Satyajit Ray :

Recollections of a phenomenal filmmaker of our times

Sunalie RATNAYAKE

(May 2, 1921 to April 23, 1992)

‘Satyajit Ray is no more', yet that, with no doubt, is the most common feature in life. As humans, whether we are in favour or not, of life's unique modus operandi assimilated on each individual, facing the surge of events from birth to ailing, including the culmination, that shall temporarily blot the end of one’s journey on earth, shall remain intact, unable to be amended as one may, at times wish it could be.

For the millions in number, who believe in rebirth and the cycles in Sansara, the indefinite space in time, from the ending of one’s journey on earth, to the beginning of another, shall only assemble a bridge of prolongation. The element of novelty unfolding in another time, another life.

The moment one may enter this world, also the moment of departure shall be registered, yet undisclosed. On May 2, 1921, a day such as today, 92 years ago, Ray entered this world, and his moment of departure was registered to fall 71 years later on April 23, 1992. Therefore, today falls Satyajit Ray’s birth anniversary - the 92nd in integer.

“Well, it is an extraordinary experience for me, to be here tonight to receive this magnificent award, certainly the best achievement of my movie-making career. As a schoolboy, I was terribly interested in the cinema. Became a film fan. Wrote to Deanna Durbin. Got a reply. Was delighted. Wrote to Ginger Rogers. Didn't get a reply. Then, of course I got into cinema, as an Art form. And I wrote a 12 page letter to Billy Wilder, after seeing Double Indemnity (1944). He Didn't reply either. Well, there you are. But, I have learnt everything I've learnt about the craft of cinema, from the making of American films.

A distinguished appreciation

I've been watching American films very carefully over the years. And I loved them, for what they entertained. And then later loved them for what they've taught. So, I express my gratitude, to the American Cinema to the Motion Picture Association who have given me this award, and who made me feel so proud. Thank you very, very much” - Satyajit Ray (via satellite at the 1992 Academy Awards). That was the poignant segment of a fragile Rays Oscar acceptance speech, merely days prior to his death, which he delivered from bed, soon after the elegantly striking Audrey Hepburn clad in crimson, made a debonair introduction of this world renowned filmmaker, at the March 30, 1992 Oscar Awards Ceremony, the 64th to be precise - An introduction of a man of colossal creativity, aptitude and simplicity, that the entire world undoubtedly needed no prologue of.

This year, the Academy board of governors has voted to award an honorary Oscar, to the great Indian Filmmaker, SATYAJIT RAY. Mr. Ray has been making films for almost four decades.

The Academy recognizes Mr. Ray’s rare mastery of the Art of Motion Pictures and of his profound humanism, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world.

That was the brief, yet consequential preamble on Ray, at the legendary Oscars, two decades ago, by the then 62 year old Hepburn, who had also unexpectedly neared her end, having suffered a sudden abdominal pain, during one of her many UNICEF trips to Africa, and later being diagnosed with abdominal cancer, which before long, seized her life on January 20, 1993, merely less than a year from adorning the said Oscars.

Be that as it may, the above mentioned were fractions of the momentous and emotive moments, when the remarkable Ray received his Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

An award granted just in time, as obviously, there certainly is no point in garlanding pictures, wreathing statues, granting or promoting in designation, lamenting for dear life, once someone has bid farewell to this world. We have immense such scenarios, that could be taken as examples of such states of affairs, in our dear motherland Sri Lanka alone. For that reason, I shall rest my case on the notion, by simply stating ; 'A human should always be appreciated, and even worshipped if apposite, during his or her lifetime. All the drama following death, are mere futile affairs of hollow approach'.

An old and grey Ray, at the Oscars, seemed to be reaching the eventual finale of this riddle called 'life'. Yet, with all that discomfort he may have been undergoing at that given moment in time, Ray, embracing the Oscar from both his now brittle hands, did not forget to also embrace the awe-inspiring moment via satellite, with some 'mirth', also carrying great weight in recollecting his humble past.

A past overflowing the abundant love and desire for the medium 'Cinema'. And now a pair of brittle hands, attempting to feel the rigidity, and magnitude of the momentous award received, hands that once have guided instruments from a mere pencil in sketching scenes, to the potent camera in world renowned film making. Hands that have worked hectically for a lifetime, giving it’s best for generations to gain knowledge from, adore and appreciate, the same scenario being valid even for generations yet unborn.

For that reason, today, on his birthday, we rejoice the ‘life and times’ of this Cinema Maestro, a rare talent, that indeed, God once loaned to earth.

Early years

Being regarded a greatest auteur of 20th century cinema, Ray was born to a Bengali family, which held prominence in the arena of ‘Art’ and ‘Literature’, in the city of Kolkata in India. Sukumar and Suprabha Ray were his parents.

Ray’s grandfather’s printing press, ‘U. Ray and Sons’ served as a vital milieu in young Ray’s life. After all, the family, depicting generations in the rear, were veterans in fields alike.

Having lost his father Sukumar at the tender age of three, Ray grew up in Supbrabha’s abode that was meagre. Though his interest confined to Fine Arts, Ray studied and completed his B.A.(Hons) in Economics at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta.

