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P(L)AYBACK

(Mumbai, India)

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playback2007 [at] gmail [dot] com

Manik and the Magic of Movies

Little Manik stood in awe clutching at his mothers saree. Meeting Rabindranath Tagore in person was a dream come true for the five year old and he extended his autograph book.

Tagore wrote in it in Bengali verse :

“For a long time, over many miles,
I have been to many countries,
I have spent a lot of money,
I have seen the highest peaks;

I have seen the greatest oceans,
But I still have yet to open my eyes,
Glance over at the field next to my house,
And see a dewdrop on a blade of grass.”

“When you grow up, you’ll understand what I’ve written for you here“, smiled Tagore.

The year was 1926 and it would be another fourteen years before Manik would “open his eyes and glance over at the field next to his house” and another four years more before he would “see a dewdrop on a blade of grass“.

His father, a leading poet, writer and artist had passed away two and a half years ago. His mother, having lost out on the family publishing business, had moved in with him to her brothers house.

Manik grew up influenced by writers, artists, musicians and even a “cameraman turned film maker” who comprised his maternal uncles extended family. It was here that he developed a fascination with western classical music and American movies… a fascination which would one day fructify into a film career and make him one of the most revered directors in the world … Satyajit Ray.

Ray recollects : “In my childhood, visits to the cinema were big if infrequent occasions filled with the delights of the latest Chaplin or Keaton or Harold Lloyd. This was followed in the early years of sound, by a Laurel-and-Hardy phase, a Tarzan phase and a swashbuckling adventure phase. When I was fifteen or so, I earned the right to choose my own diet. This led to a great opening up of the vista. Westerns, gangster films, horror films, musicals, comedies, dramas and all those other species which Hollywood served up with such expertise, came tumbling my way to be lapped up with ever-increasing appetite. I noted each title in a little pocket diary, adding brief critical comments, and my own star rating.“

“I avidly read Picturegoer and Photoplay, neglected my studies and gorged myself on Hollywood gossip purveyed by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Deana Derbin became a favourite not only because of her looks and her obvious gifts as an actress, but because of her lovely soprano voice. Also, firm favourites were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, all of whose films I saw several times just to learn the Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern tunes by heart.“

He collected albums, attended concerts, compiled a scrapbook on American films and even wrote fan mail to his Hollywood idols.( Deana Durbin actually replied ! )

Ray : “The addiction persisted through college, with one important change of attitude : the stars gave way to directors as my focus of interest. I had earlier learned to recognise the hallmarks of the major Hollywood Studios. I could make out an MGM 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 in its products.”

“This now gave way to a study of the hallmarks of directors. In what way was Ford different from Wyler, or Wyler from Capra, or Capra from Stevens ? This was precisely the point where my interest took a serious turn. It had suddenly dawned on me that more than the studio, more than the stars, more than the story, it was the director who gave a distinguished film its mark of distinction.“

After graduating from Presidency College, eighteen year old Ray expressed a desire to work as a commercial artist. His mother urged him to go for formal training and sent him off to Tagore’s Shantiniketan in 1940. For the young man from the city and his obsession with western music, cinema and art, this was an eye opener. Not until now had he “glanced over at the field next to his house” : The beautiful Bengal countryside, oriental techniques in art, indian classical music, “palash” flowers in bloom, traditional aesthetics and expansive fields of “kash” which he would go on to immortalise in his first film.

He dropped out of Shantiniketan after Tagore’s death in 1941 and came back to Calcutta. Back in the city he devoured what he missed the most at Shantiniketan : cinema. In 1943 he joined D.J. Keymer, a British-owned advertising agency as junior visualiser.

Even on the job, Rays mind was occupied with cinema.

“While I sat at my desk sketching out campaigns for tea and biscuits, my mind buzzed with the thoughts of the films I had been seeing.“

His senior colleague at D.J. Keymer, D. K. Gupta started a publishing house called ‘Signet Press‘ and asked Ray to illustrate the cover jackets. In 1944, D. K. Gupta decided to bring out an abridged version of a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay called “Pather Panchali“.

