Our Films, Their Films 0786861223, 9780786861224

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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO V

PUBLIC LIBRARY

,

I

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO LIBRARY

S.S.F.

PUBLIC LIBRARY III

WEST ORANGE AVENUE

3 9048 05372164 /

v

i;v

DISCARD

S.S.F.

PUBLIC LIBRARY

WEST ORANGE AVENUE

JUL

2001

1

7

S.S.F.

PUBLIC LIBRARY

WEST ORANGE AVENUE

SATYAJIT RAY

OUR

FILMS THEIR FILMS

HYPE Rl O N NEW YORK

Acknowledgements I

Mr R. N. Das who first my talks and articles on when Mr Das was the manager

wish to thank

suggested that

in 1971,

put

I

was of Orient Longman,

together in a book

the cinema. This

Calcutta. I

am grateful

to the publishers for bearing with

long period of gestation.

The blame

me

through the

for the delay rests squarely

on

my shoulders. I had been careless in preserving my own published most of which lay scattered in the pages of film journals, film club bulletins, daily newspapers and various other periodicals. Thanks are due to the late Nemai Ghosh (of Chhinnamul fame) and Shri Sunit Sen Gupta for their invaluable help in retrieving writings,

some of the more

elusive pieces.

Finally, a special

word of thanks

to Shri

Nirmalya Acharya

helping the book along at every stage, from

emergence

its

inception to

for its

as a finished entity.

S.R.

Copyright

©

1994 Orient

Longman

Limited, India, and Merchant Ivory

©

Productions, Inc. First published in India All rights reserved.

No

part of this

manner whatsoever without

Orient

Longman Limited

book may be used or reproduced

1976.

in

any

the written permission of the Publisher. Printed in

the United States of America. For information address: Hyperion, 114 Fifth

Avenue,

New

New York

York,

1001 1.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ray,

Our

films, their films

/

Satyajit.

Satyajit

Originally published

:

Ray.

—

1st

U.S. ed.

cm.

p.

Bombay

:

Orient Longman, 1976.

Includes index.

ISBN 1.

Motion

0-7868-6122-3 pictures.

PN1994.R335 791.43

—dc20

I.

Title.

1994

94-16078

CIP

FIRST

10

U.S.

EDITION

987654321

&

Contents

Foreword

iv

Introduction

i

OUR FILMS What

Is

Wrong

17

with Indian Films?

Extracts from a Banaras Diary

A

Long Time on

the Little

19

25

Road

30

Problems of a Bengal Film Maker

38

Room

44

Winding Route to a Music Film Making 48

The Odds against Us 57 Some Aspects of My Craft Those Songs

72

Meetings with a Maharaja

An

Indian

New Wave?

Four and a Quarter

109

Renoir

in

in Calcutta

76

81

100

THEIR FILMS Some

63

Have Seen Hollywood Then and Now 128 Thoughts on the British Cinema Italian Films I

Calm Without, Fire Within Moscow Musings 162 The Gold Rush 168 Little Man, Big Book 172 Akira Kurosawa

180

Tokyo, Kyoto and Kurosawa

New Wave and Old

Master

Silent Films

A

199 Tribute to John Ford

Index

213

152

208

187

194

120

142

—

&

Foreword

‘Fame

invests a

—

man

with an aura of unapp reachability,’

Ray wrote

Ray (1921-92), one of the and one of the most kindly giants, was revered

of his fellow cineaste Jean Renoir. Satyajit giants of world cinema, for

many

tor,

professional

gifts

—

as the

complete film

composer), as a typographer and

man

dren’s monthly magazine, as a devisor of puzzles,

and

Few

storyteller.

rounded

fully

(writer, direc-

illustrator, as editor

artists

and

of a

chil-

as a novelist

of our century, however,

have been more approachable, on both a personal and a professional level,

than Bengal’s most modest and most

Apu

humane

film

maker,

The Music Room (1958), Devi (The Goddess, i960), Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964) and The

creator of the

Chess Players ( 1977 ).

Trilogy (i955~59)

—

The door

to Ray’s Calcutta

apartment was never

closed to anyone genuinely seeking his help.

A measure of the man, and of his genius as an informal teacher, can be gained from these succinct, diverse and often intimate film essays, first

gathered together and published in India in 1976.

telling,

The most

perhaps, are Ray’s frank, vivid and often wry descriptions of

the fashioning of his

own

films

—

the lessons he learned from the

first

shot taken for Pather Panchali; the misfortune that resulted from the hire of a crane for The Music Room; the poetic conclusion to a location

search for a maharaja’s tumbledown palace.

about the

art of

cinema not

at film school,

Ray

taught himself

but by taking, he

recalls,

on the Kurosawa

hieroglyphic notes in the auditorium; and his observations

work of his Masters

—Chaplin,

Billy Wilder, John Ford,

Here is both the enchanted and the technician pinpointing the effect cinematic moment, a man kicking a broken bottle into a

are invaluable for their dual perspective.

spectator of The Gold Rush,

of a true

ravine, in Ford’s Fort Apache.

John Pym

Introduction

A

maker rarely writes about films. He is either too busy making one, or too unhappy not to be able to make one, or too exhausted from the last one he made. Cocteau could write a film maker’s diary because he was a sort of superior dabbler who never knew the sustained pressures film

of professional film making. Eisenstein used words as copiously as he used celluloid; but then he a theoretician as

much

w as

a teacher and

r

as a film maker. Others

have written

about their films at the end of their careers. But by and large film their

makers have desisted from adding footnotes

to

own work.

