Satyajit Ray: An Anthology of Statements on Ray and by Ray (Film India Series) [1 ed.]

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§atyajit ·Ray ,✓ .- ·

An Anthology of Statements on Ray and by Ray

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Editor Chidananda Das Gupta

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Aalst•nt Editor Tripta Batra

With as+t•!ICe from Nemai Ghosh Aruna Vasudev Anupam Pruthi Cover Design Purnendu Pattrea Page Deslp/Leyoat Dhun Dudhmul Production

Nomita Kundandas

Tlul views expressed in the articles are not tutcessarily those of the Editor or tlul Directorate of Film Festivals First published 1981 Published by the Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Lok Nayak Bhavan, 4th Aoor, Khan Market. New Delhi 110 003. Printed at Tata Press Limited, Bombay.

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"Only that which does not teach, which does not persuade, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible" W B. Yeats

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Contents 7 Foreword

The Lpmlnp- ht I.,..._ and die West 16 The FDm., @ Palaer Pari•!I (Song of tbe Road) 1955 9

2S lO

Aparejlto (The Unvanquished) 1956 Peren Pedter (The.Philosopher's Stone) 1957

< ;;; =~h;t~eu:~:;;> J;:1959: ~

; - --· . -

Devi (The Goddess) 1960

49 Teen Keny• (Two Daughters) 1961 S2. KenchenJungha l962 S7 Abbljen (The Expedition) 1962 S8 M•b•nag•r (The Big City) 1963 62 Cherulete 1964

68 K•parusb-0-Malaepurash (The Coward and the Holy Man) 1965 71 N•yak (The Hero) 1966 76 Goopy Gyne Begl,• Byne (The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha) 1969 80

Arenyer Din Rabi

(Days and Nights in the Forest) 1970 86 Predd,r•Bdl (The Adversary or Siddhartha _and the City) 1970 91 Seemabeddu (Company Limited) 1971 94 Ashanl Sanket (Distant Thunder) 1973 100 Tile Inner Eye (Documentary) 1974 101 Sour.Kella (The Golden Fortress) 1974 104 Jana Areny• (The Middleman) 197? 110 Shetn:nJ Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) 1977 116 Joi Bebe Feluneth (The Elephant God) 1978 118 Hlrok Rejer Deshe(The Kingdom of Diamonds) 1980 120 Plkoo's Dey 1981 D1g1t1zeo by

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121 122 124 129 131 132 134 135 137

Ray on Ray Apprendceshlp Methods Music Script Acting Audience CommlhlJent Philosophy

141 The Other Ray 147 Filmography 151 Select Blbllography

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Foreword

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By an interesting coincidence Satyajit Ray's first film Pather Panchali was made in the same year as the Bandung Conference. Both the events have proved significant. Ray's film was among the few that extended the borders of cinematic art beyond its Western confines and Bandung signalized the emergence of the developing world as an international force. Since Pather Panchali, a great deal has been written about Ray's work and art in Europe and North America. But the assessments are based mainly on some of the films released in the West. This is the first time that a complete retrospective of Ray is being shown anywhere in the world outside India. Indeed, even in India, Ray's entire work was on view for an international audience for the first time only at the International Film Festival at Bangalore in 1980. Like all great art, Ray's oeuvre bas varied dimensions. The Retrospective should therefore provide both an overview of his aesthetics and an insight into bis world-view. This book is aimed at providing a perspective to bis films and art. It is mainly based on reviews and writings in the West. In an encounter with a filmmaker from a background so different, the interpretation of his work by some of the foremost American, British and French critics can help to bridge the distance. Some reviews by Indian critics have also been included in order to provide a glimpse of the perception of Ray from within his own context. For the convenience of the foreign viewer, a short summary has been given before the reviews of each film. The reviews, or the extracts from them, have been selected to avoid repetition, as far as possible, and draw attention to different aspects of a work. A series of stills from the films, a filmography and bibliography have been added to facilitate reference work. Ragbunath Raina Director Directorate of Film Festivals New Delhi, India May 1, 1981

