Satyajit Ray and the Unique Identity of Indian Film

 Essay; Tapas Sarkar 

(Source: Wikipedia)

Satyajit Ray and the Unique Identity of Indian Film

Introduction

Film or Cinema is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating- or indoctrinating- citizens. The Cinema of India consists of films produced in the nation of India. Cinema is immensely popular in India from the beginning era of film. The early 20th  century was a golden age for Indian film. There were several impacts of  great film directors on film making and development, like K.A. Abbas, Chetan Anand, Ritwik Ghatak , Bimal Roy , Satyajit Ray etc.  Among  them the contribution of Satyajit Roy is remarkable. He leads the Indian film to the global stage with its own identity and new breath. And Indian Cinema is now a global enterprise.

Early Life Of Ray

Ray was born into an illustrious family in Calcutta(kolkata) in 1921.His grandfather, Upendra Kishor Ray Choudhary, was a publisher, musician and the creator of children’s literature in Bengal. His father, Sukumar Ray, was a noted satirist and India’s first writer of nonsense rhymes, akin to the nonsense verse of Edward Lear. Ray was not only a great  filmmaker or screenwriter,  but also a graphic artist, illustrator, music composer and author. It’s no magic realism that Satyajit Ray, the fruit of this rich heritage became the uncrowned trailblazer of the medium that mirrors life. Ray has written that he became captivated by the cinema as a young college student; completing his graduation from Presidency College, he ventured, to discover the rustic artistry of Santiniketon. The concept of open air University thrilled him. Fine art was his chosen subject, and nature nurtured his soul as he went to explore the Graphic Designer in him. Ray was self-taught, and his film education consisting largely of repeated viewings of film classics by De Sica, Jean Renoir,Griffith, Fellini, John Ford, Orson Welles, and other eminent directors. Again a major impact on him was Charles Dickens, whose novels almost shook him out of complacency. So, there was the joint inspiration of England, Italy and France on this Indian mind, and the impressionist touch of Upendrakishore that he inherited as a legacy. A film maker with Indian identity was born.

Ray’s view on cinema

Ray has said that he had two passions in his life, one Films and the other Music. These two thirsty passions lead him to his  magnificent success. In 1947 he founded the “Calcutta Film Society” with Chidanand Dasgupta. I have already mentioned that Ray has been inspired by many foreign directors. Jean Renoir was the major inspiration. Renoir, a French artist who was the first European director who warned Ray against Hollywood influence in Indian films. Ray learnt from Renoir-“You don’t have to have too many  elements in film, but what ever you use must be the right elements, the expressive elements”, and he understood the importance of human relationships in film. So, if we go through Ray’s movies we’ll find the best combinations of Indian life and society. His films are based on the most meticulous research. Even Ray wrote a number of essays on film, some of them collected in a volume entitled “Our Films, Their Films”, an anthology of film criticism, published in 1976,Orient Longman. His “What Is Wrong With Indian Film?”, is a famous essay, published in 1948 as a newspaper article where he has accused his nation’s directors of failing  to grasp the new medium, and expressed his questions, opinions and his own duty as a film-maker of India. His questions-“Why can’t we make films that are not global only in terms of its momentary returns but aesthetic value? So in order to know what ails us today, it’s important to understand what did we lack 60 years back and has anything changed ever since. Or are we not looking at brightside of our growth?” It is known to all that ….film production in India is quantitatively second only to Hollywood; for that is statistical fact. But can the same be said of it’s quality? Where stories have been written based on Hollywood success. Actually it is the gently apologetic proviso of Indian film that it is ‘after all an Indian film'. Ray has said “ what the Indian cinema needs today is not more gloss, but more imagination, more integrity, and a more intelligent appreciation of the limitations of the medium. Of course we have influenced and figured by Western culture and lifestyle, but we must not forget our own identity, own Indian soul. Ray has mentioned “We do possess the primary tools of film making. The complaint of the technician notwith-standing, mechanical devices such as the crane shot and the process shot are useful, but by no means indispensable. In fact, what tools we have, have been used on occasion with real intelligence. What our cinema needs above else is a style, an idiom, a short of iconography of cinema, which would be uniquely and recognizably Indian”; “…the true Indian film should steer clear of such inconsistencies and look for its material in the more basic aspects of Indian life, where habit and speech, dress and manner, background and foreground, blended into a harmonious whole. Ray's final comment is-“ The raw material of cinema is Life itself. It is incredible that a country which has inspired so much painting and music and poetry should fail to move the filmmaker. He has only to keep his eyes open, and his ears. Let him do so”.