This reticence has encouraged the growth of a mystique

which has helped the film maker

ego while

to sustain his

concealing his vulnerability. His ego

is

an indispensable

part of his equipment. With vast amounts of

money

at his

and a whole army of talents at his beck and call, he must work with a far greater sense of power than any other artist in any other field. The very word ‘Action’ with which he gets a scene going has the authentic ring of an army command. Indeed, he knows well that as long as the

disposal

film

is

in the

making, he

is

the one

who

is

expected to

dominate.

But once the making rates

and

is

over, the sense of

helplessness creeps in.

only answerable to

critics,

He

which

power evapo-

realises that

all artists are,

he

is

not

but to the

Our Films, Their Films

2

man who provided the wherewithal, and to the faceless millions who form the public pulse which must now beat with his film for the film

itself

not to

fall

by the wayside

and die. No wonder the film maker is reduced to a state of mute resignation. All he can do is wait for the next film to restore his ego by handing him back his mantle of authority. It

is

only in recent years that film makers have begun to

show signs of being articulate. Not in writing, though, and not on their own. Indefatigable critics armed with tape recorders have coaxed them out of their retreats, cajoled them into speech and faithfully recorded and transcribed every word. For obvious reasons, only directors with marked individualities and large followings have been chosen for this

purpose. If this has not led to a full-scale revelation

of the mysteries of creation, interesting glimpses of their

doing led

has at least given some

it

working methods, and by so

to a partial demystification

of the film making

process.

A

phenomenon has Quite a number of film

sort of reverse

recent times.

also taken place in critics

have given up

writing and switched over to film making. In France in the late fifties a

Cinema

whole group of young

left their

critics

from

Cahiers du

desks and started a now-celebrated film

movement. Similar things have

also

happened

in Britain

and elsewhere. It is interesting to observe that once the transition was made few went back to writing again. If I had my choice, most of the pieces in this book would not have been written at all. They are the outcomes of promises for articles and talks

moments

to various

not to say that

I

given

at

unguarded

magazines and organisations. This

is

regret having written them. In the unique

circumstances in which films are

made

in Bengal,

accounts of my experiences and working methods

some

may have

— Introduction

3

some value, at least for those in our country who would tread the same path but are not aware of the pitfalls. Some of the problems a film maker faces are of a general for all.

More

own unique

set of

nature, where one man’s solutions

would do

often than not, a film brings with

it its

Some may be

stumbling blocks.

may

call for effort.

disposed of easily, others

may

Yet others

prove wholly intract-

These usually end up by clinging tenaciously

able.

to the

which the director fervently hopes

film as blemishes

will

not be noticed.

A

lesson

conceal

is

have learnt and have been at pains not to

I

that film

demanding of all ‘creative’.

making

by

is

most physically

far the

activities that are dignified

The whole

by the epithet

process takes place in three broad

and editing. All three are creative; and the third one uses mainly one’s

stages: writing, filming

but while in the

first

head, the second calls for the use of cerebral, physical times.

Any

film

all

one’s faculties

—

and emotional going full steam at all maker who while at work bears any

resemblance to the popular conception of the

withdrawn individual is

in rapt

artist as

communion with

his

a

Muse

obviously shirking and has no business to be within

miles of a movie camera.

And

yet to one

who

relenting pressure, film else does. I

hope

I

survives the initial shock of un-

making

have been able

some of the unique excitement

The second part of foreign films.

I

offers

I

the book

to

rewards as nothing

convey in

get out of

is

my

my

workings

work.

mainly concerned with

have been making films for twenty-two

years. Before that, for

about the same length of time,

I

had

looked at other people’s films, mostly from other countries,

mainly American. In

my

childhood,

visits to

the cinema

Our Films, Their Films

4

were

with the delights

big, if infrequent, occasions filled

of the latest Chaplin or Keaton or Harold Lloyd. This was followed, in the early years of sound,

Hardy

When

ture phase.

choose vista.

by a Laurel-and-

phase, a Tarzan phase and a swashbuckling adven-

my own

I

was

diet.

Westerns,

fifteen or so, I

earned the right to

This led to a great opening up of the

gangster

comedies, dramas and

horror

films,

films,

musicals,

those other species which Holly-

all

wood served up with such expertise came tumbling my way to be lapped up with ever-increasing appetite. I noted each

in a

title

comments, and

pocket diary, adding brief

little

my own star rating.

The addiction

persisted through college, with

tant change of attitude

my

critical

:

the stars gave

way

one impor-

to directors as

had earlier learned to recognise the hallmarks of the major Hollywood studios. I could make out an film from a Paramount one, or a Warner’s production from a 20th Century Fox one, by the distinctive quality of finish which each major studio took special care to put on its products. It was described by the word ‘mounting’, and it was fun to try and make out what this mounting focus of interest.

I

MGM

consisted

marks of

now gave way to a study of the halldirectors. In what way was Ford different from of.

This

Wyler, or Wyler from Capra, or Capra from Stevens? This was precisely the point where

my

interest took a seri-

dawned on me stars, more than

ous turn. It had suddenly the studio,

more than the

the director

who

gave a distinguished film

that

more than it

was

mark of

dis-

the story, its

tinction.

After college and graduation,

I

went

to Santiniketan for

had vague plans for a career in gradrawing but needed a foundation of discipline to be able to make any use of it. With me went my small but precious collection of gramophone rea course in Fine Arts.

phic

arts. I

had a

I

flair for

Introduction

5

cords of classical western music. because, in leaving the city, hind. As

it

I

I

needed

was leaving

my second love my first love be-

turned out, the only cinema in the vicinity of the

campus was two miles away, had wooden benches for seats, and showed mythological films. This put me in the doldrums until I discovered in the shelves of the arts department library three books on the cinema. They were Rotha’s Film Till Now and the two books of theory by Arnheim ,

and Spottiswoode. I

Santjniketan in the middle of the

left

Japanese

months

air raids

after

my

first

spate of

over Calcutta in the winter of 1942. Six

home

return

I

got a job as a visualiser in

a British-owned advertising agency.. Calcutta

now

being a

base of operations in the war, Chowringhee was chock-a-

block with GIs.

