S ATY AJ I T

INT E (I E W S
EDITED BY CARDULLO

PRESS OF M ISSISSIPP I / JAC K S ON

U N I V E R SIT Y
wvyw.upress.state.ms.us

The University Pressof Mississippiis a member of the Association of

American Universitv Presses.

Copyright @ zooT by University Pressof Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United Statesof America

First Edition zooT

Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data

Satyafit Ray: interviews / edited by Bert Cardullo.

p. cm. - (Conversationswith filmakers series)
Includes index.
ISBN-I3:978-r-578o6-gZ6-r (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-Io: r-S7Bo6-936-X(cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-I3:978-r-578o6-gSl-8 (paper : alk. paper)
ISBN-Io: r-578o6-937-8(paper : alk. paper) r. Ray,Satyajit,rgzr-rgg2-
Interviews. 2. Motion picture producers and directors-India-Inverviews.
I. Ray,Satyajit,rgzr-rggz. II. Cardullo, Bert. III. Series.
PNI99B.3.R4A32oo7
7gr.43oz'33ogz-dczz zoo6o4896z

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

C O NTEN TS

Introduction vii

Chronology xvii

Filmography xxi

Interview with Satyajit Ray 3

H UG H G R AY

Satyajit Ray: The Indian Genius of the Cinema B

CHIDANANDA DAS GUPT A

Interview with Satyaiit Ray 14

JA M E S BLUE

Conversation with Satyajit Ray 34

FOLKE I S A K S SON

Ray'sNew Trilogy 53
CHRISTIAN BRAAD T HOM SEN

Dialogue on Film: Satyaiit Ray 6t

AMERICAN F IL M INST IT UT E

How I Make My Films 94

L I N D S AY A N D E RSO N
 Vi CONTENTS

Interview with SatYaiit RaY rr5

TAY GARNETT

Satyaiit Ray r22

The politics of Humanism: An Interview with
UDAYAN G U PT A

SatYaiitRaY:Interview r33
DEREK M A L C OL M

ot"lJr'-'ff" narr42
rri;t
-T:t
Ray 165
Master of Art: An Interview with Satyaiit
BERT C A R D U LL O

SatYaiit RaY r9o

,\'
KERSTIN A N DERSSON

Ray Is
To Western Audiences, the Filmmaker Satyaiit
Synonymous with Indian Cinema 2r2
GOWRI R A MNARAYAN

Index 22r

i
:.t

rj-l

El r.
Hlr
Satyaiit Ray

KER STIN A NDE RS S ON/1 9 9 2

ANDERssoN: Mr. Ray,why didyou startmakingfilms andwhatmade you

start making films?
RAy: I was, as you probably know, in advertising. In fact, I was in
advertising even when I made PatherPanchali;l stlll had my job. But I
was, as you know, deeply involved, not in the making of films, but in
the study of films. We had started this film club in 1947, and I was an
avid moviegoer, and I was reading a lot on cinema, all aspectsof it, and
I was getting a little tired of advertising as a profession, and the ethics of
advertising. The fact that you had to contend with clients and all that
didn't make me very happy, till there came a point where I decided that
I'll try and change my profession. But I couldn't afford to leave my pro-
fession at the time when I made my first fi.lm, becausepart of my salary
went into the making of the film, so that I was shooting over weekends
and holidays.

ANDERssoN : Butwhy film? Werentyou a painter?

RAy: Yes,I was a painter, but cinema seemed a far more exciting kind
of medium. Cinema, not painting, was really my first love. I never called
myself a painter. I was taught as a painter in Santiniketan, where I stud-
ied fine arts, but then I went into advertising art, and got involved with
a publisher, doing book jackets and photography. But the first interest
was cinema all along.

From CinemaPapers88 (r99z), 44-50. Reprinted by permission of Kerstin Andersson.

