's Mozartian masterpiece, Ray himself
famously said the film contained least flaws
among his work, and his only work, that
given a chance, he would make exactly the
same way. Madhabi Mukherjee's performance
as Charu, and the work of both Subrata Mitra
and Bansi Chandragupta in the film have
been highly praised. Other films in this
period include Mahanagar (The Big City),
Teen Kanya (Three Daughters), Abhijan (The
Expedition) and Kapurush o Mahapurush (The
Coward and the Holy Man).
New directions (1965-1982)
In the post-Charulata period, Ray took on
projects of increasing variety, ranging
from fantasy to science fiction to detective
films to historical drama. Ray also made
considerable formal experimentation during
this period, and also took closer notice
to the contemporary issues of Indian life,
responding to a perceived lack of these
issues in his films. The first major film
in this period is Nayak (The Hero), the
story of a screen hero traveling in a train
where he meets a young sympathetic female
journalist. Starring Uttam Kumar and Sharmila
Tagore, the film explores, in the twenty-four
hours of the journey, the inner conflict
of the apparently highly successful matinée
idol. In spite of receiving a Critics prize
in Berlin, the reaction to this film was
generally muted.
In 1967, Ray wrote a script for a film to
be called The Alien, based on his short
story Bankubabur Bandhu ("Banku Babu's
Friend") which he wrote in 1962 for
Sandesh, the Ray family magazine. The Alien
had Columbia Pictures as producer for this
planned U.S.-India co-production, and Peter
Sellers and Marlon Brando as the leading
actors. However, Ray was surprised to find
that the script he had written had already
been copyrighted and the fee appropriated
by Mike Wilson. Wilson had initially approached
Ray as an acquaintance of a mutual friend,
Arthur C. Clarke, to represent him in Hollywood.
The script Wilson had copyrighted was credited
as Mike Wilson & Satyajit Ray, despite
the fact that he only contributed a single
word in it. Ray later stated that he never
received a penny for the script. Brando
later dropped out of the project, and though
an attempt was made to replace him with
James Coburn, Ray became disillusioned and
returned to Kolkata. Columbia expressed
interest in reviving the project several
times in the 1970s and 1980s, but nothing
came of it. When E.T. was released in 1982,
Clarke and Ray saw similarities in the film
to the earlier Alien script-Ray discussed
the collapse of the project in a 1980 Sight
& Sound feature, with further details
revealed by Ray's biographer Andrew Robinson
(in The Inner Eye, 1989). Ray believed that
Spielberg's film would not have been possible
without his script of The Alien being available
throughout America in mimeographed copies
(a charge Spielberg denies).
In 1969, Ray made what would be commercially
the most successful of his films. Based
on a children's story written by his grandfather,
Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (The Adventures of
Goopy and Bagha) is a musical fantasy. Goopy
the singer and Bagha the drummer, equipped
by three boons allowed by the King of Ghosts,
set out on a fantastic journey in which
they try to stop an impending war between
two neighbouring kingdoms. Among his most
expensive enterprises, it turned out to
be very hard to finance; Ray abandoned his
desire to shoot it in colour, turning down
an offer that would have forced him to cast
a certain Bollywood actor as the lead. Ray
next made a film from a novel by the young
poet and writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay. Featuring
a musical structure acclaimed as even more
complex than Charulata, Aranyer Din Ratri
(Days and Nights in the Forest) traces four
urban young men going to the forests for
a vacation, trying to leave their petty
urban existence behind. All but one of them
get engaged into revealing encounters with
women, which critics consider a revealing
study of the Indian middle class. Ray cast
Bombay-based actress Simi Garewal as a tribal
woman, who was pleasantly surprised to find
that Ray could envision someone as urban
as her in that role.
After Aranyer, Ray made a foray into contemporary
Bengali reality, which was then in state
of continuous flux due to the leftist Naxalite
movement. He completed the so-called Calcutta
trilogy: Pratidwandi (1970), Seemabaddha
(1971), and Jana Aranya (1975), three films
which were conceived separately, but whose
thematic connections form a loose trilogy.Pratidwandi
(The Adversary) is about an idealist young
graduate; if disillusioned, still uncorrupted
at the end of film, Jana Aranya (The Middleman)
about how a young man gives in to the culture
of corruption to make a living, and Seemabaddha
(Company Limited) about an already successful
man giving up morals for further gains.