The pavement book

stalls

displayed wafer-

and Time and the jam-packed cinelatest films from Hollywood. While I sat at my office desk sketching out campaigns for tea and biscuits, my mind buzzed with the thoughts of the films I had been seeing. I never ceased to regret that while I had thin editions of Life

,

mas showed the very

stood in the scorching

summer sun

in the wilds of Santi-

niketan sketching simul and palash in

full

bloom,

Citizen

Kane had come and gone, playing for just three days in the newest and biggest cinema in Calcutta.

Although Hollywood struck an extraordinarily rich vein

and my film going had never been more frequent nor more richly rewarding, I felt only partially eduat this time,

cated. All those great

names

Soviet cinema stared at

Sound

,

French and German and

in

me from

but there was no

way

I

the pages of Sight and

could get to see them.

Luckily some of the great film makers of Europe had in the

meantime migrated to encounter

to

Hollywood, and

I

was soon

thrilled

my first Hollywood-Renoir and my first Holly-

wood-Clair. This was followed by a sudden influx of Soviet

Our Films Their Films

6

,

saw the first part of Ivan the Terrible on a Sunday morning in a North Calcutta cinema. The Gothic gloom of the film, Cherkasov’s grand gestures, and the music of Prokofiev stayed with me all through the day and well into the night, until I fell asleep and found them back in a grotesque dream, in the middle of which I woke up gasping for breath. It turned out that a paan I had bought from a shop next to the cinema had never forget the day

films. I shall

I

,

me

given

my

quinsy, swelling the inside of

point where

I

throat to the

could barely breathe.

had taken out subscriptions to most of the film magazines in the English language and snapped up every film book I could lay my hands on. One of my most valued acquisitions was a second-hand copy

By

the time the

war ended,

I

of the screenplay of Rene Clair’s British film, The Ghost

me

gave

it

my

was

Goes West. This

and

first

encounter with a film

script,

the idea to start writing screenplays as a

pastime.

In the year of India’s independence

we formed

the

first

film club in Calcutta, thereby shackling ourselves willingly to the task of disseminating film culture

my job

In

ligentsia.

of book jackets. In

were

mind,

to

my as

opened

amongst the

intel-

was now firmly established not only

but also as an illustrator and a designer

as a visualiser,

occurred

I

me

all this

time the thought had not once

of changing

my

profession.

Graphics

bread and butter, while films were food for the music was too.

my

and

eyes

My three years in

ears to our artistic

tage, so that in addition to

and concertos,

I

Santiniketan had

and musical

heri-

buying records of symphonies

was now regularly going

to concerts of

Indian classical music.

For the

first

two years of

its

existence, the

membership

Introduction

7

of our club refused to go above twenty-five.

Our

enthu-

We

siasm was beginning to acquire a tinge of cynicism.

we

could see over.

We

attack.

did not have

much

of a

field to

disseminate

were also being subjected to a two-pronged

One came from

the film trade, which spread the

word that a group of subversive youngsters was running down Bengali films at meetings and seminars. The other came from a household which included one of our club members.

It

was an isolated

typical one. This

case, but

member had

may

well have been a

offered us the use of his

drawing room for one of our meetings. Since we did not have a regular club room, members took turns to provide facilities in their

own

houses.

On

this occasion, in the

mid-

was summoned by the owner of the house and summarily told that he would not dle of our discussion, our friend

put up with film people spoiling the sanctity of his house.

We I

were thrown out of the place.

now decided

to spread

our gospel over a wider

wrote an article on Bengali films which the leading English dailies of Calcutta.

explosive

piece

field. I

came out in one of I had thought my

would shake the Bengali cinema

foundations and lead to a massive heart-searching

to

its

among

our film makers. Nothing of the sort happened. The piece

was simply shrugged off by the people of the trade

as yet

another piece of tomfoolery by some arrogant upstart who saw only foreign films and knew nothing of local needs and local conditions.

But others

if

the trade itself ignored

on the

fringe of

came

out,

writer

who was about

I

much

as

who

article,

did not.

A

there were

few days after

it

got a phone call from a well-known screen to start

he would direct himself. his film,

it

my

He

an ambitious new film which

said he wished to see

adding that he had admired he admired

my

article

my book jackets. We made

me

about

almost as

an appoint-

Our Films Their Films

8

,

ment, and

I

turned up in his

proachable logic,

new

next day. With

office the

me

he offered

irre-

the job of art director

on

Even if I felt a little deflated, I did not have the heart to pass up an opportunity to find out what ‘local conditions’ were really like. And I felt this was something I could handle in my spare time without having to give up his

film.

my regular job. conference,

of the

sets.

I

accepted his

offer,

attended the

first

story

came back home and started making sketches week later, word came that the job had been

A

given to a well-known painter with a

flair for interior

de-

coration.

The second

offer pleased

me

more.

