This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/22/satyajit-ray-artifice-honesty-film

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Satyajit Ray's artifice and honesty set him apart from other film directors Satyajit Ray's artifice and honesty set him apart from other film directors
(2 months later)
A cinema hall in August … less the start of a sentence than an oxymoron, I know. Still, let me offer some advice for fellow refugees from the sun: if you are ambling around London one evening over the next couple of months, you would do well to head over to the South Bank, where the British Film Institute is showing the complete works of one of the greatest directors: Satyajit Ray.A cinema hall in August … less the start of a sentence than an oxymoron, I know. Still, let me offer some advice for fellow refugees from the sun: if you are ambling around London one evening over the next couple of months, you would do well to head over to the South Bank, where the British Film Institute is showing the complete works of one of the greatest directors: Satyajit Ray.
Some of my most enduring cinematic memories I owe to Ray. Channel 4 showed a late-night season of his work when I was starting secondary school and my parents, never exactly authoritarian when it came to policing bedtime, let me stay up and watch with them. Perhaps they considered this extracurricular education. Like Ray, my parents are Bengali and while they had been taking me back to Kolkata during long summer holidays, I had failed to take to the city, which seemed to offer only August heat, difficult food and calamine lotion for mosquito bites.Some of my most enduring cinematic memories I owe to Ray. Channel 4 showed a late-night season of his work when I was starting secondary school and my parents, never exactly authoritarian when it came to policing bedtime, let me stay up and watch with them. Perhaps they considered this extracurricular education. Like Ray, my parents are Bengali and while they had been taking me back to Kolkata during long summer holidays, I had failed to take to the city, which seemed to offer only August heat, difficult food and calamine lotion for mosquito bites.
Now Channel 4 offered a chance to redouble my cultural education, to watch the films my parents had watched and adored in the 50s and 60s. Besides, hadn't Akira Kurosawa decreed that "not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon"?Now Channel 4 offered a chance to redouble my cultural education, to watch the films my parents had watched and adored in the 50s and 60s. Besides, hadn't Akira Kurosawa decreed that "not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon"?
On Ray nights, we became an entire family dreaming in front of the television. My father would mist up during Pather Panchali's scenes of village life; my mother would sit with her mouth slightly parted in absorption, and I would sit too close to the screen, ignoring all warnings about getting square eyes.On Ray nights, we became an entire family dreaming in front of the television. My father would mist up during Pather Panchali's scenes of village life; my mother would sit with her mouth slightly parted in absorption, and I would sit too close to the screen, ignoring all warnings about getting square eyes.
Then there were the movies. Days and Nights in the Forest, which began as a comedy about Calcuttan gents on safari for aboriginal villagers, before shading into something almost too dark for my comprehension. The adaptation of Tagore's The Home and the World, and its startling depiction of gender politics. The unlucky graduate of The Middleman, applying along with 100,000 rivals for just 10 jobs and sitting through a series of sweat-inducing interviews.Then there were the movies. Days and Nights in the Forest, which began as a comedy about Calcuttan gents on safari for aboriginal villagers, before shading into something almost too dark for my comprehension. The adaptation of Tagore's The Home and the World, and its startling depiction of gender politics. The unlucky graduate of The Middleman, applying along with 100,000 rivals for just 10 jobs and sitting through a series of sweat-inducing interviews.
"What is the speed of light?""What is the speed of light?"
"Who wrote Vande Mataram [India's national song]?""Who wrote Vande Mataram [India's national song]?"
"What is the smallest state?""What is the smallest state?"
And on it goes before: "What is the weight of the moon?"And on it goes before: "What is the weight of the moon?"
For weeks afterwards, that question, especially the interviewer's idiosyncratic pronunciation of "moon", would echo around my head. Ray's films are full of these semi-punchlines. They begin with extended close-ups of rotating fans, or disrupted exam invigilations shown for so long they become unsettling. None of these quirks or details were accidental. Scripts were written by him, music was composed by him. The sets and costumes and design of posters: all were his. Ray's biographer Andrew Robinson recalls visiting the director's flat to find him "discussing the exact kind of button required by one of his costume designs with a member of his production team".For weeks afterwards, that question, especially the interviewer's idiosyncratic pronunciation of "moon", would echo around my head. Ray's films are full of these semi-punchlines. They begin with extended close-ups of rotating fans, or disrupted exam invigilations shown for so long they become unsettling. None of these quirks or details were accidental. Scripts were written by him, music was composed by him. The sets and costumes and design of posters: all were his. Ray's biographer Andrew Robinson recalls visiting the director's flat to find him "discussing the exact kind of button required by one of his costume designs with a member of his production team".
