Poet behind the camera
“To me, the process of making a film is more important than the final product.”
The Oscar victory for Satyajit Ray, a man who valued hard labour more than the proverbial fruit, has unsurprisingly come to attach a bigger significance for Indian cinema than the figure himself.
Ray nonetheless dubbed the victory “the best achievement of [my] movie-making career” as he accepted the Honorary Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences remotely due to ill-health. At the other end of the screen was Audrey Hepburn, a cinema legend in her own right, presenting the award at the Los Angeles ceremony. “To Satyajit Ray, in recognition of his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures, and of his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world,” her shining tribute to the frail movie maestro went.
The Calcutta-born movie-maker began his career as a commercial artist but his sense of curiosity meant that he was exposed to international and indie cinema very early. His influences varied from the likes of French mammoth Jean Renoir, Italian Neorealist Vittorio De Sica and several directors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Before you knew it, Ray was transferring life as he saw it onto the silver screen. Realism, although he was one never to ascribe his craft to a single concept or form, was dear to him. “I do not think that I am a very good storyteller. What I do think is that I am a very good observer,” he once professed.
The Apu trilogy, which comprised the now iconic Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) are a prime example. Add to the list the likes of Mahanagar (1963), Charulata (1964) and Jana Aranya (1976) and you have extensive library of films the lay bare harsh but often often underrepresented (in cinema of the time) themes of marital discord, disillusionment in the newly urbanised India and women empowerment.
There’s an argument to be made for Ray’s body of work often being too melancholic and laboured. The director conceded to such criticism but was defiant in his choice, once saying, “I have always been against the idea of artificially forcing excitement into a film. My films move slowly because life moves slowly.”
And that’s not to say that Ray could not make commercial cinema. A master of his craft, he had the skills to script, direct, edit and provide background scores that linger on long after watchers left the cinema halls. With grandiose sets and fantastical elements, films like Parash Pathar (1958) and Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) had plenty of crowdpleaser elements. His heart, however, always drew him back to the slice-of-life and humanist cinema that has rightly become synonymous with his name.
“Apu is a character who is closest to my heart. He is a young boy who grows up in a world that is not ideal, but he still dreams, he still fights, he still lives,” Ray said of the central character of his famous trilogy. Growth, both physical and spiritual, is what according to Ray made Apu so relatable to the world.
The director’s own journey reflected that of Apu’s. He was a young mind often confused by a constantly changing world looking to carve a space for himself. By representing that angst on the silver screen, he captured the fascination of the several others who shared similar dreams.
