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SATYAJIT RAY (1921-1992)

"Technique. A means to an end. The technique of warfare, of poetry, of automation. The technique of making love, of making souffles, of making films.

The best technique is the one that's not noticeable. For me to [have to] point out why certain things are being done means that they haven't worked."


FILMOGRAPHY

Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) (1955) Artificial Eye: The Apu Trilogy (R2 UK), Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), Sony (R1), Biswas (R? IN)

Aparajito (The Unvanquished) (1956) Artificial Eye: The Apu Trilogy (R2 UK), Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), Sony (R1), Biswas (R? IN)

Parash Pathar (The Philosopher's Stone) (1958)

Jalsaghar (The Music Room) (1958) Films Sans Frontieres (R2 FR), Collection Cine-Club (R2 FR), Angel Video (R? IN), Biswas (R? IN), Criterion (R1 - DVD & BR)

Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959) Artificial Eye: The Apu Trilogy (R2 UK), Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), Sony (R1)

Devi (The Goddess) (1960) Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), RE (R? IN)

Teen Kanya (Three Daughters, aka Two Daughters) (1961) RE (R? IN), Shemaroo - Tagore Stories on Film box set (R0 IN)

Rabindranath Tagore (1961) Shemaroo - Tagore Stories on Film box set (R0 IN)

Kanchenjungha (1962) Angel (R? IN)

Abhijan (The Expedition) (1962) Eureka Masters of Cinema (R2 UK), Angel (R? IN)

Mahanagar (The Big City) (1963) Artificial Eye: Satyajit Ray Collection Vol. 1 (R2 UK), RE (R? IN), Criterion (R1 - DVD & BR)

Charulata (The Lonely Wife) (1964) Artificial Eye: Satyajit Ray Collection Vol. 1 (R2 UK), Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), RE (R? IN), Criterion (R1 - DVD & BR)

Two (TV short) (1964)

Kapurush-O-Mahapurush (The Coward and The Holy Man) (1965) Artificial Eye: Satyajit Ray Collection Vol. 2 (R2 UK), RE (R? IN), Criterion (R1 - DVD & BR [The Coward])

Nayak (The Hero) (1966) Artificial Eye: Satyajit Ray Collection Vol. 1 (R2 UK), NY Film Annex (R1), RE (R? IN)

Chiriakhana (The Zoo) (1967) Angel (R? IN)

Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha) (1968) RE (R? IN)

Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest) (1969) Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), Shradha (R? IN)

Pratidwandi (The Adversary, aka Siddharta and the City) (1970) Mr. Bongo (R2 UK), Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), NY Film Annex (R1), Shradha (R? IN)

Seemabaddha (Company Limited) (1971) Angel (R? IN)

Sikkim (documentary) (1971)

The Inner Eye (documentary short) (1972)

Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder) (1973) Films sans Frontieres (R2 FR), Angel (R? (IN)

Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress) (1974) Angel Video (R? IN), Biswas (R? IN)

Jana Aranya (The Middle Man) (1975) Shradha (R? IN)

Bala (documentary short) (1976)

Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) (1977) Kino (R1), Artificial Eye (R2 UK), Carlotta (R2 FR), Shemaroo (R? IN)

Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God) (1978) Artificial Eye: Satyajit Ray Collection Vol. 2 (R2 UK), RE (R? IN)

Hirak Rajar Dese (The Kingdom of Diamonds) (1980) Biswas (R? IN)

Pikoo (TV short) (1980)

Sadgati (Deliverance) (TV) (1981)

Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) (1984) Eagle (R? IN), Shemaroo - Tagore Stories on Film box set (R0 IN), Criterion Eclipse (R1 - DVD)

Sukumar Ray (documentary short) (1987)

Ganasatru (An Enemy of the People) (1989) Eagle (R? IN), Criterion Eclipse (R1 - DVD)

Shakha Proshakha (The Branches of the Tree) (1990) Seven 7 (R2 FR), RE (R? IN)