 KERST IN ANDERSSON /1992 191

ANDERSSoN : A very interestingelementin your earlywork-in theApu tril-

ogy,for instance-is the useof details, not iust in terms of information, but in
termsof their ability fo express,a detail revealinga gteat deal of things-
relationshipsbetweenpeople,statesof mind, statesof unotion-marvelous
examples,almost as though you had usedit as languagein cinema.But then
in the later fiIms, slowly you're no longerusing that kind of vocabulary.
RAy: Well, I think that the trilogy stories needed details becausefrom
the narrative point of view there wasn't that kind of strength of appear-
ance as you'd find in a normal screenplay.These are more sort of lifelike
fragments, you know, so that they have to be made effective by means of
details. Some of the details come from Bibhutibhushan Baneriee,some of
them come from the European cinema which I admired. Details have
been part of most of my films, but not perhaps to the extent they were
used in the trilogy. Bibhutibhushan himself was fond of the details of
nature, and I am very fond of details myself.

ANDERssoN : In Apur Sansaryouhad a much strongernarrativeline

than the first two parts of the trilogy. It has a kind of movement-while
the other two films have exceedinglyshort scenesput together,Apur Sansar
has longerscenes.Thereis a story movementthat is evident.How did it
happen?
RAy: Well, for one thing it was difficult to find a clear narrative line
in the first two parts. For another, by the time of.Apur SansarIhad
learned to write a scenario and structure a film. In fact Apur Sansaris
more me than the other films in the trilogy, although the main events,
even in Apur Sansar,come from the book itself-like the death at child-
birth, Apu leaving the son and then coming back and finding him
again-all those sort of crucial points, the turning points, are there in
the original book, but the structuring-for the structuring I used a lot
of my own experience. It was a properly developed scenario.

ANDERssoN'. I see.Thereis anothervery interestingthing about the trilogy.

As it dealswith a village and eventuallywith the city, it appearsto be in some
I

waysa kind of idealization of a certain way of life, a certain kind of living; it

alsosort of stressesthat thereis a certain kind of harmony accommodatinga
wholenatural orderofthings.
192 sArYAJtr R AY: I N T E RV I EW S

RAY: That's very much Bibhutibhushan, and I wanted to stick to it. I

wanted to stick to the philosophy of the book, to his attitude to life.
That is very much Bibhutibhushan.

AN DE RS S O N Do you agreewith that yourselft

RAY: I did agree. Certainly at that point it seemedright for the three
films.

ANDERSSoN : Youdidn'twish to editortahzeor commenton it in any of the

threefilms?
RAy: No, not at that point. No, certainly not.

ANDERSSoN: Thereis anotherthing in the trilogy.Apu growingup in this

village, beingpart of that situation, and eventuallybreakingout of it, and
that, you know, happensbecauseof his Westerneducation.
RAy: Yes.That is the point that he makes, and I felt that it was absolutely
right, it had to be emphasized,lt had to be kept, and also his growing up
and away from his mother, which was strongly criticized in Bengal, as
being wrong.

ANDERSSoN: Butisn't therealso a kind of confrontingposition arrivedat

on one level, if you look at it philosophically? There'sthe questionof this
whole natural order of things, with acceptanceas a way of life, and suddenly
oneperson breaksout of it. And then it seemsto be done so verypainlessly.
But do you yourself seeit happeningin the same way in life?
RAy: Well, perhaps not today to that extent. But don't forget that
this deals with an earlier Bengal. The book came out in the r93os, and
Bibhutibhushan was talking about his own childhood and his own
manhood eventually. So it was all very turn of the century, and I saw
no sensein departing from Bibhutibhushan's conception of life.

ANDERSSoN : But do you yourselfsort of feel comfortablewith the senseof

orderyou. . . ?
RAy: I did. I did at that point. It felt right. To me it felt right.

A ND ERSSON: YCS.
RAy: In the two stories, in the three fi.lms, there are pretty harsh, really
harsh things-the death of the old woman, the death of the father, all
those things that are shown there in a fair amount of brutal detail.
 KERST IN ANDERSSON /1992 193

ANDERSSoN I But don'tyou seethat death is neverthere,and thereis no

senseof horror about death for instance?It seemslike you acce7tedthis whole
process.If you take the choiceof subjectsevenafrer the trilogy, what you have
chosenalways appearsto relate somehowto an attitude of acceptingthe
natural order of things. Do you feel most comfortablewith subiectsof that
kindwhenyoumake films?
RAy: I think it applies more to my early films than the later ones. I
think I have changed directions, even if imperceptibly, over the years-
occasionally, certainly. But I certainly felt very comfortable with the mate-
rial which I got from Bibhutibhushan's two novels, and I had no doubts
when making the trilogy as to what I was, you know what I wanted to
say,and how I said it, and how much it was all related to the original
book. In fact, I was trylng to stick very closely to the spirit of the two
books, and I think, to a certain extent, I did succeed.

