SATYAJIT RAY

Satyajit Ray is one of the great directors on the Indian movie industry. He has made comedies, musical fantasies, detective films, and documentaries. His comedies are a combination of comedy, fantasy, satire, farce and a touch of pathos. The music in his films mesmerizes the audience in addition to expressionistic lighting, utterly convincing sets and the actors monumental performances. Ray had a penchant for Sherlock Holmes and that is the reason he made three detective films. His documentary films about people keep the audience informed of the subject and they are self effacing. His appeal to particular personalities led him to direct such films.

Ray as a film maker: Ray’s best technique in film making is one that is noticeable. His films are simple, immediate and full of essence. Ray conveys through his films a sense of a whole personality. Ray is a cinema of thought and feeling in which the feeling is deliberately restrained as it is so intense. Ray’s films are antithesis of conventional Hollywood films both in state and in content. He never indulges in emotional rhetoric. He consciously eschews glamour, gimmicks and technical polish. Ray is instinctual by making films for Bengalis rather than reliance on foreign audience. Ray won the Reznick Golden Laurel Award thrice at the festival for ‘Patner Panchal’, ‘Aparajito’ and ‘Two Daughters’.

Ray’s films are meaningful and pleasurable to everyone. Ray ideally likes complete freedom to portray what a story demands and he believes that overall are hit in India. Rays love for the land of his birth is evident in his films. He has never felt the need to leave India for his films or subjects. Ray is too original for both Western and Oriental themes. As an artist he has faith in the idea of East-West synthesis and his films reveal ideas of Indian and Western civilization. Ray has experimented with subject matter and style more than any other director in cinema. He has always been true to his conviction that the finest cinema uses strong and simple themes, with hundred little irrelevant details which help to intensify and create the illusion of actuality better. Ray continued creating his films unclouded by cynicism. Ray’s work reminds us of the wholeness and sanctity of the individual and offers us intimations of a mysterious unity behind the visible world. He has created an indelible impact on the minds of the audience.

Some aspects of Ray’s craft is as follows: Ray has used a high degree of discipline to achieve simplicity and immediacy on screen. The unobtrusiveness of his technique stands in direct proportions to the power of his concentration on it. Ray’s principle is that all departments of film making must serve the needs of the source material. His films have organic cohesion grown from original inspiration.

Story and script: Ray’s films have not been entirely original. He borrows tremendously from other people’s work. His experience is all middle class. A strong developed screenplay before shooting is something Ray regards as a necessity. It makes his film-making more economic. He believes that the most fruitful improvisation results from the most thorough preparation. His ear for dialogue and his ability to write it for films is among the finest in cinema. His exposure to Bengali films helped him to draw out his latent talent. Besides the characters who are speaking the dialogue Ray has the actors in mind when he is writing a screenplay. His script is so clear, fluent and natural that no discussion is necessary.

Editing – Ray state that editing is the stage when a film begins to come to life. Ray is quite ruthless with his own footage and that of others. His work can be described as following composedly like a big river. He wants to preserve a life like sensation in his films beginning with the screenplay and culminating with the editing. He has managed transitions in his films with surgical skills.

Casting and handling of actors: Ray has no taboo about the actors he selects. He has worked with all kinds of people from box office starts to people who had never seen a film. He picks a new actor if the story dictates it and moulds his performance by whatever means bringing the right result. Ray generally keeps rehearsals to the minimum. He waits until the sets or location is ready with the exception of certain technically demanding shots. He feels prolonged rehearsal is more likely to produce stiffness than perfection of the screen. He had an eye for continuity and realism which was fantastic. He was clear as to what he wanted in direction. He creates an atmosphere on the set of alertness and concentration that is both economical of time and money and a reflection of himself. It is really the devotion he elicits, more than any specific technique of directing that produces the on screen miracles of his work. Ray’s attitude draws out the improvision technique and depth that an actor is capable of giving to his performance. He never strains the actor. He never attacks the actors self confidence but expects it.

Camera work and lighting: The pioneering system of shadowless bounce lighting was used in Ray’s films. The screening of his film ‘Charulata’ is so satifying; the mobility of the camera and the use of zooms and close-ups matches the playful, restless, border behavior of the actress Charu. The relative stillness of the early part of ‘The Goddess’ is equally appropriate allowing us to absorb the lethargic brooding atmosphere of the zamindars mansion. Ray does not wish to call attention to the camerawork but each style acts on the mind as part of an integrated composition of light movement, sound, speech and music. The viewer feels himself to be in direct touch with Ray’s character and settings through the lens of his camera.

Music composition: Ray has evolved his own style and method of composition to suit his peculiar situation and talents. He painstakingly writes out score in both Indian and western citation depending on the musicians involved. Ray felt that music is an extraneous element. He preferred to be his own composer as he gets clear ideas of what the film needs by way of music. He favors employing elements from well known ragas and raginis and shifting from raga to raga. His overall aim is to compose background music that brings to the particular film than to any recognizable tradition. Ray’s goal in the music of ‘the Home and the World’ was comparable to adapt certain western elements along with Indian and specifically Tagorean ones and make music to interest and satisfy viewers with both backgrounds while expressing the inextricable mixture of influences as work with the characters.

Ray’s films are slow as regarded by some viewers but are also interesting to some others. His films have supple life like dialogue and probing telling camerawork. His films follow certain preoccupied patterns and dramatizes trivial phenomena which are woven together in a carefully calculated manner. His films for children involving tricks and magic are the most striking things ever done in cinematic choreography. The main value of some of his films is archival. The ingenuity of his films have won his accolades and awards in India and abroad. He never differentiated between a major or minor artist or technician.

Satyajit Ray is one of the genius veterans of Indian Film industry and will always be remembered for his good films.