Of these, the first, Pratidwandi, uses an
elliptical narrative style previously unseen
in Ray films, such as scenes in negative,
dream sequences and abrupt flashbacks. In
the 1970s, Ray also adapted two of his popular
stories as detective films. Though mainly
targeted towards children and young adults,
both Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress) and
Joy Baba Felunath (The Elephant God) found
some critical following.
Ray considered making a film on the Bangladesh
Liberation War but later abandoned the idea,
commenting that as a filmmaker he was more
interested in the travails and journeys
of the refugees and not politics. In 1977,
Ray completed Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess
Players), an Urdu film based on a story
by Munshi Premchand, set in Lucknow in the
state of Oudh, a year before the Indian
rebellion of 1857. A commentary on the circumstances
that led to the colonization of India by
the British, this was Ray's first feature
film in a language other than Bengali. This
is also his most expensive and star-studded
film, featuring likes of Sanjeev Kumar,
Saeed Jaffrey, Amjad Khan, Shabana Azmi,
Victor Bannerjee and Richard Attenborough.
Ray made a sequel to Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne
in 1980, a somewhat overtly political Hirak
Rajar Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds) - where
the kingdom of the evil Diamond King or
Hirok Raj is an allusion to India during
Indira Gandhi's emergency period. Along
with his acclaimed short film Pikoo (Pikoo's
Day) and hour long Hindi film Sadgati this
was the culmination of his work in this
period.
The last phase (1983-1992)
Sukumar Ray, on whom Ray made a documentary
in 1987
In 1983, while working on Ghare Baire (Home
and the World), Ray suffered a heart attack
that would severely limit his output in
the remaining 9 years of his life. Ghare
Baire was completed in 1984 with the help
of Ray's son (who would operate the camera
from then on) because of his health condition.
He wanted to film this Tagore novel on the
dangers of fervent nationalism for a long
time, and even wrote a (weak, by his own
admission) script for it in the 1940s. In
spite of rough patches due to his illness,
the film did receive some critical acclaim,
and it contained the first full-blown kiss
in Ray's films. In 1987, he made a documentary
on his father, Sukumar Ray.
Ray's last three films, made after his recovery
and with medical strictures in place, were
shot mostly indoors, have a distinctive
style. They are more verbose than his earlier
films and are often regarded as inferior
to his earlier body of work. The first,
Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People) is an
adaptation of the famous Ibsen play, and
considered the weakest of the three. Ray
recovered some of his form in his 1990 film
Shakha Proshakha (Branches of the Tree).
In it, an old man, who has lived a life
of honesty, comes to learn of the corruption
three of his sons indulge in with the final
scene shows him finding solace only in the
companionship of the fourth, uncorrupted
but mentally ill son. After Shakha Prashakha,
Ray's swan song Agantuk (The Stranger) is
lighter in mood, but not in theme. A long
lost uncle's sudden visit to his niece's
house in Kolkata raises suspicion as to
his motive and far-ranging questions about
civilization.
In 1992, Ray's health deteriorated due to
heart complications. He was admitted to
a hospital, and would never recover. An
honorary Oscar was awarded to him weeks
before his death, which he received in a
gravely ill condition. He died on April
23, 1992.
Film craft
Satyajit Ray considered script-writing to
be an integral part of direction. This is
one reason why he initially refused to make
a film in any language other than Bengali.
In his two non-Bengali feature films, he
wrote the script in English, which translators
then interpreted in Hindi or Urdu under
Ray's supervision. Ray's own eye for detail
was matched by that of his art director
Bansi Chandragupta, whose influence on the
early Ray films were so important that Ray
would always write scripts in English before
creating a Bengali version, so that the
non-Bengali Chandragupta would be able to
read it. Camera work in Ray's early films
garnered high regard for the craft of Subrata
Mitra, whose (bitter) departure from Ray's
crew, according to a number of critics,
lowered the quality of cinematography in
his films.[42] Though Ray openly praised
Mitra, his single-mindedness made him take
over operation of the camera since Charulata,
causing Mitra to stop working for Ray after
1966. Pioneering works of Subrata Mitra
included development of "bounce lighting",
a technique of bouncing light off cloth
to create a diffused realistic light even
on a set. Ray also acknowledged debt to
Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut
of the French New Wave for introducing new
technical and cinematic innovations.[43]
Though Ray had a regular editor in Dulal
Datta, he usually dictated the editing while
Datta did the actual work. In fact, because
of financial reasons and Ray's meticulous
planning, his films were mostly cut "on
the camera" (apart from Pather Panchali).