Agantuk (The Visitor) (1991) Eagle (R? IN), Criterion Eclipse (R1 - DVD)


FORUM DISCUSSION

Abhijan

Satyajit Ray on DVD

Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Aparna Sen

Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray, 1970)

Pratiwandi (Satyajit Ray) 1972


WEB RESOURCES

Satyajit Ray.org

Government of India Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Films Division

Satyajit Ray Film and Study Center, University of California Santa Cruz

A short remembrance of Ray by some of his leading actors, from The Calcutta Telegraph, 2006

Satyajit Ray: A Vision of Cinema by Andrew Robinson at British Council India

Satyajit Ray by Helen Goritsas at Senses of Cinema

Manas: Indian Cinema - Satyajit Ray

Film Reference: Satyajit Ray

Outlook India: Satyajit Ray at GreenCine Daily

Calcuttaweb.com DVD store


BOOKS

The Apu Trilogy by Robin Wood (Praeger, 1971)

Our Films, Their Films by Satyajit Ray (Orient Longmans, 1976 / Hyperion, 1994)

Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray by Marie Seton (Indiana University Press, 1977)

The Cinema of Satyajit Ray by Chidananda Das Gupta (Vikas, 1980)

Satyajit Ray: A Study of His Films by Ben Nyce (Praeger, 1988)

Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye by Andrew Robinson (Andre Deutsch / University of California Press, 1989)

My Years With Apu by Satyajit Ray (Viking, 1994)

The Cinema of Satyajit Ray: Between Tradition and Modernity by Darius Cooper (Cambridge, 2000)

Satyajit Ray: In Search of the Modern by Suranjan Ganguly (Indialog, 2001)

Satyajit Ray: A Vision of Cinema by Andrew Robinson (text) and Nemai Ghosh (photography) (Tauris, 2005)

Speaking of Films by Satyajit Ray (Penguin India, 2005)

Apu and After: Re-Reading Ray's Cinema by Moinak Biswas, ed. (Seagull, 2006)

Satyajit Ray: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series) edited by Bert Cardullo (University Press of Mississippi, 2007)

The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic by Andrew Robinson (Tauris, 2010)

Cinema, Emergence, and the Films of Satyajit Ray by Keya Ganguly (University of California Press, 2010)

Thanks for the addition (what an oversight!).

I wasn't aware that several of these films were available in France. Can anybody comment on quality / subs?

Happy to do it, zedz. Sorry I have no firsthand experience with the French releases, though.

If anyone has information on the region coding of the Indian DVDs, please chime in.

After Bergman, my favorite director. The fact that Criterion hasn't released anything by him frustrates me on a regular basis. I've seen everything except these:

Sikkim (documentary) (1971)
Pikoo (TV short) (1980)
Sadgati (Deliverance) (TV) (1981)
Sukumar Ray (documentary short) (1987)

Can anyone who has seen these comment on them? I'm especially interested in Sadgati.

I've also seen a couple of films from regular Ray actress Aparna Sen. Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is competent and admirable in its intentions but rather simplistic. 36 Chowringhee Lane, on the other hand, is a mighty fine piece of work, touching and elegant, with the best use of "Yellow Polka Pot Bikini" I've ever seen.

zedz wrote:I wasn't aware that several of these films were available in France. Can anybody comment on quality / subs?

The French release of Charulata is very good. On par with, if not better than the Artifical Eye release, but the French subtitles are burned in to the image. This probably doesn't help you, though, since you, like most people, probably have gone for the AE boxsets.

I personally would love a report on the R2 Devi release. The VHS copy I have could definitely use an upgrade.

Film Society of Lincoln Center retro coming in April.

tavernier wrote:Film Society of Lincoln Center retro coming in April.

