Relish: Satyajit Ray's Indian cinema

By Joseph Allencherril     9/7/11 7:00pm

Before writing off all Indian cinema as sub-par because of the rather dime-a-dozen, homogeneous output of contemporary Bollywood cinema, you ought to see the films of Satyajit Ray.  Believe it or not, breaking out in song and dance has not always been the norm in Indian cinema; before that, there was Ray, the first true master of ?Indian film.

Ray apparently watched 99 foreign films during a three-month visit to London in 1950, including Bicycle Thieves, the most famous work of Italian neorealist director Vittorio de Sica. Luckily for the film world, Ray emerged from the London movie halls determined to be a director.

Pather Panchali (1955) is perhaps the film which Ray is best known for. The film takes place in the village of Nischindipur during the 1920s, centering on the life of an impoverished family. Subir Banerjee plays the central character Apu (If this was the inspiration for everyone's favorite Indian Kwik-e-Mart owner, then the geeky Harvard writers of The Simpsons must have watched some great films in college). Apu's father Harihar Ray (Kanu Banerjee) ekes out a paltry living as a priest while hoping to one day make it as a poet and playwright. Harihar's wife Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee), takes care of Apu and his elder sister Durga (Uma Dasgupta), and resentfully takes care of her ancient, toothless aunt-in-law, Indir Thakrun (Chunibala Devi). But no summary can ever capture the film's ?essence — few other films capture life's joys and sadness so faithfully.

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The making of Pather Panchali was quite a miracle of its own. On that first day of shooting in 1950, Ray had never directed a scene before, and his cinematographer Subrata Mitra had never shot one. In the tradition of Ray's beloved Italian neorealists, he used non-actors; in fact, his child actors hadn't even been tested for their roles.

The music was by a then-unknown sitarist by the name of Ravi Shankar; Shankar went on to become of the greatest sitar virtuosos of the last century and would become famous for bringing an Indian flair to the Beatles' music (he still actively tours at the age of 91). And were it not for the impressiveness of that early footage, Ray might not have even received the paltry financing necessary to finish shooting.

Pather Panchali and its two sequels — Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) — make up the Apu trilogy, which is based upon on the classic bildungsromans of  Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, published during the 1920s and 1930s. Ray's other notable films include Jalsaghar (1958), the introspective biopic of Nobel-Prize winning Bengali bard Rabindranath Tagore (1961) and Sonar Kella (1974).

Ray is one of a handful of hommes de renaissance of film; he wrote and directed his own screenplays and composed the scores for many of his films. In addition, he always had a hand in the duties of casting, cinematography, art direction, editing and even designing his own credit titles and publicity material. Outside of his film work, Ray was a writer of fiction, a publisher, an illustrator and a film critic.

If Satyajit Ray were the poster child of Indian film, maybe then the stereotype that all Indian films are three hour events rife with dancing, cliched acting and pseudo-Western ideals wouldn't be. Those films are here today and gone tomorrow; it has been many yesterdays since Satyajit Ray has been gone, but his films will inevitably endure.

Joseph Allencherril is a Will Rice ?College senior. Classic Flicks is a column reexamining and rediscovering the best that cinema has to offer.

 

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