About two years ago I stumbled upon a video on YouTube, it was an Oscar award ceremony video and the Award was given to a man in his 70s who was bed ridden. The man was Sathyajit Ray, he was given an honorary award in the year 1992. I did't know who he was before, after researching and watching a few of his movies I felt terrible that I was watching movies from all over the world but didn't even cared to look at the filmmakers in my own country. Sathyajit Ray's films blew me away, I felt like I found lost treasures. For almost a couple of weeks I drowned myself in the movies he made and it showed me how little I knew about cinema.
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frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>The first film I watched was his debut film Pather Panchali made in the year 1955. The film is a tragedy about a family, how the family suffers by living in their ancestral town and all the difficulties they face there. Its a movie with a lot of sentiments about the Indian culture and life of people living in India. The movie was one of its kind and went on win the National Award for Feature film and also Best Human Document award in Cannes film festival. This film opened the film festivals to a lot of upcoming Indian films.
The beauty of Sathyajit Ray's films lies in its simplicity. His movies are about normal everyday life of Indians, and the day to day conflicts they face. His movies are very pleasing to watch, it almost feels like meditation. The dialogues and the music altogether create experiences that are unforgettable.
It was Nayak a movie about a successful actor that made me realize the power of simplicity. In a train journey to receive his award the actor is confronted by a female journalist, who persuades him to give an interview. The interview is a hypnotic journey of the actors past and his important life experiences. When the movie finished, I felt really sad because I wanted to spend more time with the characters, because they were all so interesting. I was experiencing what Ray calls Pure Cinema.
A shot from Bicycle Thieves
The fact that many of the Indian film makers don't know him is very sad. But, his films live forever. In Nayak, Ray showed how a rich and famous people also have problem and dilemmas like ordinary people. When most of the Indian films were making films with songs and commercial movies. Ray was inspired my French neorealist filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica who made classic french film Bicycle Thieves.
Martin Scorsese the legendary Hollywood director was greatly inspired by Ray and his body of work. Sathyajith Ray is known for using long single takes which was later popularized by Steven Spielberg. Even the use of mirrors and reflections in the shot was experimented by Ray in his movies like Charulatha and Nayak. Here's a video of Martin Scorsese talking about Ray.
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frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Even Wes Anderson dedicated his The Darjeeling Limited to Sathyajith Ray, it is similar in theme and the use of mirrors and the camera movements show the influence of Ray.
Akira Kurosawa the legendary Japanese filmmaker told
Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.
With this post I want to create more awareness about this legendary director Sathyajit Ray, whose movies have inspired me and my life. His movies are definitely worth your time and will give you a new perspective on cinema and India. A few of his movie which you can start with are:
Nayak, Pather Panchali, Charulatha, Apu trilogy and The Stranger
Thank you for reading, if you have any questions feel free to comment. Cheers!
Jalsaghar is one of my favorite movies ever. Hypnotic.
Could watch this endlessly:
Yeah.. again a Ray masterpiece
Satyajit Ray is one of the most prominent figures in Indian Cinema History.
Not only India, the entire world.
Brilliant!! I just don't want to spoil the mood. Great Post. Since Legendary Satyajit Ray was a Bengali thus you can remove the h at the end. Cheers!!!!
So sorry.. Thank you for telling. I corrected it. :) I liked you Vande Matharam song. Cheers!
good topic, I think I've only see one of his movies... I enjoy wes Anderson overall too
Thank you @clumsysilverdad
Thank you for sharing. This man is truly a legend.
Your welcome @killuminatic
Wow! I had no idea Ray was so influential... I'm amazed. I should check out his movies considering that Scorsese and Spielberg are two of my favourite directors.
With platform like Steemit so many people will get to know about it.
That's awesome ☺
I hope more people read thos
Great article. Always wanted to see Ray's movies but never found them... Time to check again! By the way, one slight misunderstanding: Vittorio de Sica is Italian, not French!
Nice post! Yeah, Ray films can be life changing experience for cinephiles. Not to disagree, many indian filmmakers know his name but, apart from pather panchali or apu trilogy no one really seen much of ray. That includes also the westerners who gave him the prestigious honorary oscar!
Have you seen his calcutta trilogy? Ray's style changed a lot during the turbulent times of 1970's calcutta.
Yes, Scorsese was very vocal about ray's influence. But, as far as spielberg is concerned he had a slight controversy surrounding his ET. Spielberg was known to have been pretty harsh in his response to the controversy surrounding his ET being a copy of Ray's script "Alien" , Which Ray tried hard to find a producer and was promised a hollywood production, but it finally never happened and he was cheated.
So his script was there in the hollywood. All these happened during late 60's.
Check Andrew Robinson's book "Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker"
There is a detailed chapter on this hollywood ordeal.
Ray was also a versatile personality and a encyclopedia. Particularly his understanding of western classical and indian classical music was very sophisticated!
If there is one Indian film auteur who was/is completely forgotten it is Ritwik ghatak.
Now i don't want to start a debate on Ghatak and Ray (Ghatak was more influenced by Eisenstein)
Bengali fans are polarized in this.
But, he is a tragic figure of 20th century cinema, just like his films dealt with.
Ray is popular, just people don't see his films other than the famous "Apu trilogy", Jalsaghar, Charulatha.
Sorry for the long reply.
Thanks if you have read till this.