| India in Ray's vision |
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One can identify three major compositional periods in Satyajit Ray's life. The first period (1955-1964) was remarkable for its robust optimism, celebration of the human spirit, and creative satisfaction. Ray was not only directing and scripting, but also scoring the music and taking charge of the cinematography. During this period, he directed, arguably, his greatest films. This period coincided with India's early years of independence and Nehru's experiments with secular democracy based on humanism, internationalism, and modernism.
The second period (1965-1977) saw India come under a dark spell. There was the war with China (1962), during Nehru's last years, and a war with Pakistan (1965). Growing urban unemployment and an agricultural crisis brought about by a command economy created near-famine conditions in parts of the country. The war in Vietnam and the Cultural Revolution in China had radicalized Kolkata's youth, artists, writers, and intellectuals. Revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence gripped the city. Kolkata, once known as a friendly and safe city, became a dangerous place to live.
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Apu's mother with a forlorn look.
PATHER PANCHALI
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| The man thinks his wife breaks down in tears for hunger as the famine
approaches, while the wife can't admit that she has just been raped by a man from city : DISTANT THUNDER |
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The Bangladesh War (1971) caused an influx of millions of refugees fleeing the Pakistani army, filling Kolkata and its outskirts. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, battling a massive opposition to her government, imposed “Emergency” rule on the country. India came under draconian control, but there were few signs of serious protests: people followed orders, the streets looked cleaner, the economy showed growth, and the trains were running on time.
Ray was troubled. The films he made during this period clearly projected a troubled vision of India. The Calcutta Trilogy: The Adversary, Company Limited, and The Middleman created powerful portraits of alienation, waywardness, and moral collapse. Days and Nights in the Forest and Distant Thunder, made during the Bangladesh War on the subject of the Bengal famine of 1943, showed rape and violence in a straightforward manner. |
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The Chess Players, made during the “Emergency,” used the metaphor of a chess game to show how the king of Oudh, more a poet and composer than a ruler, submitted to the British takeover of his kingdom in 1856 as his people fled their villages. The two short films Pikoo and Deliverance raised the issues of adultery and untouchability. Even his so-called escapist films- the Goopy and Bagha musicals and the detective film Golden Fortress- carried messages against wars, criminality, and greed. In midlife, at the height of his creative powers, Ray seemed to have adopted a dark worldview. Socially, he became increasingly isolated. |
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The young wife being worshipped as
the Goddess Kali : THE GODDESS |
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| Two chess addicts leave the capital to avoid the approaching English troops:
THE CHESS PLAYERS
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In the third and last phase (1977-1992), Ray's worldview came full circle. In the 1980s he became even more isolated and distant. In the films he made during this period, he related his messages in definitive terms: unlike his early work, his films became didactic and frank. Gone were the carefully crafted shades of gray. Home and the World (1984), based on a Tagore novel, is a diatribe against nationalism, the mix of religion and politics, and political opportunism and dishonesty. Although the theme is the Swadeshi movement of 1905, Home and the World addressed issues of critical concern in the 1980s. Stricken by two heart attacks, Ray was not able to make films with his characteristic rigor. |
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He made modest family dramas, shot indoors under the watchful eyes of his doctors. He made three films, all based on his own stories, in 1988, 1989, and 1990. The first, Enemy of the People, an adaptation of the Ibsen play to Bengali in 1988, addressed questions of capitalist corruption and manipulation of religion , people, politics, and environment. Branches of a Tree (1989) also addressed issues of capitalism as it impacts family values and ethics. The protagonist, a heart patient like Ray, is obsessed with honesty, mediated by mood swings of music and madness. The third film, The Stranger (1990), literally carries Ray's own voice in three places, where he sings. The protagonist is clearly Ray himself. His global concerns are articulated locally. Who is an artist? Who is civilized and who is primitive?
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The
Bengali housewife with
her Anglo-Indian colleague :
THE BIG CITY |
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| Two poor village boys get the job of the court singers :
THE ADVENTURES OF GOOPY AND BAGHA
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Learning
of her husband's sudden death,
an untouchable man's wife breaks down
on the village path : DELIVERANCE |
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| Shedding her upper-class inhibitions, a housewife joins the dancing tribal women :
THE STRANGER |
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The protagonist is against narrowness of all sorts, against boundaries and borders. “Don't be a frog in the well,” he tells his grandnephew as the film comes to an end.
Ray was a product of the Anglo-Bengali encounter of the nineteenth century. His cultural, intellectual, and ideological roots can be traced to what is known as the “Bengali Renaissance.” As a powerfully creative artist, his craft was influenced as much by the West as by the Bengal School.
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One can argue that, in the final analysis, he was more than a product of the “Calcutta modern”- a synthesis of the East and the West. His creativity, he once remarked, remained grounded both in what is uniquely Bengali and in what is universal. |
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