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The Beginnings -in India and the West

um Renot'r addreuing w,mlHir,o/1h11CakMlla

'ilmSoc~ 1y

Satyajit Ray's fir:s1 film, Pa1her Pancholi, was shown in the United States in 1955, before il WIili released in Calcutta. In an interview with Miche l Ciment o f Pruitif. Ray described the c~pericnce: '"The Museum of M odem Art in New York planned a big exhibition of Indian art, and one of their representatives, Mon roe Whee ler, came to look for exhibiis. He knew of me as a commercial artist and 50 he came to sec me. I told him that I was working on a film projec t and he replied , "If you finish ii in time, I

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1955

Some time in 1he ea rly years o f the cen tury , a boy. Apu, is born to a poor Brahmin fami ly in a village in Bengal. The fachcr is a poet and pries! who can no( cam enough to keep

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his family goi ng. The mother's life is a daily struggle. Their six-year-old daughte r. Du rga, is fo rever stealing mangoes from the neighbour's orchards. There is constant bickering

between the mot her and an o ld au nt who lives in a small hut

next to the house. Alittleafter Apu 's birth , th efathertells hi s wifeof his new joba1 the treasury. He 1alks hopefully of house repairs. finding a hu sba nd fo r Du rga, a good sc hool for Apu and o f writing a great poem or play. Six years later the struggle has cha nged lillle except that th e mothe r. tired of empty talk , urges her husba nd to do beli er. Apu, meanwhile, attends a poor school run by the local grocer. During the chi ld ren's visit lo 1he ho use o f a rich neighbour, Durga is accused of steal ing a val uable necklace. Although th e nec klace is no t found on he r person. the rich lady accuses the family of theft . The humiliated molhe r turns Durga o ut. but late r se nds Apu lo fetc h her home. Anothe r night. the lather ret urns home with his oveniue wages and brings ne ws of a lucrative offer to officia te a t an initiation ceremony in another village. T he bickering between the mother and the au nt ends in an ugly q uarrel and the old woman leaves. She later

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returns and begs to be allowed inside bu1 1he m olba refuses. The children who love !heir aunt,sel out 10 Joolr. for her. They find her in an or-chard nearby, but she is dead A few days after 1he father's depanure, there is b.i news again. In a lelter, the lather informs his wife of Ill cancelled ceremony and of his decision 10 go to the city to cam more money. Months later, the daughter of the rich neighbour ii. married. A self-pitying Durga begins to perform last rites! for he!$C!f. Soon after this she geu drenched in the first shower of the monsoon and catches a lever. The father, meanwhile. returns home with his ean1ing:s. But Durga is dead. The family decides to m ove to Benares leavi ng their ancestral home behind, for a new lift intheholyci1y.

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PASTORAL POEM Pather Panchali is perhaps the finest piece of filmed follr.lore si nce Robert Flaherty's Nanook of 1M North~

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m;gh< b< upec nd CYen man 1s by no means vile. J'he little pains and humiliations of life are not such as to make for hopelessness. What makes Pat her Panchali !iO intense is the control thal Sa1yajit Ray exercises on his mate rial. He never allows his tense scenes to degenerate into melodrama. He never leu his lyricism slip into sentimentality. Like Oo\'lhenko. Satyajit Ray is lyrical throughout. He looks at lire with kindly and indulgent eyes. But he makes us see much more than we thought pos.sible on the Indian screen. And this is his first picture. Let us hope he will produce a sensitive sequel 10Pa1herPancha/i.

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RA Y'S COMMENTS

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lt"s lrue. For one year I was trying to sell the sce nario, 10 peddle it. I went to all the producers listed in Calcuna. everybody without nception. and since nobody would huy it. I decided to st11rt anyway, because we wanted !iOme footage to prove that we were not incapable of making films. So I got !iOme money against my insurance policies. We started shooting. and that fund ran out very 500n. Then I sold !iOme art books. !iOme records and !iOme of my wife's jewell ery. Little trir Pancllalicost ln ■U?

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APARAJITO (The Unvanquished)

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1956

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Be,uue.,, /920.