One

of the screen-

had turned out in my spare time was based on a short story by a well-known Bengali writer. It concerned an overbearing English manager of a zemindari estate whose dark doings are brought to an end by a plucky Bengali youth with radical leanings. The treatment was read by a friend of mine who recommended it to a businessmanplays

I

who was was summoned in the

thinking of producing a film. Soon

acquaintance

businessman’s presence and asked to

read out the treatment. est conference table

I

I

I

sat

down on one

side of the long-

had ever seen, and had to turn

my

who occupied

the

chair at an angle to face the businessman

head. Across the table, facing

me

directly, sat a professional

cameraman who had been trained at UFA in the days of Pabst and Murnau. Behind me, peering over my shoulder, sat a

well-known director with many

opened

my

finished the

many of

and

scene

started

when

I felt

if I

recital.

a tap

on

I

had scarcely

my shoulder. ‘How

could see that he had designs to nip

named

said I

me

in the

a lower figure than the one he presumably

prescribed as the obligatory I

my

climaxes do you have in your story ?’ asked the maker

hits. I

bud

script first

hits to his credit. I

minimum

had not counted, but he was

for a potential hit.

free to

work

it

out as

Introduction

9

the story unfolded. Fortunately

the reading of my screenplay. said he liked the story very

When

finished the producer

final scene

now

where the hero gives the

I

much, and had only one small

make: in the

suggestion to

no further taps intruded

of confrontation,

cringing English

manager

end with the per-

a piece of his mind, his words should

emptory exhortation: ‘Quit India.’ The film was never made.

In 1949, Jean Renoir came to Calcutta to scout locations for The River Based on the talks I had with him, I wrote .

an

article.

When

the English magazine Sequence published

me

up film journalism as a sideline. I had two more subjects in mind: one on the nature and function of background music, the other on an Orson Welles film I had seen recently. I hoped to make a major contribution to film criticism by demonstrating that in The Lady From Shanghai Welles had made the first the thought occurred to

it,

to take

,

‘atonal’ film in the history

of the cinema. Neither one ever

got written. In April of the following year,

work

for six

P

& O

months

Doubtless the

man

wholly dedicated to the pur-

of selling tea and biscuits.

What

my

on

and I was to

in

a full-fledged advertising suit

wife

liner bound for England. I London in my agency’s head office. management hoped that I would come back

India on a

left

my

the trip did in fact was to set the seal of

in

London

if

I

in the

I

saw

made

Bicycle Thieves

.

I

—

knew immediately

that

and the idea had been some time I would make it same way, using natural locations and unknown

ever

at the

doom

advertising career. Within three days of arriving

back of

Bather Panchali

my mind

for

—

actors.

All through

my

stay in

London, the

lessons of Bicycle

Our Films, Their Films

10

and

Thieves

neo-realist

cinema stayed with me.

my

On the way

treatment of Pather Panchali.

back

I

drafted out

That

it

did not get going until two years later, and did not

first

any lack of enthu-

get finished until two more, was not for

siasm on

my

part.

For the next twenty years, whatever

cinema

—and

cerned either

wrote on the

I

wrote both in Bengali and English

I

—con-

my own films or films of other countries. In my own work, I have realised why film

writing about

makers have written so plex

is

about film making. So com-

little

and

the process, so intricate

elusive the triangular

relationship between the maker, the machines and the

human

material that

single day’s

tion

work

deployed, that to describe even a

is

in all

its

and execution would

makers. Even with such

details of conception, collabora-

call for abilities

gifts,

beyond most

film

a lot of what goes on in the

dark recesses of the film maker’s mind would go unsaid, for the simple reason that

reading afresh

my

Pather Panchali , I realise I

lems

One girl

cannot be put into words. In

I learnt.

in strange, oblique ways. Let

of the shots

I

had

to take

Some

me

on the

—from

of these lessons

give an instance.

day was of the who is unaware

first

Durga observing her brother Apu

of her presence

day’s shooting of

first

had barely touched on the prob-

faced or the lessons

I

came

it

account of the

—

behind a cluster of

tall,

swaying

had planned on a medium close-up with a normal lens, showing her from the waist upwards. We had with us on that day a friend who was a professional cameraman. While I stood behind the reeds explaining to Durga what she had to do in the shot, I had a fleeting glimpse of our friend fiddling with lenses. What he had done was take out the normal lens from the camera and substitute one reeds.

I

with a long focal length. ‘Just take a look at her with one,’ he told

me,

as I

came

to

this

have a look through the

)

II

Introduction

viewfinder.

but in

my

I

had done a

of

lot

photography before,

still

unswerving allegiance to Cartier-Bresson,

never worked with a long lens.

What

the finder

had

I

now

re-

vealed was an enormous close-up of Durga’s face, backlit

by the sun and framed by the swaying, shimmering reeds she had parted with her hands. It was irresistible. I thanked my friend for his timely advice and took the shot. A few days

later,

in the cutting

room,

was horrified

I

to dis-

cover that the scene simply did not call for such an emphaclose-up. For all

tic

its

beauty, or perhaps because of it, the

shot stood out in blatant isolation from

its

companions, and

thereby spoilt the scene. This taught me, at one stroke, two

fundamental lessons of film making: ful

only

little

(b)

if it is

right in

its

context,

(

a

and

a shot

do with what appears beautiful

to

is

beauti-

this rightness has

to the eye;

never listen to advice on details from someone

and

who

does not have the whole film in his head as clearly as

you do.

And

these are not the only lessons

ful first day.

on a

In fact, on every

full

I

day that

film in the twenty years since I left

some glimmer of

light has

learnt

my

I

on that fatehave worked

advertising job,

revealed some small hidden

mystery of the infinitely complex process that

is

film

all

these

making.