Film Society of Lincoln Center wrote:The Film Society of Lincoln Center will celebrate India’s greatest filmmaker and one of cinema’s greatest auteurs, Satyajit Ray, with First Light: Satyajit Ray from the Apu Trilogy to the Calcutta Trilogy, unspooling at the Walter Reade Theater from Wednesday, April 15 through Thursday April 30. Featuring over 20 films, with six in new 35mm prints from the Academy Film Archive, the series concentrates on what is roughly the first half of Ray’s career, when he broke out internationally as an important new voice in world cinema.

Showing in a new 35mm print is 1958’s The Music Room, an atmospheric nod to India’s splendiferous past which draws comparisons to Citizen Kane. Other new 35mm prints made possible by the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the Academy Film Archive are The Expedition (1962), The Coward and the Holy Man (1965), The Hero (1966), The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha (1968) and Two (1965), a rare short made for the Esso World Theater.

This series is a tribute to the work of the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles, which together with the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Center at the University of California-Santa Cruz has done so much to preserve and promote the work of this major film artist for future generations. The archive is currently hard at work restoring the rest of Ray’s films. We hope to be able to present a series built around the second half of Satyajit Ray’s career in the not-so-distant future.

Will there be a new edition of the Apu Trilogy on dvd then?

In the current Film Comment: MASTER OF THE HOUSE: A giant of world cinema’s golden age, Satyajit Ray held up a mirror to Bengal’s middle class - by Nicolas Rapold

mteller wrote:The fact that Criterion hasn't released anything by him frustrates me on a regular basis.

I know what you mean. It genuinely stuns me that Criterion haven't gotten any of his films in the collection yet...

MTRodaba2468 wrote:

mteller wrote:The fact that Criterion hasn't released anything by him frustrates me on a regular basis.

I know what you mean. It genuinely stuns me that Criterion haven't gotten any of his films in the collection yet...

What's the hurry? It's only been 12 years since the advent of DVD.

The AE Apu set mostly looks pretty good. the sound strikes me as a bit more battered than the pictures. Glad this was on sale recently.

Evening and weekend Ray screenings at the Walter Reade are all selling out. Hopefully somebody in the home video world is paying attention.

Terrence Rafferty talks up the Ray retro in the NY Times.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES LONG SHADOWS: THE LATE WORK OF SATYAJIT RAY (APRIL 19-26)

[New York - April 2, 2011] The Film Society of Lincoln Center will celebrate India’s greatest filmmaker and one of cinema’s greatest auteurs, Satyajit Ray, with Long Shadows: The Late Work of Satyajit Ray unspooling at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City from April 19 through April 26. The promised (and much-requested) follow-up to the 2009 Satyajit Ray tribute, Long Shadows includes all the films made by Ray in the autumnal years of his career.

Already an acknowledged giant of world cinema, Ray in these later works reveals a more meditative side: his brilliant powers of observation lead him to pare down his style, allowing his characters and the world to reveal themselves to us. Long Shadows: The Late Work of Satyajit Ray is presented in collaboration with Columbia University.

FILM DESCRIPTIONS
The Branches of a Tree
Satyajit Ray, 1990, India; 130m
When a family patriarch falls ill, his grown sons rush in from Calcutta, leading to a reunion filled with painful ironies and lingering disillusionment.

The Chess Players
Satyajit Ray, 1977, India; 129m
Shot in lavish color, Ray’s ironic elegy to 19th-century India tacks between an effete aristocrat threatened by the British, and two Lucknowi landowners absorbed in gameplaying.

Deliverance (Sadgati)
Satyajit Ray, 1981, India; 52m
In Ray’s stark, unflinching short, a weakened Untouchable laborer dies on the job, forcing the landowner to deal with the consequences.
SCREENING WITH
Pikoo’s Diary
Satyajit Ray, 1980, India; 26m
A boy’s day at home is filled with shattering and confusing revelations.

The Inner Eye
Satyajit Ray, 1972, India; 19m
Ray’s exquisite portrait of painter Binode Bihari Mukherjee.

