More anecdotes on Ray
I feel encouraged by reader’s comments to recollect and write more anecdotes on Satyajit Ray.
I still remember Satyajit Ray’s Oscar acceptance speech of 1992 Academy Awards. My generation will; forever!!! I was studying in Class XI . Satyajit Ray was very ill then. He was admitted to Belle Vue Clinic in Calcutta. The Academy members came to Calcutta to give away the Oscar. Dilip Basu, a professor of UCLA was instrumental in getting them to Calcutta. Inside the hospital room Ray received the Oscar from his wife Bijoya Ray’s hands (I refer to ‘Amader Kotha’- an autobiography published in Bangla by Ananda Publishers, for this information). After receiving the Oscar in the reclining hospital bed Ray gave a memorable speech recorded by the Academy cameraman. That speech of 4.5 minutes was shown in the Oscars ceremony in March 1992 after a brief montage (of Ray classics) and introduction by none other than Audrey Hepburn. There was a standing ovation after Ray’s recorded speech. The speech not only moved the audience present there, but also Billy Wilder, a very famous Hollywood filmmaker of Double Indemnity and Sunset boulevard fame. Ray in his speech said that he learnt a lot from Hollywood and directors like Billy Wlider, John Ford, Hitchcock influenced him a lot. He said that being deeply touched by Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard he wrote to Billy Wilder in appreciation in the late 1940’s. But Billy Wilder never replied. Ray wrote to Deanna Durbin too at the same time. She never replied also. Well! The speech ended with a thunderous applause and standing ovation in Dorothy Chandler auditorium. Surely the Americans liked the fondness and appreciations of all things Hollywood by a person from distant shores. But the story does not end here. Few days after this Oscar acceptance speech, Ray household got an Air mail from USA. The sender was Billy Wilder. He apologized profusely for not replying to Ray much, much earlier and wished him good luck and speedy recovery. This news published in Calcutta dailies like Ananda Bazaar Patrika and The Telegraph gave us a real thrill.
Another one I remember about Ray. Once while showing Mahanagar in some European film festival a film critic noticed that the movie ends with the camera panning to the open sky of Calcutta and focus on a streetlight having two bulbs- one was alight, another not. In this very moment the couple (Anil Chatterji as husband and Madhavi Mukherji, the wife) who have lost jobs are hopeful that they will get job soon and this city will never forego them. The critic showered praises on Ray for showing the half-lit streetlight to display the contradicting emotions of hope and hopelessness, anxiety and apprehension of the jobless couple. Ray simply said that he never wanted to mean anything by that last shot. The Calcutta streetlights, many of the time, due to lackadaisical nature of municipal maintenance used to have one bulb functional and another fused to give that half-lit appearance. It was mere coincidence that he got one when he panned the camera. Needless to say audience was amused.
Ray is still watched and admired in America. It has to be remembered that it was due to Merchant-Ivory Productions’ active effort that classics like Pather Panchali were digitally re-mastered and restored. Very recently I found (from an article in Outlook) that David Packard of the Hewlett-Packard (HP) fame is an ardent admirer of the master. He arranged a special show of Ray movies in Pasadena , California as an “antidote of pessimism” shown in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Long live Ray.
Tags: audrey hepburn, Billy Wilder, Oscar, satyajit ray
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Very very interesting… the second one is really amusing. Keep them coming.
Thanks Nivedita. I shall keep them coming, but a little irregularly from now.
Wonderful. Keep posting
Thanks Srinath. Good to see that you like retro-recollections.
very nice Biswan.. by the way from where one could get video of that speech…?
I have an audio cassette carrying that speech. I recorded it in 1992.Not a video.
can u PLEASE upload it for us. simplest way to do it is to play the audio tape and put the mic from ur computer near the speaker and record it.
i cant believe that the video is not available anywhere online.
Keep it coming man,Ray is god .
Ah! good ones again.Ray was truly a master.Mahanagar was certainly a great symbol of its times.I liked the way the movie ended- it was not the usual cliched thoroughly positive or thorougly negative type.ah!well no wonder Ray was an exception!!!
Interesting stuff Biswa! In fact many Americans, including hollywood stars such as Richard Gere, identify ‘Indian cinema’ with Ray’s works rather than staple bollywood.
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Ismail Merchant was also chiefly instumental in lobbying for getting the lifetime oscar to Ray. His autobiography, ‘My passage from India’, is a masterpiece.
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Mahanagar was remade in Hindi as Humkadam, with Rakhee and Parikshit Sahni in the lead.
wow,the second one is brilliant. that shows how desperate we are to dissect everything, to give meaning to everything in life. a reason.. why cant we just absorb without intelluctualising things
Ray is Ray.
Which other Indian filmmaker can lay claim to creating and sustaining- not one but two popular detective story series?
Which other Indian filmmaker has had the ‘time’/ intellect/resources/mindset/talent to resurrect/maintain a fledging Children’s magazine?
Which other indian filmmaker is enough of an artist to personally storyboard his screenplays -right from his First film?
Where can I find Satyajit Ray movies? I stay in Mumbai…Pleaase guide me…
feroz, download them
Well Deanna Durbin is now an old lady who is once again very popular. Her mail box is flooded so she is unable to read much less than answer her fan mail. DEANNA DURBIN DEVOTEES.
Good. But you missed a point. I wrote about a letter written by Ray in late 1940’s as mentioned in his Oscars speech.She did not reply, but Billy Wilder replied much later as a mark of respect for Ray when he got to know from Oscar speech. I am not writing about today’s fan mails.
Didnt Ray make art movies?