Ray : “‘Pather Panchali’ was serialised in a popular Bengali magazine in the early 1930s. The author had been brought up in a village and the book contained much that was autobiographical. The manuscript had been turned down by publishers on the ground that it lacked a story. The magazine, too, was initially reluctant to accept it, but later did so on condition that it would be discontinued if the readers so wished. But the story of Apu and Durga was a hit from the first installment. The book, published a year or so later, was an outstanding critical and popular success and has remained on the best-seller list ever since.“

Until then, Ray had not read much of Bengali literature. By his own admission, he was even unfamiliar with the bulk of Tagore’s writings. Ray was asked to illustrate the abridged version of the novel.

The book itself made a lasting impression on him and D.K. Gupta, himself a former editor of a film magazine, remarked that the book would make a very good film. Ray kept that in mind.

Rays enthusiasm was boundless. In 1947, he formed Calcutta’s first film club with friends Harisadhan Dasgupta, Chidananda Dasgupta and Bansi Chandragupta.

Ray : “I 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 of the screenplay of Rene Clairs British film, ‘The Ghost Goes West’. This was my first encounter with a film script, and it gave me the idea to start writing screenplays as a pastime.”

He would take a story or novel for which a film had been announced and write a screenplay on it. He would then compare his screenplay with the finished film. Some times he would even write a second version after seeing the film.

It was around this time that Harisadhan Dasgupta had acquired rights for Tagore’s “Ghare Baire”. Ray wrote the screenplay and Harisadhan was to direct it. The film was not made because Ray refused to make changes in the script as suggested by a doctor of venereal diseases who was a friend of the producer. Thirty-five years later when Ray made a film on the same novel, he thought it was a good fortune that film was not made. He found his old screenplay “an amateurish effort in Hollywood tradition“.

And then, in 1949, Renoir came to Calcutta to initiate work on his new production : “The River”. Ray had read about the great director in ‘Sight and Sound’ and seen the films he had made after moving to America. He was fortunate enough to meet Renoir and accompany him on his recce trips. Their conversations filled Ray with insight and encouragement.

Renoir would say, “India is full of stories which simply cry out for filming, and no doubt they are going to be made.“

Ray would interject, “No, because the Indian director seems to find more inspiration in the slick artificiality of a Hollywood film than in the reality around him.”

“Ah, the American film …“, Renoir would shake his head sadly, “I know its a bad influence. There is nothing more important to a film than the emotional integrity of the human relationship it depicts. Technique is useful and necessary in so far as it contributes towards this integrity. Beyond that it is generally intrusive and exhibitionist. In America they worry too much about technique and neglect the human aspect.”

Renoir returned to Calcutta to shoot “The River”. Harisadhan worked as an AD on the project and Bansi Chandragupta was Art Director. There was also someone else.

On Renoir’s sets Ray made the acquaintance of a still photographer called Subrata Mitra. This 21-year-old photographer was on the sets everyday, clicking photographs. Ray was highly impressed with Subrata’s cinematic sensibilities and they became friends.

Inspite of his longing to be part of Renoirs unit, Ray, who was an Art Director at the advertising agency now, had to leave for a six month long assignment at its London head office.

In Ray’s own words, “I was to work for six months in London at my agency’s head office. Doubtless the management hoped that I would come back a full-fledged advertising man wholly dedicated to the pursuit of selling tea and biscuits. … What the trip did infact was to set the seal of doom on my advertising career.“

Within three days of arriving in London, Ray saw De Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves”.

Ray : “The first film I saw there was Bicycle Thieves. It was in a double-bill at the Curzon with A Night at the Opera. It made a very, very interesting combination. I was terribly excited because I already had this idea of making Pather Panchali, but I wasn’t sure whether one could really work with an entirely amateur cast.“

“I knew immediately that if I ever made ‘Pather Panchali’ — and the idea had been at the back of my mind for sometime — I would make it in the same way, using natural locations and unknown actors.“

“All through my stay in London, The lessons of ‘Bicycle Thieves’ and neo-realist cinema stayed with me. On the way back ( it was a long journey back home by ship ) I drafted out my first treatment of ‘Pather Panchali’.“

“I chose ‘Pather Panchali’ for the qualities that made it a great book : its humanism, its lyricism and its ring of truth.“

On his return in late 1950, with absolutely no experience in movie-making, Ray put together his team for the film. The experienced Bansi Chandragupta ( the only experienced member of the team infact ) would be Art Director, Anil Choudhury became the Production Controller and Dulal Dutta became Editor.