ANDER SSoN: A f t er t he trilogy,after the Bibhutibhushannovelsrlou went

on to Tagore.
RAY: Yes, I did. One of the reasonswas that it was Tagore'scentenary
that year.

ANDERSSo N: But do you now feelthat at that time that was the real reason?
RAy: Certainly I was asked to make a documentary on Tagore, and I
wanted to pay a sort of personal tribute. And I had been wanting to . . .
I have always admired his short stories. Many of his short stories are
not expandable. So I decided, why not make a package of three short
stories, and keep them short, that was the idea. A personal tribute to
Tagore, a sort of centenary tribute.

ANDERssoN : Thenyou madeCharulata.

RAy: Not after that. That was three films after that.

ANDERSsoN : But do you identify with Tagorein any way?

RAy: Well, certainly. Some of his things, I do identify very strongly with.
He was far ahead of his time. We looked up to him and we admired
him-as a musician and as a writer of short stories.Some of his novels
too I greatly admired. Charulata is not a novel, however; it's a short story
reallv.
194 SATYAJtT RAY: INT ERVIEWS

ANDERSSoN : The reasonI askyouthis questionis thatTagorewasamany-

your-
facetedpersonality,a Renaissanceman. Youhave a gteat many interests
self. Youare interestedin painting and music and cinernaand literature. You
do severalthings. Is that why you feelgeatly at home with Tagore?
RAy: WelI, I don't know. If you are talking about versatility, it runs in the
family. My grandfather was a similar kind, a many-sided genius. He was
painter, musician, poet, photographeq blockmaker, scientist, astronomer.
So was my father, except that he died very young. In his short life, he
wrote, he painted, and, well, he was very versatile, and I have never
thought in terms of identifying with Tagore, except that we all-most
Bengalis, every educated Bengali-admire him tremendously as a giant
among Bengalis,a many-faceted genius.

ANDERSSoN : Yes,butwouldn'tthere be as one aspectof it an evaluationof

Tagorefrom contemporarysensibility?
RAy: Yes,it could happen maybe in tuming his stories into films. I was
not doing them slavishly; there was a considerable amount of bringing
them up to date, in the sensethat I myself as a filmmaker was viewing
the stories from my contemporary point of view. All the stories, if you
compare them with the originals, are considerably adapted; they are just
not exact replicas of the originals.

ANDERssoN: Did you everthink of addinganotherfilm to the trilogy?

RAY: No.

ANDERssoN: With APu as father?

RAy: No, not really. But in the third part of course he grows up. Then
you have another Apu. No, another film would have been too much.
This is right. In fact, he comes back to life at the end, which he doesn't
in the book, where he again becomes vacant and goes on wandering,
leaving Kajal alone. I thought it needed a positive ending after all the
deaths and tragedies and separations and what not.

ANDERssoN'. Thereis a point of view thatthe film couldeasilyhaveended

with his throwing away of the novel . . .
RAY: Oh, there!
 KERST IN ANDERSSON /1992 195

ANDERSSON:... youknowwhen'
RAY:Butlthinkonewouldhavewantedtoknowwhathappenedtothe
child.Itwasverynecessaryitwasobligatorytobringthechildin'and
take the responsibil-
bring the father back to ttre child, and have the father
view' and it was a long'
ity oi tringing up the child' I think that was my
longfilmifyouconceiveitintermsofonesingleunit,andthenitneeded
that positive ending, a jubilant kind of ending'