One years

is

of the things

I

have aimed at constantly in

economy of expression. In Santiniketan, as a student I had been drawn towards far-eastern calli-

of painting,

graphy, which goes to the heart of perceived reality and

by means of minimal brush strokes applied with maximum discipline. In films, the maker is concerned both with what one sees and what one hears. In human terms, this is reduced to action and speech. These are bound up with a character’s social identity as well as his individual

expresses

it

identity at a given point in a given story.

The convincing

Our Films, Their Films

12

portrayal of character through speech and action

combined

task of writer, actor

and

director. It

is

the

is

because

the director has the last word on what should appear on the screen that his responsibility exceeds that of the other

He

participants.

is

who

the one

what looks

finally decides

right and sounds right, and the measure of truth he achieves is

Father Panchali today, I

am

know

this

rural scene.

yet

Pather Panchali does,

and

ings

rises to

Of

emotions.

my

was caused by

And

characters.

its

lack of familiarity with the

possible for a film to work, as

it is

whenever

it

leaves

its

regional moor-

a plane of universal gestures and universal

course,

possible to

it is

do away wholly with

bothersome aspect of social identification. In

this

this is exactly

what the

which accounts

at

upset by errors of detail which

keep blurring the social identity of some of I

Looking

in direct ratio to his depth of observation.

fact,

vast majority of Hindi films do,

for their country- wide acceptance.

and

They

present a synthetic, non-existent society, and one can speak

of credibility only within the norms of

make-believe

this

world.

The reason why time

is

I

keep writing about

that perhaps at the back of

from time

films

my mind

there are

remnants of the zeal

to spread film culture that

film club into being.

And

it is

to

still

brought our

there are provocations too.

While

true that inadequate technical resources, erratic financ-

ing, slackness in writing

and direction and

acting,

have

all

contributed to the generally poor quality of films that sur-

round by

us, I

critics

print

—who

form.

have no doubt that equal harm has been done

—which,

On

in films,

mean anybody with

access to

keep peddling muddled notions about the art

two occasions

I

have been provoked

self-defence against attacks for deviating

from

to write in

literary ori-

13

Introduction

Obviously, what these

ginals.

translations

volved

critics

—impossible where

expected were

a change of

literal

medium

in-

is

—rather than interpretations. One of the two attacks,

published in a Bengali monthly, was aimed at Charulata. I

hastened to write back at great length justifying in

cinematic terms every liberty seed

fell

had taken. Doubtless the

I

on barren ground. Because even

maker who takes up a wholly misses the

arouses

spirit,

sticks

classic,

little

to this day, a film to the letter,

but

indignation. This

is

surely the result of lop-sided film education, of lack of

connoisseurship,

and applies only

to a country

which took

one of the greatest inventions of the West with the most far-reaching artistic potential, and promptly cut

it

down

to

size.

In the West, the cinema has seen some clearly marked periods of revolution, in the course of which certain

developed and conventions covery of a major

—or

new

new

norms

solidified.

Occasionally, the dis-

—such

as neo-realism in the

trend

—

making such as the Japanese in the fifties has led to some critical rethinking, but on the whole the larger truths have survived. Even forties

a

—

New Wave It

school of film

did not wholly change the face of the cinema.

only enlarged

its

vocabulary and dislodged some hal-

grammar. To most films now made in Europe and elsewhere, the norms still apply. It is only in the case of an occasional highly personal work

lowed bricks from the

edifice of film

that the critic has to take refuge in total subjectivity.

What

I

consider a far greater revolution has taken place

phenomenon of the

on the

level of content. This

and

described by the term permissiveness. In the begin-

is

ning,

it

is

a

was marked by a freedom in the treatment of eroti-

cism. Latterly, this freedom has

grown

about every bodily activity the camera ing.

A

sixties,

great deal has been written to

is

to

embrace

just

capable of record-

condone permissive-

Our Films, Their Films

14 ness as to

marking the end of the prudery that

their inception right first its

and

proponents, besmirched

its

up

has, according

mores from

falsified

to the time the audience

had

their

glimpse of pubic hair in a public cinema. Apart from

insolent implication that artists like Renoir, Carne, Glair,

Stroheim, Dreyer,

your own

De

Pabst,

Sica,

of past greats)

list

—

all

Mizoguchi (make up

human

falsified

rela-

tionships in their films, the view errs in discounting the

power of suggestion which rogative of all

artists.

cinema

in the

is

it

There

inherent in is

is

a pre-

no doubt that permissiveness

of major sociological significance as a re-

some higher form of

as

and

all art

changing mores of Western society; but to

flection of the justify

is

artistic truth is as ridicu-

lous as the simulated intercourse indulged in

by unclothed

performers in film after film after permissive film. Apparently, such

is

the dread in which the stigma of prudery

is

held in the West today that even the distinction between gratuitous eroticism, which ticism that

is

valid in

its

is

plain pornography,

context,

is

glossed over

and eroby most

critics.

There to

which

is

I

film books

yet another

phenomenon of major

must allude before

and

film magazines.

a serious interest in films,

much

I close.

my

I

When

significance

This has to do with I first

began

to take

could have possessed, without

on the art of the cinema, and shoved them all comfortably on to a single shelf of my book case. Today, I have a comprehensive catalogue of film books in the English language which runs to over three hundred pages. Of magazines one has strain

lost count.

on

purse, all the English books

In Calcutta, most bookshops in the heart of the

city display film

books which are picked up well before they

have gathered dust. The number of film clubs in the

city

Introduction

15

mark and keeps

has crossed the dozen

own seasonal What used

clubs

come out with

their

their

own

critics.

terms are

panels of

now

bulletins

if

and have

he knows the meaning of

and the chances are he

will not

Most

to be esoteric film

man

part of everyday speech. Ask any

average education

of

‘freeze’,

only give the right answer

up with appropriate examples. Tickets of foreign films are swooped up in no time

but back festivals

increasing.