Distant Thunder
Satyajit Ray, 1973, India; 101m
Ray revisits the village setting of the Apu Trilogy for a jarring drama about villagers during the Bengali Famine of 1943. New York Film Festival ’73.

The Elephant God
Satyajit Ray, 1979, India; 112m
Ray’s beloved Feluda teams up with his faithful sidekick and a mystery novelist to track down a stolen Ganesh figurine. Featuring knife-throwing and Benares in vivid color.

An Enemy of the People
Satyajit Ray, 1990, India; 99m
In Ray’s reworking of the Ibsen play, Soumitra Chatterjee plays a beleaguered doctor who insists that a temple’s holy water is causing epidemics.

The Golden Fortress
Satyajit Ray, 1974, India; 120m
Two thieves kidnap a boy whose flashbacks to a past life may point the way to treasure. Master detective Feluda is on the case!

The Home and the World
Satyajit Ray, 1984, India; 140m
In Ray’s take on the 1905 Bengali partition protests, a bourgeois woman (Swatilekha Chatterjee) falls for a strident nationalist (Soumitra Chatterjee). Adapted from Rabindranath Tagore.

The Kingdom of Diamonds
Satyajit Ray, 1980, India; 118m
Ray pulls out all the stops for the fantastical sci-fi return of delightful duo Goupy and Bagha, who must contend with a dictator’s brainwashing machine.

Sikkim
Satyajit Ray, 1971, India; 60m
Commissioned by the ruler of a Himalayan state, Ray made this controversial poetic sketch, which was swiftly subjected to censorship.
SCREENING WITH
Bala
Satyajit Ray, 1976, India; 33m
Ray’s rarely screened record of the famed Bharata Natyam dancer.

The Stranger
Satyajit Ray, 1991, India; 97m
In this disarming, thoughtful coda to Ray’s career, a forgotten uncle (Utpal Dutt) visits his family after decades of wandering, leading to debates over civility and civilization.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Presented in collaboration with Columbia University.

Special thanks to the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the Academy Film Archive, the Film Foundation, the Academy Film Archive as well as to the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection at the Academy Film Archive.

The film prints screened at Long Shadows are from the Collection of Satyajit Ray Film and Study Center, University of California, Santa Cruz. We thank Professor Dilip Basu, the Center's Director for facilitating Long Shadows.

Sikkim DVD [Special Edition]

Features

Disc 1
Sikkim (With English Subtitles)

Disc 2
A Musical Journey with Satyajit Ray
(Features songs/music from films of Satyajit Ray)

Just watched a mediocre DVD of Kanchenjugha -- but what an utterly wonderful film. It made me think (every now and then) of Ozu and Naruse (albeit in different moments), but I thought it was delightful in its own right. And I loved the performances -- particularly the uncle of our young heroine.

Its not really surprising. Every time I see an Ozu film, I immediately think about a Bengali (Indian) film. Its just Asian culture, I guess. Kanchenjugha is considered as one of his best films. The original 35 mm print the film is lost forever (that's what I heard). So, I am not expecting a better quality release. Did you like the background score composed by Ray? This score is my favorite and is closely followed by the one he composed for Days and Nights in the Forest.

I wonder when (if ever) Ray encountered the films of Ozu and Naruse. I would say that there are quite a few more Naruse-like moments in Kanchenjungha, even though the plot is reminiscent of Ozu.

I found some parts of the score overdramatic, but mostly liked it. There was one bit that reminded me of the scores of one of Yamanaka's 30s films (and the visual events also, for that matter).

Ray's biographer Andrew Robinson has confirmed that he was a big fan of Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa.

Robinson doesn't mention Naruse, but since Ray knew Donald Richie (who initially introduced him to Tokyo Story, which Ray found emotionally overwhelming), it's certainly possible that he could have encountered his work.

Thanks for the info, MichaelB.

Kanchenjungha had any number of nice "strolling scenes" -- a Naruse specialty.