Though reluctant to leave Kolkata, his mother’s persuasion, in amalgamation with the esteem for Tagore convinced him to study at the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, founded by Tagore.

Later, a visit to London, which unfolded him a viewing of Vittorio De Sica's 'Bicycle Thieves', following a meeting with French filmmaker Jean Renoir completely unwrapped a pathway for the ardent Ray to follow.

That was a pathway rather distant from his career as a 'commercial artiste' - a fascinating, yet intricate pathway towards 'independent filmmaking'.

Since stepping intrepidly in, and joining the 'club of filmmakers', there seemed to be no turning-back for Ray, who had an incomparable zeal towards his chosen field of work.

The multi-faceted Ray, who contributed by and large towards arenas of unreserved thirst and demand as a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, graphic designer and film critic, Ray, during his existence, directed 37 films, which included feature films, documentaries and shorts.

The Apu Trilogy

Each and every erudite individual, not only in a world far-flung from Asia, or Ray’s native soil India alone, but also in her neighbouring Sri Lanka, irrespective of being a cinema aficionado, or not, happens to be absolutely familiar with 'The Apu Trilogy', the three consecutive Bengali movies directed by Satyajit Ray between 1955 and 1959. Namely, they are, Pather Panchali (Song of the little road - 1955), Aparajito (The Unvanquished - 1956), and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu - 1959).

These three movies, which form the much renowned ‘Apu Trilogy’ are remarkable stories that have also been translated into the Sinhala language for the nourishment of an expanded local audience, by brilliant writers / authours / translators, such as, Chintha Lankshmi Sinha-Aarachchi, more importantly, without causing any harm to the originality of the tale, indeed a reason for all Sri Lankan translators / writers to be proud of. Pather Panchali remains Ray’s debut film.

In an interview, Ray once claimed that Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay was a writer who fascinated him immensely. Hence, Bandopadhya’s two novels indubitably happened to be the birthplace of inspiration, for the creation of Ray’s indelible Apu Trilogy.

According to Ray, his much desired novelist, Bandopadhyay had actually been living in a village at the time of the famine in 1943, when Ray had simply obtained employment as an Advertising Designer, living in Calcutta. At the time, Ray had witnessed a populace adding up to hundreds and thousands, from the villages streaming into Calcutta. He had further witnessed refugees brimming at the railway stations in the verge of death. In Ray’s scrutiny, if they did not die at that very given moment, they were to die, at least a few days from that particular moment in time. Ray’s experiences from this era seemed to have been etched in his mind evermore, especially when he himself stepped across corpses lying all over the place, when stepping out from his house en route to work. All such daunting experiences in life certainly nourished his film making, in the years to the fore. The same factor made his films more pragmatic by nature.

Rich with his own life experiences, and later by ardently reading the novels by Bandopadhyay, Ray had immediately decided to weave the material into the mode of film, his preferred cup-of-tea. And, in doing so, he remained distinctive, in aspects of the medium, as well as the parable.

Apart from Bandopadhyay, the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, who re-shaped his region’s literature and music remained Ray’s greatest inspiration. Tagore’s profoundly sensitive verses seemed to have elevated Ray to a much higher, yet ‘uncomplicated’ and ‘pragmatic’ podium in life, though Ray was always living in a ‘realistic’ world, with ‘imagination’ being beneficial, only in terms of nourishing his meaningful creations. Such happen to be ‘imaginative inceptions’ in Ray’s mind, that we take pleasure in, as meaningful creations of Art, even decades following their birth in his mindset.

Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali describes the maturation of a small boy named ‘Apu’, in a far-flung village in Bengal. The cast in Pather Panchali, like in may other Ray movies, consisted of amateur actors. Due to difficulties in finances, as well as being adamant not to be dictated terms by influential sources in exchange of finances, in terms of changing certain areas of the plot, and frequent urging from the government to shift the ending to a happy one, Ray filmed Pather Panchali throughout three long years, generally quite a long period for the completion of a movie. It was released in 1955 with popular success, and had an exceptionally long run, when released in the United States.

Aparajito

Aparajito being his next creation, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, bringing him considerable commendation. It’s plot is woven around the eternal struggles between Apu, the little boy from Pather Panchali, who had turned into an ambitious young man, and his mother who loves him unreservedly.

During the making of Aparajito, though Ray had not planned of a ‘trilogy’, a proposition in Venice, towards such a brainchild had triggered Ray’s urge to follow-up on same, and in due course, he did.

Apur Sansar

Bringing Ray’s planted urge to the next level, Ray concluded the trilogy with it’s last segment, Apur Sansar in 1959, introducing the duo Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore, stars he loved much indeed.

The movie unfolds with the matured Apu living in ‘approaching dearth’ in a Kolkata house. Later, the plot glides to his strange involvement in marriage with Aparna. And the poignant scenes of their lives together as man and wife, forming exemplary depictions of married life. And, just like any other duo in such circumstances and surroundings, Apu and Aparna too suffer tragedy.

To be continued