for

it

re-

gardless of whether the films belong to a pre-permissive

The greats of the cinema names in the pages of Sight and Sound and books. They are now part of the local film scene,

or post-permissive era.

are no

longer just

history

up periodic

setting

ripples, sending the critics to their desks

and

their dissertations.

then, a presage of something bright, some-

Is all this,

and positive? Something that will lift the gloom and change the face of our films? I wish I could believe so. But the rude fact is, cinema has never been saved by writers. We may- have more of them now than ever before, but at the same time there are more and thing hopeful

stronger shoulders

not enough.

maker

command tory,

to

Words need

no revolution. a film

now

And

shrug them

No. Words are

the backing of action, or there

the only action that counts

calls into

is

own particular field of battle. many others like him, restore even

the dignity a great art

of having a revolution.

is

that which

play by snapping out his word of

in his

and of

off.

form has

lost,

If his vic-

a

little

of

only then can we talk

^ OUR

FILMS

What

One

Wrong

Is

with Indian Films?

of the most significant

phenomena of our time has

been the development of the cinema from a-turn-of-thecentury mechanical toy into the century’s most potent and versatile art form.

In

its

early chameleon-like phase the

cinema was used variously as an extension of photography,

and the music hall, and as part of the magician’s paraphernalia. By the twenties, the cynics and know-alls had stopped smirking and turned as a substitute for the theatre

down

their noses.

Today, the cinema commands the respect accorded

to

any other form of creative expression. In the immense complexity of

its

creative process,

it

combines in various

measures the functions of poetry, music, painting, drama, architecture also

and a host of other

arts,

major and minor.

It

combines the cold logic of science with the subtlest

abstractions of the

goes into the

human

making of

it,

—a producer for financial paganda or an

imagination.

No

no matter who profits,

matter what

uses

it

and how

a political body for pro-

avant-garde intellectual for the satisfaction

of an aesthetic urge

— the

cinema

is

basically the expres-

sion of a concept or concepts in aesthetic terms; terms

which have

crystallised

through the incredibly short years

of its existence.

was perhaps inevitable that the cinema should have found the greatest impetus in America. A country without It

Our Films, Their Films

20

any deep-rooted cultural and best able to appraise the to pioneers like Griffith,

ing public with

its

artistic traditions

new medium and

was perhaps

objectively.

Thanks

to the vast sensation-monger-

constant clamour for something new,

making was evolved and the tools for its production perfected much quicker than would be normally possible. The cinema has now attained a stage where it can handle Shakespeare and psychiatry with equal facility. Technically, in the black and white field, the cinema is supremely at ease. Newer developments in colour and three-dimensional photography are imminent, and it is the basic style of film

possible that before the decade

is

out, the aesthetics of film

making will have seen far-reaching changes. Meanwhile, ‘studios sprang up,’ to quote an American writer in Screenwriter , ‘even in such unlikely lands as India

and China’. One may note in passing that this springing up has been happening in India for nearly forty years. For a country so far removed from the centre of things, India took up film production surprisingly early.

The

first

short was produced in 1907

By

the twenties

It is is

easy to

it

and the first feature in 1913. had reached the status of big business.

tell

the world that film production in India

quantitatively second only to Hollywood; for that

But can the same be said of

statistical fact.

Why

are our films not

shown abroad ?

Is it solely

India offers a potential market for her

Perhaps the symbolism employed eigners?

Or

are

To anyone best foreign

we just

plain

is

its

own

is

a

quality?

because

products?

too obscure for for-

ashamed of our

films?

familiar with the relative standards of the

and Indian

films, the

answers must come

easily.

Let us face the truth. There has yet been no Indian film

which could be acclaimed on countries have achieved,

all

counts.

Where other

we have only attempted and

that

too not always with honesty, so that even our best films

What Is Wrong with Indian Films?

21

have to be accepted with the gently apologetic proviso that

an Indian

‘after all

it is

No doubt ral factors.

ous entity

of maturity can be attributed to seve-

this lack

The producers will tell you about that mysteri‘the mass’, w hich ‘goes in for this sort of thing’, r

much

blame the

and the director will say about the wonderful things he had in

the technicians will

have

film’.

to

tools

mind but could not achieve because of

‘the

conditions’.

These protestations are true but not to the extent you are asked to believe. In any case, better things have been

achieved under

much worse

conditions.

acclaimed post-war Italian cinema reason

elsewhere. I think

lies

it

is

The

internationally

a case in point.

will be

The

found in the funda-

mentals of film making.

much

In the primitive state films were

alike,

no matter

where they were produced. As the pioneers began to sense the uniqueness of the

gradually evolved. the

—

cinema

e.g.

medium,

And once

the language of the cinema

the all-important function of

— was

movement

grasped, the sophistica-

and content, and refinement of technique were only a matter of time. In India it would seem that the tion of style

fundamental concept of a coherent dramatic pattern

exist-

ing in time was generally misunderstood.

Often by a queer process of reasoning, movement was equated with action and action with melodrama. The anal-

ogy with music

failed in

our case because Indian music

is

largely improvisational.

This elementary confusion,

plus the

American cinema are the two main the present state of Indian films. the

American

style,

influence of the

factors responsible for

The

superficial aspects of

no matter how outlandish the content,

were imitated with reverence. Almost every passing phase of the American cinema has had

its

repercussion on the

Indian film. Stories have been written based on Hollywood

Our Films, Their Films

22

and the

Even where the story has been a genuinely Indian one, the background music has revealed an irrepressible penchant for the jazz

successes

cliches preserved with care.

idiom.