CpicFiJms. Calcutta

Harihar Roy, a Bengali priest, his wife Sarbojaya and ten·

year-oldson,Apu,livc in a small thrce-storcyed house in thcby-lancsofBenares,theholycity.Hariharreadsthc

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scriptures 10 an audience of old widows o n the s1cps ~fr!:. holy river Ganga. Apu plays with his friends on the

BJru.siwu,&ndyopadltyay Scn,t.lDittctU>lf S.1yoji1Roy

A lcncr arrives from Bhabataran Chatterjee, Sarbo-

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Kat11"'1&1Y,ju(Sarbojaya;.

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luwilonJi WiM. A.joy Miua(Ani// rn~;,;,., bi'

jaya's aged uncle, who is also a priest in the village of Mansapota in Bengal. He suggests that Harihar take ove r the priestly duties in Mansapota while Bhabataran himsclr would spend his last years in Bcnares. Sarbojaya, a strong woman contemptuous of charity. declinC!itheoffer. In the autumn or the same year, on 'Diwali' night (festival of lights celebrated to welcome God-Prince Rama·s return after 14 years in e1ile), Harihar returns home delirious with fever. to die within a few days. The widowed Sarbojaya takes the job of a cook in a ·umindar'S (feudal Jandlord"s) house. A young and neglect· ed Apu runs errands for the zamindar for small money which he spends on pcanulS to feed rhe monkeys in a te mple nearby. A few days later. Uncle Bhabataran arrives to invite his niece once again to Mansapota. This ti me she accepts. She has realised that her son will have no future he re. Back in Bengal. Bhabataran. after impaning to Apu the rudimenlS of priesthood, leaves fo r Bcnares. Sar~

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jaya appeases an unhappy Apu by sendi ng hlm to sclm The headmaster awakens Apu's inte rcs1 in kno,;ledf and in the wider world. At 16, Apu matric ulates .t dislincdon and a scholarshi p of Rs 10 (Sl.25) a moml, A helpless mother watches her only son leave fO£ Caku 10 smdy funhcr, disregarding her attempts to keep · near herself. Bewildered at fi rst. Apu soon adjus15 to city life. I, th ;;;, ~nha~;c I~ of her failinghcal1h. Unaware, Apu prepares for his examinalioa ii Calcutta till a lcuc r brings him news of his molbc:r) cri1ical hcal th. Apu arrives a day after his mo1hcr's d eath. His undt Bhabataran, who is also back, asks him to resume ■ pricslhood. Apu declines. He is sad, but he is free.

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Sarbojoy11 nuri1t1J lier rkt,1/i

,,,1,;1, Apu U """'Y al co/leg, in C11/c1111a

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FORGING THE UN CREA TED CONSCIENCE OF HIS RACE ,·1anl,y KaM{f,rv;i11 \ World on Film

To one who has sttn Pan One, two thin gs are now eviden1. The fi rst film now seems be tter than ii did ~ause th e KCQnd wll! made ; and the director, ~r Ray , · 1s in th e process of creat ing a national film epic unlik e anything- in sii:e and soul - since th e Soviet Mu im tri logy or 1938-40. Further, as a record of a people's life, in itli dai ly travai l and its largest aspects. it bears comparison wi th Flahen y's Nanook and MoantJ. For this viewer. the value of the first film was mostly along these lines, as a cultural record. The play had less interest than the by·play, 1he characlers were not mu ch more th an acceptable types. And the story was so freighted with ca tastrophe that one began to balk. It is dou btless a regret table human frailty that when excessive woc~nds on one house. the spectal o,_.s sympa th y palls. He suspects either that compassion is wasted on people so helpless. or that lhe gods. if not the screen wri ters, have a sli ght addic tion toSOllp opera. This question does not arise with Aparajito wh ich. in addition to its doc umentary interest, has much greater interest as a drama 1han the first picture. Here. sorrow, wh en il.'I strikes. in volves us: here. too, the story moves out of a mere struggle for existence into dee per issues tha1e voke more lhanpa1hos:andthisgives thec haracters a light that shines retrospective ly on the first pictu re. For example, I cannot now think of the mother in Pci1her Pcinehafi onl y as a woman whom trouble has made a scold against her will. The tenderness and complexity of her character as revealed in the second film add dimension to herinlhe first. Ray. ~ e dircctor_a~ adapter,is canying this project

making as he progresses. The boggling of transit ions, the stickinCSiS of the obviousl y arty shot, these are absent from this second film. There is still a bit of difficul ty with Ra 's sense of timin ; a few scenes are brushed off too eals of tim!ng

M.