ANDERSsoN : Indiawas a Bitish colonyfot a longtime' How didthat

affect the Indian peopteand their culture?
RAY:TheBritishdidgoodthingsforthelndianculture.TheBengali
British rule and British
novel was introducea ty the British, and it was the
philosopherssuchasLocke,Mill,andBentham,aswellasphilosophers
of freedom' This
like Garibatdi and Mazzini,who showed the importance
and freedom'
is ironical: the British rule giving the idea of independence
Wehadsomethingcalledthe"BengaliRenaissance'"Itwasanintel-
saff and religious
lectual movement criticizing bad social customs like
and Rammohan Roy'
dogmas. It was inspired by the French Revolution
writing in
who was the leader of one of those movements. Through
rule' and the
newspapers, people criticized society, the colonial
exploitation of the farmers by the landowners'

betweenIndia and
ANDERSSON: what do you think about the interaction
the West todaY?
RAY:IdeastravelfasttodayandtheWesterninfluenceisgreat.Weare
some' Large parts of
no longer isolated. But the new ideas only reach
thepopulationdonotgetaccesstothem.Thisispartlyduetopovefty'
produced its own tech-
nut yol must also have in mind that India has
nology, indePendent of the West'

ANDERSsoN'.Yougrewupinastronglndiantradition,butwerealsoinflu-
you?
encedby Europeanculture. How has this affected
RAY:IamtheproductofEastandWestequally.IhavestudiedEuropean
celebrating christ-
art and literature. And when I was a child, I enioyed
mas,withFatherChristmasandChristmasgiftsandallthat.Iknowmore
abouttheWestthanmanyEuropeansdo.Thisisduetocolonialism.We
wereforcedtolearnnngnshinschool,forexample'Thisisthecaseonly
196 SATYAJtT RAY: T NT ERVT EWS

among educated people, not among rural peoples-they are illiterate

and uneducated. One exception is Kerala, where 90 percent of the popu-
lation is literate.

ANDERSsoN : In India you seemany Westemfilms, but in the Westwe see

very few Indian films. What do you think about this?
RAy: In India, people know what happens in the world. They are
inquisitive, curious. But the West has a very weak knowledge of India.
This is insolent, becauseyou should have an open mind.
I have, for instance, made a film based on an Ibsen play, but when
Pather Panchali was first shown in America some people found it so dis-
gusting to seepeople eating with their hands that they left the audito-
rium. There are some people in the West who learn Bengali and study
Indian culture, but not many.

ANDERSSoN : How has your cultural backgroundinfluencedyour films?

RAy: In my films I am dealing with Indian subjects. The content is
Indian, and the style and the form are dictated by the content.
My education as a filmmaker, though, was influenced by Hollywood.
During the r94os and'5os, we could seea lot of American film here in
Calcutta. In the r95os, I was also influenced by French and Italian film-
makers: for example, Renoir and De Sica, and later on Bergman and
Japanesefilmmakers such as Kurosawa.

ANDERSSoN : When you started,your music was very differentfrom the

way it was being usedin Indian films. Youdevelopeda very strong thematic
score,you had a very strong thematic line running throughout the ttilogy, and
you usedmusic also in dramatic ways which weremuch more conventional,
underlining emotional moments,anticipating, and so on. But over a pertod of
time, you havegiven up the useof dramatic music, and you do use thematic
Iines, but ofren evennot that.
RAy: Yes.WeIl, in the beginning, I had no confidence in myself as a
composer. Of course I was very aware of music in films, and there were
certain basic instructions always given to the composers I worked with,
like having certain themes for certain situations or for entire fiIms.
Pather Panchalihad such a theme which recurred seven or eight times
in the film. Ravi Shankar had the theme in mind even before he saw
 KERST IN ANDERSSON /1992 197