Ray remembered Subrata Mitra and surprised him with a call. He wanted Subrata to be the cinematographer on his maiden project ! “Someone who had not shot even a foot of film became the cinematographer of Pather Panchali,” he recalled with a wry, dry smile years later.

Subrata Mitra, ofcourse, went ahead to invent bounced lighting and was awarded the National Award for Cinematography in 1985 and the Eastman Kodak Lifetime Achievement for Excellence in Cinematography in 1992.

However, the members of this little team were perhaps the only ones who believed that it would be possible to shoot an entire film outdoors, without make-up and with new faces. Most of the professionals Ray spoke to about the film told him that it was not possible to make a film that way and dissuaded him from attempting such an idea. Many offered advise against shooting in outdoor locations as most films were made in studios at that time. He was told by many that rain sequences could not be shot in the actual rains but required a well equipped studio.

The sceptic in Ray tested with 16 mm footage successfully in monsoon rains.

To explain his concept for the film to potential producers, Ray had a small note-book, filled with sketches, dialogue and the treatment. This script along with another sketchbook that illustrated the key dramatic moments of the film were greeted with curiosity by producers. While many of them were impressed, none came forward to produce the film. ( The script and the sketches can be found today at the Cinémathèque Française, Paris).

About two years were spent in vain to find a producer. Meanwhile, undeterred, Ray had begun looking for locations and assembling the cast.

Ray had clear ideas as to what almost every character, certainly the main ones, ought to look like in his film. He visualized the faces of main characters in sketches.

Horihor would be played by Kanu Banerjee, who started his career with Priyanath Ganguly’s “Durgesh Nandini” way back in 1927 and was already a veteran of 38 films.

Sharbojaya would be played by Karuna Banerjee, a first-timer, who would go on to work in 8 more films including 3 with Ray (Aparajito, Devi, Kanchenjunga), 1 with Ritwik Ghatak (Kato Ajanare) and 2 with Mrinal Sen (Interview, Calcutta 71).

Apu, Durga and little Durga were to be played by first-timers Subir Banerjee, Uma Dasgupta and Rinki Banerjee. Subir was actually spotted playing on a neighbour’s terrace by Rays wife.

The supporting cast was a mix of established names like Tulsi Chakraborty (Prashanna - The Teacher / Grocer), Reba Devi (Shejo Thakrun) and first time actors.

The casting challenge of the film was the pivotal character of Indir Thakrun. Chunibala Devi was a discovery without whom maybe the film would never have been made. She had acted in two films before,…Bigraha (1930) and Rikta (1939) in addition to her stage performances at a time and age when woman in theatre were considered akin to prostitutes.( Unfortunately, Chunibala Devi died before the release of the film although Ray had been to her house to show her a projection.)

As for location, Ray knew that he “lacked firsthand acquaintance with the milieu of the story”. He chose to undertake numerous trips to the village.

Ray : “While far from being an adventure in the physical sense, these explorations into the village nevertheless opened up a new and fascinating world.“

Finally he was getting to “see dewdrops on blades of grass“.

Ray : “To one born and bred in the city, it had a new flavour, a new texture : you wanted to observe and probe, to catch the revealing details, the telling gestures, the particular turns of speech. You wanted to fathom the mysteries of ‘atmosphere’. Does it consist in the sights, or in the sounds ? How to catch the subtle difference between dawn and dusk, or convey the grey humid stillness that precedes the first monsoon shower ? Is sunlight in spring the same as sunlight in autumn ? …“

Unable to find a producer, Ray decided that unless he could prove his bona fides by producing a few sequences of the film, he was not likely to find financial backing. He managed to raise eight thousand rupees by borrowing money against his insurance policy and from a few relatives and friends. The shooting was to be done on Sundays due to his job at D.J. Keymer.