Some scenes-like the inconclusive episode of the Brahmin looking for a wife. like Apu·s visit to th e temple of th e privileged monkeys-are novelistic material, dis· cursive in a film .But on th e whol e, in script and in aCtion. Ray has made the pictu re move, laying the liV,,C kw simple ocopl 10 ► tbet be bl~ d1sl"l-d !:°I;:,:,q

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know, when Apu hoisl5 his suitc8$C 10 his $boulder ml flopshisbigfcctdown thcpa1h1oward 1hcrailroadsta1Nlll !hat he is on his way 10 change the motion o f the plantU.

CLOSELY OBSERVED PASSIONS Aparaji1q will probably be weighed in the balance •ill Pather Panchafi and found sl ightly wanting. But sucb 1 comparison misses the point: as the second movement in , composition, Aparaji10 is mea nt to cipress the aimtqucnccs of the first movement, Pather Panchali, and 10 prepare 1hc mood for the third movement. In a picmrial sense the film lacks something of the noble simplicity « Pather Panchali, but if il5 im ages arc more sophisticated, they arc no less brilliant and effective. What is perlu,p most striking to the Western observer, is the profoundl)· Asiatic quality o f the movicmakcr's scnius. He suffm passionately with his characters, and yet all the ll'ilw remains curiously calm and almosl indifferent, as thougil

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The air is cool. The sky is necked. h is morning. A! priest calls pigeons 10 breakfast. There is a mild nuc~ of wings. Aren't these rather cosy pe rches for the bi these n1.lr.ish bamboo and straw sunshades? We Stt long,longnightsofstcpstothc river. We sense it is Ganga. We guess these arc the ghats of Benarcs. E,d image fi~cs itself in our mind - the birds on wing, tbt

:°,r:~~~~i:1:.~d~~::1i: ~:;~~h~;:.';~~ : : ~~ shapes itself into a poem. All the noises compose themsdffl into a symphony. Don't · · · al Be narcs. I haventHI been there. Bui it is re cine -as pure and as reil asitcanbc. yaJ1 ays en . 111:l ~ - He lives what he secs. From the momtnl M meet Apu's father at th e ghats-we, 100. arc invo h~ • thc lifeofhissmallfamily. The story by iiself is banal through and thfOUP-

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to the iilknsilitr r mind lk kedhousewtlm 1he family li\·es. We,,.,·illalwayshearthedrip,drip,drf of the miserable tap and the scre« h of the broom agai■J the $tone floor. We will always hear the last gaspl ,l

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~~u~~:atac:i:t;a!~e~ndr~:~~::f~~~ :ttier sorrow of the boy in tht' face or death. Who $lid the p,u1

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dic ~~?transfigures poveny. He doesn't sentinJI lisc 11 . It docs not make urcty. Uut it docs male • think of death and of th e lo neliness o f man. As Af'l father lies ill. the street ou tsid e is ablaze with •[lid

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fireworks and full of the happy shrieks of child ren. This enhances 1he sense of loneliness of the mother and the child. Apu·s fath er dies and the image of the dying face is followed by a magnificent sequence with 1he image of pigeollllinflightandthe dark,lrenziedlacesolthe templc: priests al prayer. h lldd.s 10 our sense of de501ation. Bui !he ambivalence of life as.se ns i1self. The point counterpoint of the images puts every episode in focus. The mother lakes up a job. and Apu is again free to play. In a playful sequence we see him feed a group of 1emple monkey!. · e ·n s he of ~eath. The· s

RA Y'S COMMENTS 411-" to J)'MJ D■tM,

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wbojaya. HariNU 11,,d Apu 111w m1'gro1M 10 the ltoly

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In A.parajit o I was not able to ac hieve more Ulan 60 per ce nt of what the script demanded. There were many reasoltll for this, one of them a peculiarly technical one. A camera had just oome-11.D Arriflex. tha1 is whai we use all !he time now- and it jammed frequen1J y during the shooling in BenarC$. h became impos.sible to do more than one take of a scene. As a result there is a lot of deficiency in lheshooling. And !hen we had to rush through the editing stage- as so often in my films -because !he date of release was getting near. Another problem was that Ravi Shankar should have composed half as much more music than he did. There are blank moments as a result, slowing down the film. But I fi nd the psychological aspect- th e relationship be1ween a growi ng Apu and his mother-very successful.