At the beginning of his career, Ray worked
with Indian classical musicians, including
Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar
Khan. However, the experience was painful
for him as he found that their first loyalty
was to musical traditions, and not to his
film; also, his greater grasp of western
classical forms, which he regarded as essential,
especially for his films set in an urban
milieu, stood in the way. This led him to
compose his own scores starting from Teen
Kanya. Ray used actors of diverse backgrounds,
from famous film stars to people who have
never seen a film (such as in Aparajito).
Robin Wood and others have lauded him as
the best director of children, pointing
out memorable performances including Apu
and Durga (Pather Panchali), Ratan (Postmaster)
and Mukul (Sonar Kella). Depending on the
talent or experience of the actor Ray's
direction would vary from virtually nothing
(actors like Utpal Dutt) to using the actor
as "a puppet" (Subir Banerjee
as young Apu or Sharmila Tagore as Aparna).
According to actors working for Ray, his
customary trust in the actors would occasionally
be tempered by his ability to treat incompetence
with "total contempt".
Literary works
Main article: Literary creations of Satyajit
Ray
Cover of a collection of Satyajit Ray's
short stories
Ray created two very popular characters
in Bengali children's literature-Feluda,
a sleuth, and Professor Shonku, a scientist.
He also wrote short stories which were published
as volumes of 12 stories, always with names
playing on the word twelve (for example
Eker pitthe dui, or literally "Two
on top of one"). Ray's interest in
puzzles and puns is reflected in his stories,
Feluda often has to solve a puzzle to get
to the bottom of a case. The Feluda stories
are narrated by Topshe, his cousin, something
of a Watson to Feluda's Holmes. The science
fictions of Shonku are presented as a diary
discovered after the scientist himself had
mysteriously disappeared. Ray's short stories
give full reign to his interest in the macabre,
in suspense and other aspects that he avoided
in film, making for an interesting psychological
study.[48] Most of his writings have now
been translated into English, and are finding
a new group of readers.
Most of his screenplays have also been published
in Bengali in the literary journal Eksan.
Ray wrote his autobiography encompassing
his childhood years, Jakhan Choto Chilam
(1982) and essays on film: Our Films, Their
Films (1976), along with Bishoy Chalachchitra
(1976), Ekei Bole Shooting (1979). During
the mid-1990s, Ray's film essays and an
anthology of short stories were also published
in the West. Our Films, Their Films is an
anthology of film criticism by Ray. The
book contains articles and personal journal
excerpts. The book is presented in two sections-Ray
first discusses Indian film, before turning
his attention towards Hollywood and specific
international filmmakers (Charlie Chaplin,
Akira Kurosawa) and movements like Italian
neorealism. His book Bishoy Chalachchitra
was translated in 2006 as Speaking of Films,
and contains a compact description of his
philosophy of different aspects of the cinema.
Ray also wrote a collection of nonsense
verse named Today Bandha Ghorar Dim, which
includes a translation of Lewis Carroll's
"Jabberwocky". He also authored
a collection of humorous stories of Mullah
Nasiruddin in Bengali.
Satyajit Ray designed four typefaces named
Ray Roman, Ray Bizarre, Daphnis, and Holiday
Script. Ray Roman and Ray Biazarre won an
international competition in 1971. In certain
circles of Kolkata, Ray continued to be
known as an eminent graphic designer, well
into his film career. Ray illustrated all
his books and designed covers for them,
as well as creating all publicity material
for his films. He also designed covers of
several books by other authors.
Critical and popular response
Ray's work has been described as reverberating
with humanism and universality, and of deceptive
simplicity with deep underlying complexity.
Superlative praise has often been heaped
on his work by many, including Akira Kurosawa,
who declared, "Not to have seen the
cinema of Ray means existing in the world
without seeing the sun or the moon."But
his detractors find his films glacially
slow, moving like a "majestic snail."
Some find his humanism simple-minded, and
his work anti-modern and claim that they
lack new modes of expression or experimentation
found in works of Ray's contemporaries like
Jean-Luc Godard. As Stanley Kauffman wrote,
some critics believe that Ray "assumes
[viewers] can be interested in a film that
simply dwells in its characters, rather
than one that imposes dramatic patterns
on their lives." Ray himself commented
that this slowness is something he can do
nothing about. Kurosawa defended him by
saying that Ray's films were not slow at
all, "His work can be described as
flowing composedly, like a big river".
