Satyjit Ray

1921-1992

 

Satyajit Ray, whose father was a good friend of Rabindranath Tagore, also grew up in Calcutta among a family of musicians, artists, and writers.  His passion in adult life turned to film making, yet he was also a successful designer and illustrator, novelist, and short story writer.

 

Ray disliked formal schooling as much as Tagore, stating he learned very little that he could apply in later years, even though he was an above average student.  What he gained during those years, however, was a keen observation of people and a developing love for music, both of which he later carried over to his film career.  After he received his BA degree, Ray planned to start a career in commercial art, but his mother persuaded him to continue his formal art education at Santiniketan.  Tagore died shortly after Ray’s enrollment, and Ray left the five-year program after two years because not only did he feel the “spark” had gone out of Santiniketan after Tagore’s death, but also he had decided by then that he was not a painter.  Years later, he reflected back to his time at Santiniketan, stating, “In the two and half years, I had time to think, and time to realise that, almost without my being aware of it, the place had opened windows to me.  More than anything else, it had brought me an awareness of our tradition, which I knew would serve as a foundation for any branch of art that I wished to pursue.”

 

After leaving Santiniketan, Ray pursued a career in commercial art during which time he also wrote and directed his first successful screenplay, Pather Panchali.  After its success, Ray decided to become a full time filmmaker.  During his film career, he directed, wrote the screenplays, and composed most of the music for over forty films, including a documentary on Tagore and several films based on novels and short stories by Tagore.  Although his films have received world-wide recognition and numerous awards, most of Ray’s supporting income came from the sale of his novellas and short stories.  All except a few of his films were written in Bengali and did not receive the mass audience appeal, and therefore not the commercial profits, of the more popular films of India which were written in Hindi with stereotypical weak plots, action, and sexual themes.  Ray says of those Indian films, “It is incredible that a country that has inspired so much painting and music and poetry should fail to move the film-maker.  He has only to keep his eyes open, and his ears.  Let him do so.” 

 

Ray kept his eyes open to the subtleties of the human condition, stating,  “If your theme is strong and simple, then you can include a hundred little apparently irrelevant details which, instead of obscuring them, only help to intensify it by contrast, and in addition create the illusion of actuality better.”   His acute observation of human emotions and relationships, and his attention to the most minor details that enhance the former, give his films a universal and lasting appeal that crosses all boundaries of language and ethnicity.

 

“Ray’s roots grow deep, but he reminds one of a banyan tree more than any English oak.  The main trunk is fed by the sights and sounds of Bengal and its literature, art, music and dance, along with those of the rest of the subcontinent stretching back to the Mahabharata, but the aerial roots have spread far and wide, sucking up nourishment from all over the world and thickly shrouding the trunk so that it can no longer be distinguished.”   --Andrew Robinson