the film. He hummed it to me, I said it was marvelous and this would
go very well with the film. It comes back at certain points, and gives it a
unity, because, if you are using a new piece of music every time, it does-
n't work, because the audience is also looking at the images, following
the story listening to the dialogue-and the music is lost generally if
it's a new piece every time. So unless the piece of music recurs at least
three or four times in a film one doesn't remember it, one doesn't know
it, and one doesn't connect it with the film; it doesn't become part of
the film.
In the early films and also in the period fi.lms, we moved away ftom
our own time, so they were on a slightly different level, and we had to
have more music. Ali Akbar working onDevi or Ravi Shankar on the tril-
ogy, or Vilayat onlalsaghar, always provided me with quite an amount
of music which was used in the films. But later I took over composing
myself becausefor one reason they were not available half the time, as
they were on tours, and by that time I had acquired a certain degreeof
confi.denceas a composer myself; and in any caseeven at the beginning I
was getting ideas of my own and it was often not very convenient to be
dictating, telling them what to do. They had to be left there to their own
devices to a certain extent. So music in the trilogy takes a big part, and is,
as you say,both incidental and dramatic, underlining certain emotions.
But this business of underlining-in fact the films of the thirties and the
forties, the American fi.lms, that we admired in those days, were often
drowned in music-I never liked, you know. some of the European direc-
tors making films in America opened my eyesto the other kind or use of
music-like the first film of Jean Renoir that I saw, The southemer,which
had very little music, but had a rich soundtrack. That I saw some time in
rg44 or 1945. So that was the model for me. Music when it is a must, but
again one usesit with the audience in mind, when you think perhaps
they would not be able to get the meaning, the emotional content of the
scene.So you underline it. That I have done. But the thematic music that
gives the film unity, that also is a very important element which I still
keep using, when I'm using music. But sometimes they are just effects, or
very close to effects, not necessarilymelodic, linear melodic music.

ANDERSSoN:Andyou seemtobedoingmoreof thatnow than . . .

RAy: Yes,I'm tryrng to be economical with music.
198 sATYAJTT RAY: T NT ERVT EWS

ANDERssoN: Do youwriteyourown scores?

RAY: Yes,I do.

ANDERSSoN: Wouldn'tyou be able now to usea composerfor your films,

whereyour ideas can be conveyedto him and he could work out a score?
RAy: Well, the ideas now would be in the nature of actual lines of
melody with the orchestral color and everything. So why? If one uses a
composer one has to give him a certain degree of freedom, and there's
always a possibility that he will provide me with something which I
don't like. And then there will be clashes,and this and that.

ANDERSSoN:Yes,
RAy: So I have avoided that more or less.

ANDERssoN: How did you cometo music initially?

RAy: I was surrounded by music. Everybody on my mother's side could
sing, all my aunts, all my uncles; my mother was an exceptional singer. It
was mainly Rabindrasangeet,Tagore'ssongs, that I heard as a child, and
the Brahmo Samai songs-some of them are wonderful, really magnifi-
cent songs based on classicalragas,and those I remember very well. As I
said, music was all around. Of course, I never heard my grandfather play
the violin, but I'm told that he was exceptional. Music, I never studied. It
was just with me all along. Towards the end of my school days, I became
interested in Western classicalmusic. Some years later there was a gramo-
phone club in Calcutta, and we became members. By that time I had
started buyrng miniature scores.There would be mainly Parsisreally, and
some foreigners who were still in town. There were very few Bengalis
really. There was a Calcutta Symphony Orchestra. I started going to the
concerts of this orchestra. Nirad Chaudhury was one of the few Bengalis
who used to go to those concerts.
I took my collection of records with me to Santiniketan, where the
one big advantage was that there was a Professorof English or Compara-
tive Literature, a GermanJew called Dr. Aronson, and he had his own
collection of records. We used to listen to music every evening in his
house. He had his gramophone. And he played the piano. There was a
piano in Uttarayan in Santiniketan-in the building where Tagore lived.
Aronson lived in one of the smaller houses, but in the big house there
 KERST IN ANDERSS ON /1992 199

was a piano, not very well tuned, but he used to go there and play the
piano. I persuaded him to play the piano for me, and I tumed the pages
for him. So that was one additional thing which made me familiar with
western notation. So throughout my Santiniketan days I was pursuing
music, along with painting.

ANDERSSoN: Butwhenyouwerein collegedidyou find friendswho shared

your interests?
RAy: Well, there was one friend-yes, I did have one friend-who cer-
tainly shared my interest in music, and western classical music. And
he kept it up even after college-he was quite wealthy certainly, much
more affluent than I was. He built up a huge collection of records quite
early on, he could afford it. He had a very big radio, and used to listen
to foreign broadcasts of music-particularly the German stations were
very powerful. It was the Nazi year, and you could hear a lot of good
music at the time.