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Lightweight Ray wilh an especially rich quota of humour... humour marvellously perceptive aboul the linle things that are really the big things of life. This connict within the family between tradition and progress, between the old cultu re and the new enlightenment, thal runs through all Ray's films, is, after all, a feature of the human condition not just in India but everywhere, and not just in our time but always. The need to ovenhrow things that conceivably still matter to us. and to taste the kind of knowledge that can sever us regretfully from our roots, recurs with each generation. Whal is so exci1ing about Ray's approach to this is that he actuall y shows us the ambivalence of ,eople's ani tudes. This is not to deny the imponance of th e precise placing in space and 1ime. For Ray. I think, th e limitations imposed by his Bengali family settings provide the dis· ciplined framework, which. in one form or another, every anis1 needs.

Edi1lr. ArotiJ'Anglo·/ndion coJ/eague, ht1.JbeenJDc•ed

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"Do you know what Shaw said about gi rls going ou1 to work?" Subrata asks his moiher. who squats whimpering on th e floor. refusing to speak I0 anyone. He and Arali eat breakfast side by side-a staggering departure from cus1om, the f'irsl meal taken together like this since thei: wedding day. On the way 10 work her hancb are as col< a.~ they were only once before. What is it that convey to us, eve n at this stage, how very much, despite h e fea r of it. th e unknown is worth having? Can it be simpJ· the allusions to the wedding? With Ray , it is practicall: impossible 10 ae'

1879, In Calcutta lives a wealthy young inte/lcc1ual,

R. D. Ba,w/

Bhupa1i Dutta, who edits and publishes a political weekl)

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Rabindru,wtl,Taso,. Sc,ipl,Dirurio,,&Muk Sa1yajl1Ray

l'lum,,,.,•y SubrulDMifru

ArtDinttio• &11.JiCltandragupta

Editi111 DulalDutla udpt.µn SountitraC/14111,ju (Amal), Madltabi MdM,ju(Chan1IDU1),

SailenMuklwrjufB/tupotiA GH IO// Roy (Monda)

in Englishcallcd'TheScntincl'. Hisgraceful,sensi1ive wife,Charu,spends her tim doing needlework and read ing Bengali novels. Seosing hiswife's lonclines5, Bupatidccides to in viu Umapada (Charu's older brolhcr) and his wife Mandakiii to live with them in Calcuua.Umapada arrives and assumei

the managership of· the magazine. Mandakini, a rustic, unleuered girl, chauers away while Chana conti nues with

he r earli er pursuits. At this point arrives the literary•mindcd Amal, 10 spend a vacation with his cousin Bhupati. At the lattcr'1 suggestion, Amal helps and encourages Charu with hei literary efforts. Almoi.t without realising it, Charu is drawn more and more 1owards him. Bhupati, busy olhcrwi.se. ii

unaw~~a~~jl~,t=-~::t:~beu.les and escapes with thj funds put al his disposal. Shocked by this betrayal Bh u~ n:lates the talc to Amal - now 1he only o ne he trusts. An emotionally gui11y Amal, unwilling to hurl Bhupa leaves a note for him and sneaks out of the house, the sam night. It is with an efforl that Charu conceals her di appointment the next morning. Later, away on a holiday with her husband , it see 1hat Charu has her emotion$ um.ler control. But on thei . return to Calcutta, a le tter from Amal brings back me ~ rics and Charu weeps uncon1rollably. unaware of lier husband standing behind her. Bhupati rushes out of the house. When he comes back, Charu hesitantly exlends n« hand mwards him and asks him to come in.