Critics have often compared Ray to artists
in the cinema and other media, such as Anton
Chekhov, Renoir, De Sica, Howard Hawks or
Mozart. Shakespeare has also been invoked,
for example by the writer V. S. Naipaul,
who compared a scene in Shatranj Ki Khiladi
to a Shakespearian play, as "only three
hundred words are spoken but goodness! -
terrific things happen." It is generally
acknowledged, even by those who were not
impressed by the aesthetics of Ray's films,
that he was virtually peerless in that his
films encompass a whole culture with all
its nuances, a sentiment expressed in Ray's
obituary in The Independent, which exclaimed,
"Who else can compete?"
Early in 1980, Ray was openly criticized
by an Indian M.P. and former actress Nargis
Dutt, who accused Ray of "exporting
poverty," demanding he make films to
represent "Modern India." On the
other hand, a common accusation levelled
against him by advocates of socialism across
India was that he was not "committed"
to the cause of the nation's downtrodden
classes, with some commentators accusing
Ray of glorifying poverty in Pather Panchali
and Asani Sanket through lyricism and aesthetics.
They also accused him of providing no solution
to conflicts in the stories, and being unable
to overcome his bourgeoisie background.
Agitations during the naxalite movements
in the 1970s once came close to causing
physical harm to his son, Sandip. In a public
debate during the 1960s, Ray and the openly
Marxist filmmaker Mrinal Sen engaged in
an argument. Sen criticized him for casting
a matinée idol like Uttam Kumar,
which he considered a compromise, while
Ray shot back by saying that Sen only attacks
"easy targets", i.e. the Bengali
middle-classes. His private life was never
a subject of media scrutiny.
Legacy
Ray with his Academy Award just days before
his death.
Satyajit Ray is a cultural icon in India
and in Bengali communities worldwide. Following
his death, the city of Kolkata came to a
virtual standstill, as hundreds of thousands
of people gathered around his house to pay
him their last respects. Satyajit Ray's
influence has been widespread and deep in
Bengali cinema, a number of Bengali directors
including Aparna Sen, Rituparno Ghosh and
Gautam Ghose in India, and Tareq Masud and
Tanvir Mokammel in Bangladesh, have been
influenced by his film craft. Across the
spectrum, filmmakers such as Budhdhadeb
Dasgupta, Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan
have acknowledged his seminal contribution
to Indian cinema. Beyond India, filmmakers
such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas
Kiarostami and Elia Kazan have been influenced
by his cinematic style. Ira Sachs's 2005
work Forty Shades of Blue was a loose remake
of Charulata, and in the 1995 film My Family,
the final scene is duplicated from the final
scene of Apur Sansar. Similar references
to Ray films are found, for example, in
recent works such as Sacred Evil, the Elements
trilogy of Deepa Mehta and even in films
of Jean-Luc Godard.
The character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in
the American animated television series
The Simpsons was named in homage to Ray's
popular character from The Apu Trilogy.
Ray along with Madhabi Mukherjee, was the
first Indian film personality to feature
in a foreign stamp (Dominica). Many literary
works include references to Ray or his work,
including Saul Bellow's Herzog and J. M.
Coetzee's Youth. Salman Rushdie's Haroun
and the Sea of Stories contains fish characters
named Goopy and Bagha, a tribute to Ray's
fantasy film. In 1993, UC Santa Cruz established
the Satyajit Ray Film and Study collection,
and in 1995, the Government of India set
up Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute
for studies related to film. In 2007, British
Broadcasting Corporation declared that two
Feluda stories would be made into radio
programs.[73] During the London film festival,
a regular "Satyajit Ray Award"
is given to first-time feature director
whose film best captures "the artistry,
compassion and humanity of Ray's vision".
Wes Anderson has claimed Ray as an influence
on his work; his most recent film, The Darjeeling
Limited, set in India, is dedicated to Ray.
Awards, honours and recognitions
See also: Awards conferred on Satyajit Ray
Numerous awards were bestowed on Ray throughout
his lifetime, including 32 National Film
Awards by the Government of India. When
Ray was awarded honorary doctorates by Oxford
University, he was the second film personality
to be so honored after Chaplin.. He was
awarded the Legion of Honor by the President
of France in 1987 and the Dadasaheb Phalke
Award in 1985. The Government of India awarded
him the highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna
shortly before his death. The Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded
Ray an honorary Oscar in 1992 for Lifetime
Achievement. In 1992 he was posthumously
awarded the Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime
Achievement in Directing at the San Francisco
International Film Festival; it was accepted
on his behalf by actress Sharmila Tagore.