ANDERssoN: Was therenobodyat all besideshim?

RAY: No, there was nobody, certainly not in the early stages.Later there
were others. But in the early stagesI was certainly very much alone,
going to the record shops, just rummaging through their collections.
Then there was a point when I found that there weren,t that many
records of classicalmusic on the catalogue. I started corresponding with
the Gramophone company manager. He was an Englishman. Then I sug-
gested they bring out regular issuesof classicalmusic in calcutta, because
there were people interested. Not that I knew very many who were inter-
ested, but I had to tell this little lie. Anyway he reacted very favorably,
and I had in fact given him a list of classicswhich I felt would be right for
Calcutta, and then they did manage to bring them out eventually.

ANDERSSoN: It was a kind of lonequest?

RAy: It was a lone quest, very much a lone quest. I started building up
my collection of records. At first I could afford only one movement a
month maybe, so it took about three months to build a symphony or a
concerto. But later on, when I had my iob, it was a little easier on the
finances.
200 SATYAJtT RAY: INT ERVIEWS

ANDERSSoN: Whenwouldyou sayyouhadyour first exposure to art, say

the art of the world, not iust Indian art or music?
RAy: Well, I would say it all happened at Santiniketan, within the
three years that I was there. we had a magnificent library, and I had a
couple of friends. one is now a celebratedprofessor of Indian art in
Hawaii. we became very close friends, and he had a fantastic knowl-
edge of art-world art-and great perception and sensitivity. So I came
under his influence at that time. As a student of painting he had as
much to teach me as the professors of Santiniketan really.

ANDERssoN: And your interestin the cinema.When did that start?

RAy: Well, it's very hard to say when it started, becauseI remember
being a film fan as a very small boy, and even early in school years, I
used to buy magazines like Picturegoerand Film Pictorial, and I had my
own star rating system. I used to keep notes of the films I would see,and
give them ratings, my own sort of ratings in stars.so it started as a kind
of interest in film stars,and then the films along with the sta6. But the
interest in the dilectols came later, I think in the early days of college . . .
I became conscious of the cinema bearing the stamp of its own maker.
Then again things happened in Santiniketan, where I was helped by the
fact that there were in the library which consisted mainly of books on art
and painting, some film books. You know the standard film books-like
Pudovkin's Film Techniqueand FiIm Acting, and Rotha's Film TiIl Now.
Those two or three books I read again and again. That made me con-
scious of cinema as an art form, the narrative styles that one uses-terms
like close-ups and long shots, trolleying, and cuts and fades and what
not, and dissolves.

ANDERSSoN : Wereyou fond of certainkindsof films?

RAy: Well, I think when we were very young, we were allowed to seea
certain kind of film, becauseour palents and elders usually told us what
we should see.So in the very early days it was things like Robin Hood and
The count of Monte cristo, and that sort of thing. Later on, I think when I
was nine or ten, in the early days of sound, mind you, that would be the
thirties, the very early thirties, I remember seeing the early Lubitsches,
nearly all of them, with Maurice Chevalier, you remember, andJeanette
MacDonald; LoveParade,smiling Lieutenant, and all those Lubitsch films
 KERST IN ANDERSSON /1992 201

I remember exceedingly well. So they must have made a very strong

impression. Not the stars so much as the way of telling the story the
witty kinds of things that Lubitsch was doing all the time.

ANDERSSoN : What about Westems?

RAy: Westerns,yes, but not to the same extent. When I really got
interested in Westerns-but by that time I was already very seriously
interested in cinema-I was looking forJohn Ford and things like
that.

ANDERSSoN: What aboutIndian films?Bengaliand Hindi fiIms?

RAy: Not really. I think we avoided them as much as possible. Well,
there were relations working in the cinema. I had an uncle who was one
of the major directors, Nitin Boseat New Theatres. His brother, Mukul
Bose,was the audiographer or the sound recordist, as they say.They were
both very talented, particularly from the technical point of view. So we
inevitably saw their films in those days, and I could seethat they werc
well photographed and that the sound recording was of a high caliber.
But I was never interested in the stories or the way they were told. It was
a strange concoction. They seemedto stick to a formula even in those
days. So I wasn't looking at the Indian films really for any kind of real
edification or education. They were there, they had to be seen occasion-
ally, but the real interest was in foreign films. And foreign films usually
meant American films in those davs.