Apparently this was not a success at the time of its release. Hard to fathom. And why, evn now, is this lovely film so unheralded?

This is funny how everytime somebody talks about some of Ray's film tries to impose that how heavily the film(s) are influenced by these Japanese legends. Amazingly, when I watch a Japanese film from that era, I never think they are influenced by some of those Bengali films.
Here is an example I recently encountered. My wife and I have watched Tokyo Story several times in the past. We both loved it and enjoyed every moment of it. Recently my in laws (both in their late 70s) came to USA to stay with us for 4 months (imagine how hard it was for me!). I watched a lot of old films, both Hollywood and some foreign films, with them. One of them was Tokyo Story. Both loved the film and at the end my father in law named 4 Bengali films (made in late 40s) with extreme resenblences. What do I conclude from this? I showed them Good Morning, they loved it too. I showed them Still Walking, and my mother in law literelly started crying!
When I showed them Ran, my in laws trying to relate that film to Mahabharata. They could not relate to Seven Samurai or one of those Zatoichi films. Oh, keep in mind that my in laws never watched any foreign films and they hate to read subtitles, but they thoroughly enjoyed the films I selected for them.
I think that in the post WWII period, the socioeconomic structures in some of these Asian countries were so similar, it is easy to to relate to any of these films. I have not watched a single Naruse film yet, but based on whatever I have see from Ozu or Mizo, trust me, they make at least 100 films like that every year in West Bengal (India). It easy to sell anything with sentiment there.
I am no expert. I have a plan to explore Naruse soon. So, please don't hesitate to recommend a list I should beging with.

chatterjees wrote:This is funny how everytime somebody talks about some of Ray's film tries to impose that how heavily the film(s) are influenced by these Japanese legends. Amazingly, when I watch a Japanese film from that era, I never think they are influenced by some of those Bengali films.

That's because hardly anybody outside India had seen a Bengali film before the 1950s, so it's highly unlikely that any Japanese filmmakers who developed their style in the 1920s and 30s would have been influenced by them.

Obviously, it's not completely impossible, but you'll need solid evidence to back up this kind of assertion. Whereas the fact that Ray admired Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa is a matter of record, and is corroborated by multiple sources.

MichaelB wrote:

chatterjees wrote:This is funny how everytime somebody talks about some of Ray's film tries to impose that how heavily the film(s) are influenced by these Japanese legends. Amazingly, when I watch a Japanese film from that era, I never think they are influenced by some of those Bengali films.

That's because hardly anybody outside India had seen a Bengali film before the 1950s, so it's highly unlikely that any Japanese filmmakers who developed their style in the 1920s and 30s would have been influenced by them.

Obviously, it's not completely impossible, but you'll need solid evidence to back up this kind of assertion. Whereas the fact that Ray admired Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa is a matter of record, and is corroborated by multiple sources.

I am not trying to assert anything here. Off course I know that Ray "admired" Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa. You are probably missing my point. I did not say those Japanese films were influenced by Bengali films. My point was based on the Asian life style. Not only Ray, but Ritwik, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor have a lot of films under their belts, which closely resembles the social matters or sentimental values present in the films made by Ozu or Mizoguchi or Kurosawa. I think that it finally depends on the person, who is looking at them. To non-Asian people, they have two options to compare between. To Asian audience, I think that scope is really little. That's just my view.

I am not saying Ray's film WAS influenced by Ozu or Naruse, but just wondering IF he had seen the films of either (or both) of these directors by this point in his career -- and noting that certain moments reminded me of one or the other Japanese director. I would add that this film had a considerably different overall feel from the earlier Ray films I've seen.

Not much Naruse is available on DVD at this point (since the MOC set is out of print and the BFI set is probably headed that direction). If you want to start with the silents, the Eclipse set is woth checking out (especially Apart From You and Every Night Dreams). Otherwise, watch whatever you can find. All the later films that might be currently available (other than on file sharing sites) range from very good to excellent.