Amit Chaudhuri on Satyajit Ray’s very Indian modernity: Not a ‘beginning’ as much as a ‘fruition’
His humanism was noted in his heyday, but the encounter with Indian modernity that watching his films constituted was hardly mentioned. Pather Panchali (1955) | Government of West Bengal
It seems that there are all kinds of unresolved problems to do with Satyajit Ray – to do with thinking about him, with finding a language to speak about him that does not repeat the indubitable truisms about his humanism and lyricism. How does he fit into history, and into which history – the history of India; the history of filmmaking; some other – do we place him first?
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In remembrance of Soumitra Chatterjee
Photo: Collected Syed Maqsud Jamil Syed Maqsud Jamil
Soumitra Chatterjee in his career of over fifty years, was one of the busiest artistes, among those who came into the limelight in India. He was an actor, a director, a playwright, a writer and a poet.
Acting was his foremost passion. He was to Satyajit Ray what renowned actor Toshiro Mifune was to Akira Kurosawa and Marcello Mastroianni was to Federico Fellini. Soumitra acted in fourteen of Ray s films, and Ray had high expectations from him.
In Apur Sansar , Soumitra played a young man who loved literature. He gave a candid performance in the film. In Charulata , he was the devoted lover, and in Abhijan he played a strong-headed taxi driver.
Celebrating Satyajit Ray’s centenary The master would have evolved his own style of filmmaking had he lived to make films for the Internet age, speakers at an online adda
Satyajit Ray would have evolved his own style of filmmaking had he lived to make films for the Internet age, felt speakers at the Bengal Club Library Event celebrating Ray’s centenary in an online adda.
The master of the big screen had made telefilms like
Sadgati and
OTT platforms or over-the-top streaming services are offered to the viewer directly via the Internet.
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Talking about the multifaceted Renaissance man, who was at once a children’s storyteller, a film director, an illustrator and a music director, filmmaker Goutam Ghose said: “Ray belonged to a Bengal Renaissance family where everyone had a scientific bent of mind but practised the arts. He loved to travel and whenever he wrote ab