ANDERSSoN: Wereyouawareof the work Prabhatwas doing,for instance?

RAy: Not really, not before we started our film society. I knew there
was somebody called Shantaram, and there was a Prabhat Studio, and
they were turning out big films, ambitious films. But it was only after
we formed the film club that we deliberately got films from the Prabhat
period and showed them to the member, and we were impressed by
them. Some of them, and Ramshasfri in particular, I remember. I don't
know whether that was a Prabhat film but that was certainly one of the
Marathi fiIms that seemed like a very serious effort, and impressive.

ANDERSSoN: When didyou,I mean,whatmotivatedyouto start the

Calcutta Film Societv?
202 SATYAJtT RAY: T NT ERVT EWS

RAy: Aw, just that it was a big thing in Europe. I think I found a lot of
young people who shared my interest in the cinema. And it just came
up one evening while we were sitting and chatting-"Why don't we start
a film society"-there were Chidananda Das Gupta and three or four
others-and it was "OK, let's get going." That's how it happened. When
it did happen we were all very serious.We started a library of film books,
we had seminars and discussions.When Renoir came to Calcutta to
shoot The River,we invited him, and he gave a talk. Verrier Elwin gave a
talk. Soon after we formed the film society in;947, we were lucky to have
some celebrated filmmakers and film actors arriving in Calcutta from
abroad. Pudovkin and Cherkassovcame as part of a delegation. They
came with some films, and they gave talks. We also had showings of films
Iike Ivan the Terrible and some of the early Pudovkin classics.We were
quite active in the early days.

ANDERssoN: When did you first get to know films other than American
fiIms?
RAY: When I went to London, in r95o.

ANDERssoN: What was the impact of that when you first saw . . . ?
RAy: Oh, that was fantastic. Actually I had gone to work in the head
office of my British advertising agency. But my wife and I immediately
became, as soon as we arrived, members of the London film club. They
had a Marx Brothers season on. And we were living at Hampstead right
close to Everyman's Cinema, which was a sort of a permanent film festi-
val. And so in the space of four and a half months we saw something
like a hundred films. The neorealists had just come up, you know: The
Bicycle Thieves.Italian films, French films, German films, we were seeing
all, we were iust lapping them uP.

ANDERssoN'. How much of a fiIm of yours,onceyou'veworkedoutthe

sequenceor the sequences within the film, is improvisedby way of breaking
downshots,or...?
RAy: Well, I seldom depart from the master plan. There's never getting
away from the total structure which is very firmly in my head. But within
that structure there is a considerable lot of things that are improvised at
the shooting stage . . . changes of angles, a little business,the dialogue for
 KERST IN ANDERSS ON /,1 992 203

instance is constantly being pruned-I mean, I've written the dialogue,

the actresshas learned the lines, but at the time of rehearsalperhaps I feel
that I can prompt three words there or an entire sentenceperhaps, and
use it, just for instance . . .

ANDERssoN: Oh no, what I meantwas, for instance,in the changeof

angles.
RAY: Oh, yes.

ANDERssoN: Youmtghtwork out a differentset of angles,you mightbreak

down a scenedffirently ftom whatyou had conceivedon paper.
RAy: Yes,that also is done occasionally,particularly in scenesof dia-
logue where two or three persons are speaking. I have the alternatives
to break it up, to take it in one shot, to break it up into overhead shots,
and things like that. After the rehearsals,you often have ideas which
you try to incorporate.

ANDERssoN: Do you try to changein the editingstage?

RAy: In the editing stageI never look at the script. I look at the mate-
rial of the shot, and I get ideas from that. They even lead to conclusions
where you might want a new shot, perhaps you want to add some-
thing. But I never look at the script again. I only look at my shots.