GCSEs, jobs and many cinema trips have gone by since I originally saw Ray's work but they remain among the first examples I think of combining cinematic artifice with authorial honesty. Plenty of contemporary directors can pull tricks or be smart, but not often without succumbing to snark or other shallowness. You don't see that in Ray, which is probably why, when he died in Kolkata in 1992, the city practically came to a standstill.GCSEs, jobs and many cinema trips have gone by since I originally saw Ray's work but they remain among the first examples I think of combining cinematic artifice with authorial honesty. Plenty of contemporary directors can pull tricks or be smart, but not often without succumbing to snark or other shallowness. You don't see that in Ray, which is probably why, when he died in Kolkata in 1992, the city practically came to a standstill.
And you certainly don't spot his qualities in most contemporary Hindi films. Yet you might be forgiven for thinking that all India ever does is brash, flash Bollywood, especially in this centenary anniversary since the first Hindi film. Forget about the tradition of Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, or the regional cinema produced for speakers of Tamil, Malayalam and other Indian languages: flick through a western newspaper and the images that tumble out are of epic song-and-dance routines and long lines of extras screwing in lightbulbs. This is a depiction that Indians themselves have allowed and even colluded in. It suits Mumbai studios after column inches at home and abroad; it presents an image of plastic modernity for the Delhi elite, and it is hardly resisted by under-resourced cultural centres elsewhere in India. To go to Kolkata now, as I do every winter, is to see the Indian Museum, with its collection of treasures, or the old landowners' houses of north Kolkata effectively allowed to rot. Their visitors are Lonely-Planet-toting backpackers and conga lines of Indian villagers. To be guaranteed a throng of Kolkatans you must visit a shopping mall.And you certainly don't spot his qualities in most contemporary Hindi films. Yet you might be forgiven for thinking that all India ever does is brash, flash Bollywood, especially in this centenary anniversary since the first Hindi film. Forget about the tradition of Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, or the regional cinema produced for speakers of Tamil, Malayalam and other Indian languages: flick through a western newspaper and the images that tumble out are of epic song-and-dance routines and long lines of extras screwing in lightbulbs. This is a depiction that Indians themselves have allowed and even colluded in. It suits Mumbai studios after column inches at home and abroad; it presents an image of plastic modernity for the Delhi elite, and it is hardly resisted by under-resourced cultural centres elsewhere in India. To go to Kolkata now, as I do every winter, is to see the Indian Museum, with its collection of treasures, or the old landowners' houses of north Kolkata effectively allowed to rot. Their visitors are Lonely-Planet-toting backpackers and conga lines of Indian villagers. To be guaranteed a throng of Kolkatans you must visit a shopping mall.
Perhaps for a culture to thrive in international trade it must serve up a caricature of itself. India must be either Shining or Slumdog; and never mind the other bits, the unobliging history or context. Even a complex character such as Ray did not evade that kind of simplification. As he turned Pather Panchali into a trilogy, the eminent American critic Dwight Macdonald grumbled: "Pather Panchali was about a family in a village. Apu is about a young writer in a city, a more complex theme, and I'm not sure Ray is up to it." The message is clear: to get ahead as an Indian artist in the west, stick to simple stories of simple life. For all its glitz, Bollywood cinema is often just as palatably crude.Perhaps for a culture to thrive in international trade it must serve up a caricature of itself. India must be either Shining or Slumdog; and never mind the other bits, the unobliging history or context. Even a complex character such as Ray did not evade that kind of simplification. As he turned Pather Panchali into a trilogy, the eminent American critic Dwight Macdonald grumbled: "Pather Panchali was about a family in a village. Apu is about a young writer in a city, a more complex theme, and I'm not sure Ray is up to it." The message is clear: to get ahead as an Indian artist in the west, stick to simple stories of simple life. For all its glitz, Bollywood cinema is often just as palatably crude.
Still, there are other more interesting initiatives such as the London Indian film festival currently showing independent cinema from the subcontinent. And for the next few weeks we have the chance to see the work of a real giant. Provided you don't see anything wrong with sitting indoors during a heatwave.Still, there are other more interesting initiatives such as the London Indian film festival currently showing independent cinema from the subcontinent. And for the next few weeks we have the chance to see the work of a real giant. Provided you don't see anything wrong with sitting indoors during a heatwave.
Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.