Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992), Photo courtesy: Nemai Ghosh Films cannot change society. They never have. Show me a film that changed society or brought about any change, said master director Satyajit Ray in an interview for the American magazine Cineaste more than three decades ago.
Poster of Ganashatru
The remarks came from a man who was one of the most politically conscious directors India had ever produced and was never constrained by it. It s a political consciousness derived from the tumultuous years of the Naxalbari movement of the 1960s and 70s and the Emergency in the mid-seventies. It is reflected in Ray s films, such as Jana Aranya (The Middleman) and Pratidwandi (The Adversary). Later, he returned to the political theme in Hirok Rajar Deshey (In the Land of Diamond King) and in a different setting in Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People). Ray s Ghare Bairey (The Home and the World) also makes a strong political statement in pre-independent India,
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In the Oscars 2021 list, films that speak truth to power in ways unimaginable in India today
At least three of the seven frontrunners revolve around people or groups challenging the might of the American state. The United States Vs Billie Holiday (2021) | Lee Daniels Entertainment/New Slate Ventures/Roth/Kirschenbaum Films
To glance over the list of nominations for this year’s Oscar awards is to marvel at the number of movies about Americans speaking to power. At least three of the seven frontrunners revolve around people or groups challenging the might of the American state.
This theme is most explicitly explored in
Poster of Kissa Kursi Ka In a longish feature for Film Comment (May-June 1980), American journalist Elliott Stein wrote about the forays made by Indian film personalities into politics. “In no country are cinema and politics more closely intertwined,” he noted. Some of the events, he noted while covering Filmotsav ’80, a film festival held in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), were M.G.R becoming the chief minister of Tamil Nadu in 1977, Dilip Kumar being appointed the sheriff of Bombay (now Mumbai), and the successful launch and quick folding up of a new National Party by Dev Anand. “One case of Indian politics-cum-film received world attention because it involved Sanjay Gandhi,” wrote Stein. “In 1977, Amrit Nahata, the producer of Kissa Kursi Ka brought a suit against Mrs Gandhi’s son, claiming that he had stolen and destroyed all of the prints of the film, which caricatured his mother’s regime.”
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Pritish Nandy writes, paints, makes movies and occasionally, when he wins an election, sits in Parliament. He has been writing for The Times of India for over 26 years. In Extraordinary Issue , he talks to all those who find his views controversial, challenging, charming or even utterly despicable. Just one small caveat. Nandy is always on the move, travelling for a film, writing a book, working on an exhibition of his paintings. Or simply eating lotus. So there could be occasional gaps, the odd delay. But Nandy is Nandy. He never ignores a barb, never lets a compliment go by without swatting it hard. LESS. MORE