Ray,The Greatest Director of India and his Fame on the world stage

The achievement of satyajit Ray to the Bengali and to the Indian cinema in general has not been matched by any other film-makers, both past and present. He is the game changer of Indian fim, as Shyam Benegal says_ “Satyajit ray was, of course, the most important indian filmmaker. I don’t think there has been another of that quality since”, and again he says_ “But Ray also occupies historically a interesting position in Indian cinema because when you talk about Indian films, you always say this is something before Ray and this is something after Ray”. Of course Ray is India’s first internationally recognized film-maker and, still he is the most well-known Indian director on the world stage, even several years after his death. Seven of Ray’s classics which made him worldly famous, are_The Apu Trilogy(‘Pather Panchali’, ‘Aparajito’, and ‘Apur Sansar’), ‘Jalsagr’, ‘Ganashatru’, ‘Ghare Baire’ and ‘Aguntuk’. He made more than 35 films. All his films bring a vivid Indian spirit and their bodies are adorned with Indian jewelries  with the help of his experience about worldwide cinemas. Though once  Ray said,“ Film, as a mode of expression, and the very concept of an art form existing in time was a Western concept, not an Indian one.” Actually, there was perennial attempt of Ray to show the Western  World through a reel journey of success of the colonized Indians. And there  was the irony too. On the other hand, through few comments of world famous directors, we can measure the contribution of Satyajit Ray in developing Indian cinema and the position of our film on world stage. Akira Kurosawa, a Japanese film director said about Ray “Not to have the cinema of Roy means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.” Martin Scoresese, a great American filmmaker said “ I’m also a big fan of Satayajit Ray’s body of work.The few interactions I had with Ray are memories I treasure.” Pauline Kael, an American film critic who wrote : “Ray’s films can give rise to a more complex feeling of happiness in me than the work of any other director…No artist has ever done more than Satyajit Ray to make us re-evaluate the commonplace.”

New Indian Cinema and Unique Identity

The New Indian Cinema is almost always concerned with the common man. The heroes are not superman with extraordinary ambition, who have to rise from poverty, tame the rich girl and fight the evil landlord, but ordinary men or women acting under the pressures of ordinary living.  Satyajit Ray’s cinemas, especially his ‘Trilogy’(Pather Panchali,Aparajito and Apur Sansar), trace the beginning of the New Indian Cinema. Though socially-conscious movies were made by such directors as Bimal Roy and V.Shantaram before him, but they  did not signify any radical departure from the main stream Indian cinema. On the other hand Ray’s Movies changed the way and the whole world looked at Indian films with its own perspectives and uniqueness. Because the raw material of his cinema is Life itself. His cinema is not about what people want, but about what they need. And here he is unparalleled with his own style and own national identity.

Conclusion

Finally it can be said that Ray’s niche in the hall of fame of International cinema is firmly secure. With his glowing identity he has placed the grandeur of Indian film on the World stage. Actully, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in return, affect them. So, while talking about the identity of the Indian film there arise few questions….What is identity? Does ‘identity’ have any strict notions that it needs to identify with? The only answer comes: It is the greatest power, without having it there is no true existence of any human being or nation. So, in the postcolonial India while people were forgetting their own peculiarities, own culture and own life, Ray made Indian cinema with a distinct identity amidst the world frame. And he made us to look at us as ourselves’ own.

Written by Tapas Sarkar 

Reg. No.: 17356092, M.A. 1st Year    

    Pondicherry University