In the adaptations of novels, one of two courses has

been followed: either the story has been distorted to conform to the Hollywood formula, or it has been produced with such devout faithfulness to the original that the pur-

pose of a filmic interpretation has been defeated. It

should be realised that the average American film

a bad model, if only because utterly at variance with our

nical polish

wood

which

depicts a

way

of

life

so

own. Moreover, the high tech-

the hallmark of the standard Holly-

product, would be impossible to achieve under existing

Indian conditions. is

is

it

is

not more

and a more the medium.

What

the Indian cinema needs today

but more imagination, more integrity,

gloss,

intelligent appreciation of the limitations of

After all, we do The complaint of

possess the primary tools of film making.

mechaand the process shot are useful, but by no means indispensable. In fact, what tools we have, have been used on occasion with real intelligence. What our cinema needs above everything else is a style, an idiom, a sort of iconography of cinema, which the technicians notwithstanding,

nical devices such as the crane shot

would be uniquely and recognisably Indian. There are some obstacles to this, particularly in the representation of the contemporary scene. The influence of Western civilisation has created anomalies which are apparent in almost every aspect of our life. We accept the motor car,

the

radio,

European costume, But within the is

telephone, streamlined

architecture,

as functional elements of

our existence.

the

limits of the

cinema

frame, their incongruity

sometimes exaggerated to the point of burlesque.

I re~

What Is Wrong with Indian Films? call

23

a scene in a popular Bengali film which shows the

heroine weeping to distraction with her arms around a wireless

— an

object she associates in her

estranged lover

who was once

mind with her

a radio singer.

Another example, a typical Hollywood

finale,

shows the

heroine speeding forth in a sleek convertible in order to catch up with her frustrated lover

who

has

left

town on

man, she abandons the car in a sort of symbolic gesture and runs up the rest of the way to foot; as she sights her

meet him.

The majority of our

films are replete with such ‘visual

dissonances’. In Kalpana,

Uday Shankar

used such disso-

nances in a conscious and consistent manner so that they

became part of film should

his

cinematic

style.

But the truly Indian

clear of such inconsistencies

steer

for its material in the

more

and look

basic aspects of Indian

life,

where habit and speech, dress and manners, background

and foreground, blend into a harmonious whole. It is

that

only in a drastic simplification of style and content

hope

for the

Indian cinema resides. At present,

would appear that nearly

all

it

the prevailing practices go

against such simplification.

Starting a production without adequate planning, some-

times even without a shooting script; a penchant for convolutions of plot

and counter-plot rather than the

strong,

simple unidirectional narrative; the practice of sandwiching musical numbers in the most unlyrical situations; the

habit of shooting indoors in a country which scape, to the

is

all

land-

and at a time when all other countries are turning documentary for inspiration all these stand in the

way of the evolution of a

—

distinctive style.

There have been rare glimpses of an enlightened approach in a handful of recent is

films. IPTA’s Dharti ke Lai an instance of a strong simple theme put over with style,

Our Films Their Films

24

,

honesty and technical competence. Shankar’s Kalpana

,

an

inimitable and highly individual experiment, shows a grasp

of filmic movement, and a respect for tradition which best

its

The

moments

satisfying

taries

to the

lifts

peak of cinematic achievement.

photography which marks the

UN documen-

of Paul Zils shows what a discerning camera can do

with the Indian landscape.

The raw ible that

material of the cinema

and music and poetry should

He do

is life itself.

a country which has inspired so fail to

move

It is incred-

much

painting

the film maker.

has only to keep his eyes open, and his ears. Let him so.

1948

Extracts

March

/,

from

7956

Diary

a Banaras

—Set

out at 5 a.m. to explore the ghats.

Half an hour to sunrise, yet more light than one would have thought, and more activity.

The

earliest bathers

The pigeons not

come

active yet, but the

about 4 a.m.,

I

wrestlers are.

Incomparable ‘atmosphere’. One just wants

gather.

to

go on absorbing

by

it.

sites

it,

being chastened and invigorated

—

The thought of having to work planning, picking and extras, setting up camera and microphone, staging

action

—

is

worrying. But here,

spiring setting. It is

anywhere,

if

is

a truly

in-

not enough to say that the ghats are

One must

wonderful or exciting or unique.

get

down

to

analysing the reasons for their uniqueness, their impact.

The more you probe, the more is revealed, and the more you know what to include in your frame and what to leave out.

In the afternoon the same ghats present an utterly different aspect. Clusters of immobile

widows make white patches

on the greyish ochre of the broad tion

is

absent.

And

the light

ghats face east. In the

is

steps.

different,

The

bustle of ablu-

importantly

morning they get the

so.

The

full frontal

movement is heightened by the play of cast shadows. By 4 p.m. the sun is behind the tall buildings whose shadows now reach the opposite

light

of the sun, and the feeling of

bank. Result: a diffused light until sunset perfectly in tune with the subdued nature of the activity. 3

Our Films Their Films

26

,

Morning scenes in the ghat must be and afternoon scenes in the afternoon.

March 2

— Explored

shot in the

morning

the lanes in the Bengalitola.

of Ganesh Mohalla are perhaps the most photogenic.

makes them so?

—The

railings,

What

curves in the lanes, the breaks in

the facades of the houses, the pattern created

windows,

Those

verandas, columns

qualitatively unvarying,

.

.

.

by the doors,

here the light

is

and one could pass off a morning

shot as an afternoon one.

We

chat with the people of the neighbourhood and they

promise cooperation. Where would we be without it? are in fact at the

mercy of the

residents here

with them with the utmost caution.