The very first day of shooting saw the team setting off for a location seventy five miles away from Calcutta. The setting was a field of ‘kash flowers‘ and the episode was that of Apu and Durga reconciling after a quarrel and getting to see a train. They reached the location, set up the “old, much-used” Wall camera “which happened to be the only one available for hire on that particular day“, and started shooting. By the end of the day a tensed Ray began to relax with eight satisfactory shots in the can. The remaining shots of the same location were slated for next Sunday.

When they turned up the following Sunday they were in for a rude shock. The whole field of ‘kash flowers‘ had vanished ! They found out that cows and buffaloes had “literally chewed up the scenery” !

Ray was dismayed, “This was a big setback. We knew of no other ‘kash field’ that would provide the long shots that I needed. This meant staging the action in a different setting, and the very thought was heart-breaking.”

In 1953 he found a producer, Ana Dutta, who provided some funds with a promise of more after seeing the results and releasing his latest film. Ray took one months leave without pay to shoot a few more sequences.

The shooting began in the village. Ray recalls this period as a great learning experience. From camera placement to lens choice, from sunlight considerations to economising on sound film,…he was making choices and learning at the same time.

Ray : “How can you make a woman of eighty stand in the hot midday sun and go through the same speech and the same actions over and over again while you standy by and watch with half-closed eyes and wait for that precise gesture and tone of voice that will mean perfection for you ? This meant, inevitably, fewer rehearsals and fewer takes. Sometimes you are lucky and everything goes right in the first take. Sometimes it does not and you feel you will never get what you are aiming at. The number of takes increases, the cost goes up, the qualms of conscience become stronger than the urge for perfection and you give up, hoping that the critics will forgive and the audience will overlook. You even wonder whether perhaps you are not being too finicky and the thing was not as bad or as wrong as you thought it was.“

Just when the film appeared to be shaping up well, funds ran out and the producer backed out ( his latest film had bombed at the box-office).

Ray’s wife Bijoya pawned some of her gold jewellery and shooting continued for a few more days.

Ray : “When I look back on the making of ‘Pather Panchali’, I cannot be sure whether it has meant more pain to me than pleasure. It is difficult to describe the peculiar torments of a production held up for lack of funds.“

With his portfolio of 4000 ft of edited footage Ray approached many producers and was turned down by each of them.

Ray : “They didn’t like the footage we had shot, they didn’t like the look of the old woman for one thing.“

Things looked very dismal until Rays mother stepped in. She was friends with Mrs. Bela Sen who was a personal friend of the Chief Minister, Dr. B.C. Roy. Through her she requested him for a state grant for her son’s project. The CM immediately dispatched a letter and, for want of a better government provision for disbursal, Ray was granted funds allocated for highway constructions ! The official justification observed the reference to “roads” in the project Pather Panchali ( Song of the Road ) !

With timely finance from the West Bengal Government, Pather Panchali was back on the road again. After a break of almost a year, the shooting resumed in the early part of 1954. The funding from the government meant that the money would come in installments. Before each installment, the accounts had to be submitted and cleared by the government. This would often take up to a month.

Later, Ray would describe it as a miracle that while making the film, “One, Apu’s voice did not break. Two, Durga did not grow up. Three, Indir Thakrun did not die.“

Ray was shooting with three cameras—an old Mitchell, an Eyemo and a Wall camera. “Whatever was available for hire, we were using, and they didn’t always come with the right lens,” he admitted to Shyam Benegal in an interview years later.

In the autumn of 1954 Ray had a chance meeting with Monroe Wheeler, Director, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York. Wheeler loved the stills of ‘Pather Panchali’ and offered to hold a world premier of the film at MOMA.

About six months later, John Houston came to India in search of locations for “The Man who would be King”. He had also been asked by Wheeler to check the progress on Ray’s film. Having gone through 15-20 minutes of silent rough-cut, John Houston gave rave reviews to Wheeler and ‘Pather Panchali’ was scheduled to premier at MOMA.

