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.