The

We

and must deal

smallest faux pas

and the whole arduous enterprise may be wrecked.

—

March j Called on the Mohant Laxminarayan of the Viswanath Temple. The purpose was to persuade him to give us facilities for shooting inside the temple (something

which had never been done mediary, had insisted that ‘project

the deal.

I

Pandey, our inter-

before).

shouldn’t be reticent but should

my personality’, which he was sure would clinch Two things stood in the way: (a) my lack of chaste

Hindi and the Mohant’s lack of any other language, and (

b)

the fact that the chairs

designed for the It

we were given

maximum

seems at least two more

the great

to sit

upon had been

comfort of bugs. visits will

Mohant condescends

be required before

to give a

nod of that im-

mobile head of his.

Stopped on our way back at the temple. Were told we were in time for the Saptarshi Arati. perience. Those

who

miss

it

A

spine-tingling ex-

miss one of the great audio-

Extracts from a Banaras Diary

27

visual treats. Pity I can’t use

manner

in the present film.

March 4

—Visited

the

.

in

it .

any except a decorative

.

Durga Temple. People who come

here with the intent of offering a prayer to the deity usually

do

so with half a

mind, the other half being on the monkeys.

These animals go about the place as funny, they sometimes go

sistibly

if

for

they

owned

it.

Irre-

your bag of peanuts

when they swing from the and perform an impromptu carillon the sight

with alarming viciousness. But bell-ropes

,

and sound are no longer merely comic. Rich

possibility of a scene here,

with Apu.

—Worked on the script.

March 8

lem, always

is.

Long

The opening

is

a prob-

shots establishing locale are a cliche.

But should one entirely dispense with them in a film which opens in Banaras ? The urge not to do so

As in Father

Panchali, I find

it

is

strong.

has helped in not having

Working in these circumstances one must leave a lot of room for improvisation within the framework of a broad scheme which one must keep in one’s a tight script.

head.

March 15

Memorable

—At the ghats at 5

a.m. to shoot the pigeons.

The shot was to be of the pigeons takbody from their perch on the cornices and making enormous circular sweeps in the sky, as is the way fiasco.

ing flight in a

with them.

meant set

to

We

had a

explode to

set the

up and Subir had

potent-looking

bomb which we

pigeons flying.

The camera was

fairly

set the

barely half a minute to go,

match Nimai

to the fuse when, with

started

making

frantic

Our Films Their Films

28

,

but indefinable gestures.

We

could sense something was

mimed appeal to the bomb went off, the camera didn’t turn. And

wrong, and Subir made an eloquently

bomb

from exploding. The

to refrain

pigeons performed nobly, but the then

we

discovered that the motor had not been connected

to the battery.

or four sweeps the pigeons were

after three

Luckily,

bomb

back on their perch, and with the second

we had our shot. Took the 9 o’clock train

(we had

four)

Moghulsarai.

to

Ramani Babu

we picked up on the play Uncle Bhabataran; also Karuna and

(seventy-year-old resident of Banaras ghat) with us to

Pinky. Shooting inside a third class compartment. Sarbajaya

and Apu leave Banaras with Bhabataran. Train crosses bridge. S and A look out of window. B cats an orange, spits pips out of window. We give the old man an orange but he consumes

it

him another. Shot

before the

is

O.K.

camera

is

ready, so

we

give

subject to the Tri-X performing

as expected.

March 20

— Shot scene of Harihar’s collapse on the steps

of Chowshati Ghat. Very satisfactory work. ruffled the surface of the river shots.

Kanu Babu

most

fell

and

A

strong wind

movement

lent

to the

got a nasty cut

realistically,

in the knee.

Bloated dead body in the river close to bank and camera. Bathers unperturbed. Probably a

—5.30 a.m.

March 22

water from the with far

Apu

river.

common

sight.

Started with shot of

The idea was

in the foreground

and a

background, and no other

to

Apu

fetching

have a long shot

solitary wrestler in the

figures.

But bathers had

Extracts from a Banaras Diary

already arrived and to stay

29

we had a tough time persuading them

out of water, and out of camera-field, until end of

shot.

of

From

the ghats to the lanes. Concluding shots of scene

Apu

playing hide-and-seek with friends. Clearing the

unwanted elements (animate and inanimate) for long shots a Herculean task. Pack up at 4 p.m. and proceed directly to the Viswanath Temple for shots and recording lanes of

of Arati.

Durga

sets

up tape recorder

opposite the temple. Mrinal

in a house across the lane

worms

way through

his

ing crowd of devotees with mike and 90 just reaches the southern

ft.

mill-

cable which

door of the inner sanctum. Temple

attendants get busy stretching a cordon to keep off crowd

who push and crane their necks to get a sight of the image which is now being decorated for the Arati. We wait, sweating, acutely conscious of the

audacious incongruity of the

camera.

The time

arrives.

We

hold our breath. The great chant

begins. In the deafening crescendo

I

can just hear myself

and ‘cut’. The Arati goes on for an hour. The end finds us and our raw stock exhausted. As we are about to pack up, word arrives from the Mohant that he would like to hear the sound we have recorded. Would we be good enough to have our equipment conveyed to his apartment and the sound played back to him? shouting

‘start’

—

—

It

takes half an hour to reach the Mohant’s place with

the equipment, another half to install to play

back and pack up.

When we

the great

man

proval.

almost expect him to tip

*957

I

it is

it,

full

hour

finally take leave of

He

a quarter to eleven. us.

and a

.

.

.

smiles his ap-

—

A

I

Long Time on

remember

well. It

was

the

first

the Little

Road