Ray requested Pandit Ravi Shankar, the renowned sitar maestro, to compose music for the film. Ravi Shankar obliged, taking time off his hectic schedule. He managed to see about half of the film and recorded the music in a non-stop eleven hour session.

Ray : “It was a marathon session and left us exhausted but happy, because most of the music sounded wonderful”. But there were still a few sequences for which the maestro had not provided any music. Subrata Mitra came to the rescue and devised the music for these.( eg. the sweet-seller sequence ). An accomplished sitarist, Subrata had also played the sitar before on Renoir’s ‘The River’ “.

A sense of urgency prevailed now with the MOMA deadline drawing near. Ray and his editor worked ten days and nights continuously in the final stage of post-production.

The first print of ‘Pather Panchali’ came out a night before it was to be dispatched. There was no time or money for subtitles.

A few months later, following up on its success at MOMA, it was finally released in Calcutta. Drawing on his advertising experience, Ray designed five billboards including a full-sized 8 feet by 20 feet display showing Apu and Durga running in a vast landscape of dark monsoon clouds with just the “Pather Panchali” mast-head.

The film fared moderately in the first two weeks. By the third week, however, word got around and it was running to packed houses. It was a box-office success.

“For the first time I tasted triumph,” Ray writes, “with unknown young people elbowing their way through the milling crowd to kiss the hem of my garment as it were.“

Ray and his crew were feted at numerous functions. Dr. B.C. Roy, who had seen the film earlier, organised a screening for Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was on a visit to Calcutta. Nehru was moved by the film and ensured that Pather Panchali was entered in the Cannes Films Festival, 1956, despite a move by some to oppose the entry.

The screening at Cannes took place on one of the festival holidays at midnight. As a result, most of the jury members did not turn up. On the insistence of a few film critics and Ray’s friends, Lindsay Anderson and Andre Bazin among them, another screening was held with the full jury. The film won the special jury prize for the “Best Human Document”.. ‘Pather Panchali’ went on to win a dozen odd prizes at home and film festivals abroad, including Best Actress for Chunibala Devi at Manila.

The recognition persuaded Ray to take the plunge. He quit advertising for good and established himself in the coming years as one of the world’s greatest directors ever.

Today, more than fifty years later, responses to ‘Pather Panchali’ range from utter devotion to utter ignorance.

Dhritiman Chaterji, one of Rays actors,…narrates : “I spoke at a Ray seminar organised in Chennai. Soon after, a young lady phoned from one of the city papers, saying that she was doing a piece on the seminar and wanted to know whether I could tell her a little bit about “the movies Satyajit Ray makes”. When I told her that he was no longer able to “make movies” as he was dead, she seemed a little bewildered.“

At the other end of the spectrum are tomes of criticism and analysis reading into the film nuances and paradigms even Ray didnt remotely imagine !

Dhritiman goes on, “Volumes have been written about ‘Pather Panchali’. An occupational hazard of being a classic is that classics are analysed to oblivion, if not to death. When we fret about the “legacy” of Pather Panchali and its “relevance” today, there are some hard questions we have to ask ourselves: where has the spirit of adventure gone? Why, at the heart of all the glitter, is there such emptiness? Why are even our once-admired veterans so unwilling to take risks even as younger filmmakers shine with Lagaan and Maqbool? Why has being the poor man’s Hollywood, even if it’s only Bolly, Kolly or Tolly, become the ultimate criterion of success? Why are we disowning the film language we had started to evolve even as Iran, China, Taiwan, Israel develop their own lively vocabularies?”

“The answers, if they emerge at all, will come not so much from theoretical constructs as from a renewed energy in practice, from the conviction that real life makes good cinema and, above all, from respect for the audience. That, if anything, is the legacy of Ray and of Pather Panchali. As for theory, Ray was always a little suspicious, if not disdainful, of it. Let me end with yet another story from a decade and a half after Pather Panchali.“

“We were shooting a scene in Ray’s Pratidwandi (The Adversary), in which I played the protagonist. It was a dream sequence and the shot was an extraordinarily complicated one on the beach, involving a great deal of commotion in the background. In the foreground, my sister, whom I see as a nurse, runs towards me. Ray was a man of great economy and seemed to have got what he wanted in the first (or was it the second?) take. An assistant, however, tiptoed up to him and whispered that the shot needed to be done again. Ray demanded to know why. Because, explained the assistant, a hairpin seemed to have come loose from the actor’s hair and was dangling next to her ear during the take.”