Notes
1. ^ Santas 2002, p. 18
2. ^ Seton 1971, p. 36
3. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 46
4. ^ Seton 1971, p. 70
5. ^ Seton 1971, pp. 71-72
6. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 56-58
7. ^ Robinson 2005, p. 38
8. ^ Robinson 2005, pp. 40-43
9. ^ Robinson 2005, pp. 42-44
10. ^ Robinson 2005, p. 48
11. ^ a b Robinson 2003, pp. 74-90
12. ^ Seton 1971, p. 95
13. ^ a b Seton 1971, pp. 112-15
14. ^ "Filmi Funda Pather Panchali
(1955)", The Telegraph, 2005-04-20.
Retrieved on 2006-04-29.
15. ^ a b c Robinson 2003, pp. 91-106
16. ^ Malcolm D. Satyajit Ray: The Music
Room. guardian.co.uk. Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
17. ^ Wood 1972, p. 61
18. ^ Wood 1972
19. ^ Ray mentions this in Ray 1993, p.
13
20. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 5
21. ^ Palopoli S. Ghost 'World'. metroactive.com.
Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
22. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 277
23. ^ Seton 1971, p. 189
24. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 142
25. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 157
26. ^ Antani J. Charulata. Slant magazine.
Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
27. ^ Dasgupta 1996, p. 91
28. ^ a b Ray, Satyajit. Ordeals of the
Alien. The Unmade Ray. Satyajit Ray Society.
Retrieved on 2008-04-21.
29. ^ Neumann P. Biography for Satyajit
Ray. Internet Movie Database Inc. Retrieved
on 2006-04-29.
30. ^ Newman J. "Satyajit Ray Collection
receives Packard grant and lecture endowment",
UC Santa Cruz Currents online, 2001-09-17.
Retrieved on 2006-04-29.
31. ^ Seton 1971, pp. 291-297
32. ^ Wood 1972, p. 13
33. ^ a b Robinson 2003, pp. 200-220
34. ^ Rushdie 1992
35. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 206
36. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 188-189
37. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 66-67
38. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 339-364
39. ^ Dasgupta 1996, p. 134
40. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 353
41. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 353-364
42. ^ Dasgupta 1996, p. 91
43. ^ Sen A. Western Influences on Satyajit
Ray. Parabaas. Retrieved on 2006-04-29.
44. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 315-318
45. ^ Ray 1994, p. 100
46. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 78
47. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 307
48. ^ Nandy 1995
49. ^ Datta, Sudipta. "The Ray show
goes on", The Financial Express, Indian
Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd, 19 January
2008. Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
50. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 57
51. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 57-59
52. ^ Malcolm D. The universe in his backyard.
guardian.co.uk. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.
53. ^ Swagrow M. An Art Wedded to Truth.
The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.
54. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 96
55. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 157
56. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 306-318
57. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 352-353
58. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 314-315
59. ^ Wood 1972
60. ^ Ebert R. The Music Room (1958). suntimes.com.
Retrieved on 2006-04-29.
61. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 246
62. ^ Robinson 2005, pp. 13-14
63. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 327-328
64. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 205
65. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 177
66. ^ Tankha, Madhur. "Returning to
the classics of Ray", The Hindu, 1
December 2007. Retrieved on 2008-05-01.
67. ^ Amitav Ghosh. Satyajit Ray. Doom Online.
Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
68. ^ Mrinal Sen. Our lives, their lives.
Little Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-06-29.
69. ^ Chris Ingui. Martin Scorsese hits
DC, hangs with the Hachet. Hatchet. Retrieved
on 2006-06-29.
70. ^ Sheldon Hall. Ivory, James (1928-).
Screen Online. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
71. ^ SK Jha. Sacred Ray. Telegraph India.
Retrieved on 2006-06-29.
72. ^ André Habib. Before and After:
Origins and Death in the Work of Jean-Luc
Godard. Senses of Cinema. Retrieved on 2006-06-29.
73. ^ Datta S. Feluda goes global, via radio.
Financial Express. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
74. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 1
75. ^ a b Personal Awards. Awards. satyajitray.org.
Retrieved on 2008-04-09.
76. ^ Awards and Tributes: Satyajit Ray.
San Francisco International Film Festival:
The First to Fifty. San Francisco Film Society.
Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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