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uN1vERs1TY oF M1cH1GAN

A FLOWING, OPULENT TALE Satyajit Ray's most nearly flawless film apart from his great Apu trilogy, is a flowing, opulent tale that seems to be lit from the inside like a velvet-lined carriage with a lantern in it rocked by a bot monsoon wind. The film carries an exquisite period flavour of the 1870s in Bengal. We are in a sunny garden with a swing on long ropes and statues of fat little cupids; a house with a birdcage shaken frantically by a sudden storm, and curlicue bannisters,and embroidered rugs; a Chekhovian atmosphere in which men lie on cushions eating and talking of Bentham and Mill. The inwardly fredul women play cards, embroider hand·kerchiefs and slippers for their husbands, use the swing while they hum pretty plaints that have an atmospber~ of rounds, take down the birdcage during the storm, and accept that changing the world is not for them. Working at something private, like writing, is considered feminine and permissible, but publication is a masculine preserve, which Charulata barges into head on. The story holds a peculiarly Hindu mixture of sensibility and harshness. Indeed, everything in it contains its own contradiction, like the god Shiva, who stands for both destruction and regeneration. Charulata, who seems all shy acquiescence, actually has a backbone of steel that enables her to decline to emulate the apparent sweet yieldingness of the young Queen Victoria, of whom cameo daguerrotypes hang on the walls of the house as if they were icons of womanhood. Like Victoria, she turns out to have a startling will, although she belittles herself and says that she is incapable of originality because she doesn't know a lot. Ray shows Charulata symbolically obeying her age's code of femininity by looking at the street through binoculars. From afar, through the lens of the onlooker, she sees a poor man sheltered by a black umbrella in the style borrowed from the clerkly fashion of the Raj, as it -is even today, when men in 'dhotis' and bare feet carry the same kind of umbrella. In Charulata. poverty is seen at a distance froi,i this house of brocade wallpaper and lushness and a piano out of tune because of the damp heat.

Pe■elope

Gilliatt 'llew Yorker/ 1974

CAIM WITHOUT, FIRE WITHIN C1,i"""411dll Dos Gupta Fdm Qiuuterlyl 1965

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The pattern of relationships within the traditional joint family in Bengal is often as complicated as within a whole society-particularly between men and women. Side by side with taboo relationships, there are others which are indulged by tradition up to somewhat vague boundaries of decorum. For a young wife, one of the husband's younger brothers (or cousins) would often tum out to be a special favourite and her relationship with him could well be one of mock love-play without attracting disapproval. The word in Sanskrit for husband's younger brother literally means 'second husband'; on the other hand, there is no word for 'cousin' in most Indian languages- they are all brothers.

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Ritualistically, therefore, the husband's youngerbrothcn and cousins are vaguely placed in a 50rt o f 'second hut band' posi1ion, ready 10 1ake bis place, 115 ii were, but never aciually doing 50, Even today, it is an ambigllOUS relationship,madeupofbro1.herlyalfec1ionoftenoverlaid with tinges o f sexuality. As far 115 the husband's older brolhers are concerned the relationship is the encl o pposite- one of strict taboo. .' It is in 1his conteu, and the con1ut o f the gradual! li beration of woman from feudal slavery-in which Tagorr played a very important part - that Ray's Charulaui. is best understood. It is a contnt that Ray's film takes for granted for its Indian audience. Ray had misgivings about the subject even wbilr making the film. How would society take !his probe into an area o f unspoken internal adjustment-mechanisms! De~i's gen tle poin ter at the price of supersti tion had come lo grief al the box office; if the Freudian undertolles in 1he father-i n-law's outlook on his son's wi fe had betfl understood, th«e might have been a minor rio t. lndetd 1hcre we re murmurs on the release o f Charolalll: but they died down when Ray's triumph came in the enortDWI cri1ical and box-o£1ice success of this film. As I ..-11 coming ou1 of the thea1re, I saw a shrivelled o ld womaa barely able lo walk with the help o f two young men.• wipe her eyes with the end of her sari. Some inner chord in her had been touched. The secrel of he r identification with an otherwise uncomfonable th eme lay in the state of innocence of thr characters who enact the drama of Chanllata. Their lad of conscious knowledge of what is happening inside then gives them a certain nobility of innocence; ii is in their awakening that !heir tragedy lies. Amal, !he younger llllll. 1 1 ie~~~l~~o:e::!~~r~~ l~~~h~~':sc~~:~; t~:

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in which ii is difficult to mark out the stages: for the husband, it is a sudden, stark, unbelievable revelation of truth. All three wake up, as it were, inlo the twentieth century, the age of self-,consciousncs.s. The rhythm of lhc unfolding is so gentle and true, 1hat there is no sense of shock even for the conservative Indian, although Ray's film is as daring for the wider audience as Tagore's story was for theinlclligcntsiaofitsday. Calm Witho11t Fire Within was the title of an essay by Satyajit Ray in Show maglllinc, in which he found 1hc distinguished trait of oriental art in 1hc ·enormous reserves of power which never spilled over into cmo1ional displays'.

The fire within smoulders most of all in Charu herself: she is the only one of the three who has no crises of conscience. Bhupali feels gui lty for not having devoted enough time 10 her, and blames himself more 1han others for his predicament: Amal realises that he was about to betray the trust of his cousin and benefactor and beats a hasty re1rea1. Charu alone never turns back on her passion. In her reconciliation with her husband there is no sense of guilt, only a recognition of reality. There is a passage in the Tagore Hory (Nashtanir or Broken Home)- which reads: MPerhaps Bhupati had the usual nO(ion that 1he right lo one's own wife's affection doe, nol have to be acquired. The light of her love shine~ aulOmatically, without fuel, and never goes out in the wind.M lnwordslike 1hese,whichareinterjected hereandthere in 1he story, Tagore sums up the condition of woman in a feudal society. Ray had already touched upon it in Mahanagor ( Tiu, Big City) and recorded the hesitant winds of change. In both films, the instrumen1 of change is provided byan unthinking husband who takes his wi fe for granted and cannol see her as an individual. In Mahanagar, the instrument is 1he job which is to give Ara1i a brief but lingering tasle of economic independence: in Charulata, it is the cousin (brother) who opens Charulua·s young mind not only 10 the joys of literature, but to lhose of a youthful companionship which she does not have with

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her husband. In both. the husbands arc theoretically modem bul in pr11gueswith two-three characters which can be cut in several dilferenl ways - where the editor and I try differen1 variations- the one who is speaking,theonewho is lis1ening. I never take a shot for safety's sake. If it is rcaJJy good, I don't do a second take. Sometimes one is obliged to take it twk:e, the maximum is three times for reasons of co--ordination. For e1.am ple, in Patlwr Panchali. the two children are look ing at an old man .who sells sweets. The children decide 10 follow him , to run after him. This was the shot: the boy, the girl. The girl runs, the hoy folklWi and there is a dog in the background who follows also.They have 10 be in the same shot. but it was not a trained dog. One chap said, ~ru call him.ft The dog didn"t even get up. I had to do 11 takes. But it was important because ii was supposed to be their dog and had to follow . them. In the end. the little girl had a piece of food in her hand and the dog followed the food ... On the screen,itwasperfect.

Dayoua/...,y•

I also shoot in a studio, but I am very careful about the art direclion and the light and it docs not show. One can"t tell whether it is a studio or not. Ifs much easier. Location shooting in Calcutta is extremely difficult. There are always crowds and noise all around you. Sometimes, of course, one has to go outdoors. In The Middleman, there are plenty of street scenes in Calcu ua , but we work very fast and with hand-h eld cameras. We arrive, we shoot. we go away. There can be problems if one has a Jong seq ue nce to shoot. We can·, even use the police who don·1 have a good image in India. The police attract an even bigger crowd because people come and ask what is happening. So we do our own policing. Everybody in the crowd wanu to be in the shot; they don·1 want to be there just to watch. I made a film in 'f,6..67 for which we were shooting 80 kms from Calcutta in the hean of the countryside. We had constructed a set with a garden and a chicken coop. For a day or two, 1here wasn·1 a soul. it was like in a st udio. The nearest station was five km s away. On the third day we heard a train stopping in the ·

