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Satyajit Ray and his celluloid poems: Calcutta’s film maker son

posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 08:06 PM

Author: Sanjay Kumar, Brighton

The year that India became a free nation and embarked on her ‘tryst with destiny’ a native of Calcutta founded the Calcutta Film Society. Years later he would celebrate his city, nearly always associated by the world with beggars and black holes, as Mahanagar - the Great City, whose citizens still manage to dream under the most oppressive conditions. And that those dreams are not necessarily the dreams that come out of the fantasy factories of Bollywood. This Calcuttans name was Satyajit Ray.

James Ivory, Film Director, 1991
"Satyajit Ray is among the world's greatest directors, living or dead... Isn't it curious that the newest, the most modern of the arts, has found one of its deepest, most fluent expressions in the work of an artist like Ray, who must make his seamless films - many have been masterpieces - in a chaotic and volatile corner of one of the world's oldest cultures, amidst the most stringent shortages of today's advanced movie-making material and equipment?"

During his lifetime this quite, gentle giant of world cinema had to beg on his knees for money to make his next film. In a career spanning over four decades, lack of funds seldom allowed him to film for more than 2 weeks of any given scene – no matter how complicated, forcing him to draw each frame of his film scripts meticulously by hand so that he could shoot in a series of single frame takes. Satyajit Ray – like many Calcuttans - understood all too well that necessity was the mother of all inventions, so he composed the music, wrote the dialogue, designed the sets, directed the action and edited for masterpieces like ‘Mahanagar’ and the ‘Apu Trilogy’ and ‘Charulata’ and ‘The Music Room’. When his films were screened at film festivals around the world, he was hailed as the master of his form and art.

Martin Scorsese, Film Director
" Ray's magic, the simple poetry of his images and their emotional impact, will always stay with me."
"...his films centred around his deeply humanitarian vision. His work is in the company of that of living contemporaries like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Federico Fellini."

Before his own government honoured him Ray’s extraordinary talent was recognised time and again by individuals, organisations and nations outside of India. In 1978, the organising committee of the Berlin Film Festival ranked Satyajit Ray as one of the three all-time best directors. In 1992, Satyajit Ray received the honorary Academy Award Lifetime Achievement - "In recognition of his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures and for his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world."

Even as he lay dying in the hospice the President of France awarded him the Legion de Honneur and it was Hollywood – never Bollywood – which gave him a lifetime achievement award for his unique contributions to cinematic art. Bollywood called him a loser, a financial loser whose work was of minimal interest to a pitiful handful. ‘You don’t know your audience, you bloody fool! They taunted and shunned him.

George Lucas, Film Producer/Screenwriter, 1991
"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."

When a tearful radio announcer told the people of the city that their ailing film maker son - a man who dedicated his life to the promotion of the Indian Bengali spirit and culture - had died the people of Calcutta reacted in a uniquely Indian fashion.

Over 15,000 people spontaneously poured out onto the streets to show their grief. Schools, colleges, factories and government buildings emptied as ordinary Calcuttans paid their silent homage to Satyajit Ray. Of the many awards, medals and gongs received by Ray the final recognition by his people, in his beloved Calcutta was by far the greatest honour he could have received.

No audience anywhere in the world has ever given any film maker such an accolade.

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