“Don’t worry,” replied Ray. “This is a dream sequence. Critics will read some symbolic meaning into it.” And his guffaw came close to drowning out the waves in the background.”

That pretty much sums it up, … this post purposely refrains from “reading into the movie” ( though the idea is tempting and may result in another post ) or propagating a socio-economic, socio-political, neo-realist or any other structure, agenda or viewpoint. ‘Pather Panchali’ is simply a celebration of the human spirit. A film which engages you with its pictorial and emotional interplay, its economy of expression and universal appeal. Infact, even Ray himself didnt bother about “form”, “movement” or “rhythm” in the initial stages.

This post merely aspires to follow and understand Rays journey to film making.

One of the most perceptive comments about the film was made by one of our most perceptive film critics, Chidananda Das Gupta, in a 1981 article: “For all the sensation ‘Pather Panchali’ caused at the time, it had done apparently no more than transfer the values of other contemporary arts to the cinema. Realist narrative, social awareness, compassion for the individual human being, trueness to the medium…”

And the Master himself with the last words, “… my main preoccupation as a filmmaker … has been to find out ways of investing a story with organic cohesion, and filling it with detailed and truthful observation of human behaviour and relationships in a given milieu and a given set of events, avoiding stereotypes and stock situations, and sustaining interest visually, aurally and emotionally by a judicious use of the human and technical resources… “

“Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.”
Akira Kurosawa

“His work is in the company of that of living contemporaries like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Federico Fellini.”
Martin Scorcese

“Satyajit Ray is among the world’s greatest directors, living or dead.”
James Ivory

“He (Ray) is the father of Indian cinema.”
Jean Renoir

“I have admired his films for many years and for me he is the filmic voice of India, speaking for the people of all classes of the country.”
Elia Kazan

“Satyajit Ray is an extraordinary filmmaker with a long and illustrious career who has had a profound influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world.”
George Lucas

“Satyajit Ray, I salute you. The greatest of our poets of the cinema.”
Ben Kingsley

“His films have inspired all my movies.”
Wes Anderson

“Apart from being one of the greatest filmmakers of our time, Ray is a most singular symbol of what is best and most revered in Indian cinema.”
Adoor Gopalakrishnan

“Surely Pather Panchali is one of the most heart-breakingly beautiful films ever made: there are scenes which I need never view again, because they are burnt upon my memory.”
Arthur C. Clarke

Sources / References / Acknowledgements :

• www.satyajitray.org
• http://satyajitray.ucsc.edu/ ( Satyajit Ray Film & Study Center, University of California, Santa Cruz )
• www.satyajitrayworld.com
• Satyajit Ray : “Our Films, Their Films” : Orient Longman : 1976
• Satyajit Ray : “My Years with Apu : A Memoir” : Viking : 1996
• Andrew Robinson : “Satyajit Ray : The Inner Eye” : Rupa & Co. - 1990
• Satyajit Ray / Shampa Banerjee : The Apu Triology : Seagull Books : 1985
• Moinak Biswas : “Apu and After : Re-visiting Ray’s Cinema” : Seagull Books : 2005
• The New Cinema and I, Cinema Visions, July 1980
• Retrospectiva Satyajit Ray, Portugal - Interview with Ray
• Interview with Lindsay Anderson at NFT, 1969
• Interview with Cineaste Magazine, 1982 (Copyright 1982 by Dan Georgakas)
• Dhritiman Chaterji : The Unsung Verses of Pather Panchali : Newindpress : 2004
• Dilip Basu / Dayani Kowshik : Clear Choices: Casting in Ray’s Films
• Dilip Basu : Films of Satyajit Ray: Getting Started
• Amartya Sen : Satyajit Ray and the Art of Universalism : Our Culture, Their Culture : The New Republic : 1996