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on the trees all around, as if on balconies. We couldn't tilt the camera upwards. The whole shooting plan had to be changed to tilt the camera down. One branch on which six people were sitting, broke. Fortunately, one of our actors was a doctor ... .' Yes, perfectly so. Naturalism which amounts to dwelling on inessentials may.differ from realism but a lyrical method can be quite in tune with it. Generally speaking, however, I may be accused of nurturing a classical trend of mind. In rhythm, form and content, I like to follow a simple classical structure. And moreover, there is no point in being excessively avant garde at this stage of development of the lndian,audience. • merely~~~~ ·n incidents, d through the incidents and roug t e reaction o pie to the incidents, certain facts emerge. Fairly complex facts, because there are always two sides to a thing. It's certainly not desirable that two old persons, the parents of the boy, should suffer inwardly. The suffer because they have not been able to change. Bu t ey o su er an you o sympa · with ft1elr agony, their grief. That's how my stori , 1n an kind of bombastic propagan ~~~m~e e re stone tan oremost, t ey re a es, s a we say. believe in plot Because India has a great tradition of sto 1es. n II ma es for a kind of orderliness which helps an audience which is not used to intellectual subtleties. And yet it affords you to be .subtle in other things.s

But nobody ever says in tlie film ( Mahanagar) that you have to change or it '.r ' good to change.

Wlrat do you feel about a man working in a very different way from you? I am thinking of Godard. who starts working on a • film with three pages on his knee.

Yes, but with the kind of film that he makes he doesn't need a prepared, regular scenario, because one of his main purposes is to show the disjointedness of modem life, the Jack of order, the lack of definite form, and you can only do that by breaking it up. I

There must ,..,. a ztllVinbetween form and co11ten1,

~nk ~ometimes the form is dictated by a character. • en Truffaut made Jules at Jim, for instance, lots of people talked about it as a very free style of editing. I think it all derived from the fact of the girl.

almuSI Uh agreement?

Jeanne Moreau, and the character of Catherine. Unless Truffaut adopted that style, I don't think the film could express the form so well. It couldn't have been told in a conventional form.

nd Jeanne Moreau ,self?

•:And you don't react against his (Ingmar Bergman's) using the same actors in film after \ film? You know, you can see ;unnar Bjomstrand or Eva Dahlbec/c or Ingrid Thulin instead of the characters they are supposed to represent.

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But it's not neo-realism that he is doing , where you want to see new faces. Cary Grant was at one point supposed to play the leading part in Bicycle Thieves. Well, anyway, De Sica couldn't get him. I would hate to see Cary Grant in Bicycle Thieves, but I would love to see all the known faces in the next Bergman film.

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What about Drayer? Do you find him too slow?

The cinemo is wonderfully equipped to capture and explore the slight changes in thoughts and emotions. A slow shifting of the eyeball from one comer of the eye to the other can, in particular situations, mean a great deal: and the cinema. because of its resources, can probe into that meaning vividly and deeply.

128 Dig1t1zeo by

I don't mind slow films. Sometimes I'm irritated by slowness, but I don't think slowness, per se, is a fault. There is, for example slow music, there is fast music .... It's much more difficult to make a successful slow film.0 In fact, I shall go even further and say that the cinema's characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate such intimacies of the mind. This can be revealed through some movement, some slight gesture, some inflexion of the voice, some change in the light or surrounding objects. But there may not be any physical movement at all in a succession of shots. All the same the character grows and is unfolded. To describe the most important characteristic of the film medium I would even use the word growth rather than movement. The cinema is superbly equipped to reveal and trace the growth of a person or a situation.' I am great admirer of Japanese cinema. They are really the great masters. I don't know Ozu's early films, but at the end of his career, he was totally Japanese- not at all influenced by Hollywood. He transgressed all conventions -even the 180° law. Here we cheat a little by changing the position of the actors, Ozu is very particular about that. He never changes the geography. For us it is often a shock - slightly disorienting. I have repeatedly seen some of his films and I thought, "My God, he does not follow the Hollywood model or the grammar. He has another approach, that of actors in their setting."~

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MUSIC Musk: was my fim love. Ever since my school-