ANDERSSoN: I haveanotherquestionwhichis of a technicalnature.In

Sadgati you have a rain sequence.Now sinceyou always carefully work out
your scripts and your scenesand so on well in advance-and particularly on
location where not everythingis likely to go rtght-what happenswhen nature
provides opportunitieslike this? What do you do?
RAy: Well, if it provides an oppofunity which fits the story or may
even improve the original, it would be accepted as an improvement on
the original conception. For instance, in the scene which I think you
refer to, where the chamart wife comes to her husband's dead body, the
rain was supposed to come much later. The rain was supposed to start
at night, when the Brahmins, husband and wife, can't make up their
minds about what to do with the body. But since we had this down-
pour, this extraordinary downpour at the time of shooting during the
day, we immediately decided: why not have the rain start earlier? We
204 SATYAJTT RAY: T NT ERVT EWS

had to think immediately of what comes before and what comes after.
There was a mental calculation which had to be done on the spot, and
immediately we decided to use the rain. But of course there was the
problem whether the rain would last that long. It did last that long, and
there were three changes of set-up and other considerable preparations,
for instance, Iaying long tracks and all that. We were just lucky that the
rain lasted for something like three quarters of an hour, in which time
we were able to take all those shots covering the entire scene. If we had
not been able to do it, then we would probably have had to reshoot it
without rain. It has just so happened several times in the past. We have
had such weather or certain sudden changes in climate that at the
moment I felt would enhance the scene or be usable for a certain scene,
and I would use it. That needed very quick preparations and very quick
working out how it fits into the scheme of things, what comes before
and what comes after, whether it upsets the continuity or not.

ANDERSSoN: Now with Sadgati,you havea story whereyou havetakena

very strong stand. I mean the film comesthrough with a tremendousamount
of power and strength, and you do seeoppressionof a particular kind in full
force.It isn't your kind of gentle, more ironic look at things. Is this a kind of
new trend you seein your own work?
RAy: If I had found a story llke Sadgatiearlier I would have certainly
done it. It's just that the story called for that kind of treatment because
that force, that anger is already there in the original story. And it seemed
absolutely right for this particular story. It didn't need the softening of
contours. I mean it had to be hard-edged. I really don't know, I haven't
worked it out whether this is a sort of inner change in myself, a looking
at things in a more harsh sort of way than in an oblique way. It's iust
that this style seemed absolutely right for Sadgati,and it's exactly how
Premchand conceived the story. I've made almost no changes to the
story except perhaps add to a few sceneshere and there.

ANDERSSoN : Youcall yourselfa humanist. Could you elaborate?

RAy: I don't call myself a humanist. It is the critics who call me that.
Since they can't give me a political label-they can't call me a socialist
or a communist-they call me a humanist. I am interested in human
beings and in relationships between them. I am observant of human
 KERST IN ANDERSS ON /1992 205

beings and their relations. This is a quality I have developed over the
years. I am also interested in psychology.

ANDERSSoN: Do you think of your films aspolitical? InSadgati, for

example,you expressa strongsocial critique against the castesystemand the
oppressionof the lower castes.
RAy: Yes,Sadgatiis a strongly political film. As are, for example, Pather
Panchali, Ganasatru,Branchesof the Treeand the film that I have iust
made, Agantuk. They are all political films.
Most of my earlier films were not political. But in the r96os, due to
some events in Calcutta, I started to make political films. I don't use
any political characters; my films don't revolve around a political leader
or figure, but they have a political background. These films deal with
social problems-and that is political.

ANDERSSoN: I have an elaboratequestionnow.In your rural films you have

a cmtal characterwitha quality of innocmceabouthim. Butwhenyou come
to the urban films theresuddenlyappearsto be a lossof such innocence.When
I saw Pratidwandi for instance, it representedto me that lossof innocence,and
then it is carried on in Jana Aranya and severalother films you have made
since and evenbeforethat. Is this your own world view?Is it your view that
rural life is basically innocent and in urban life thereis a processof a lossof
innocmce?
RAy: That would apply certainly to the films that I have made on rural
Iife, except Asani Sanket,where you have this Brahmin character who is
in a way quite worldly wise, in a way quite clever and resourceful. But
that's different from the city kind of resourcefulnessor vanity or sophis-
tication. And when I have dealt with urban characters they have mainly
been the literate middle classor even the slightly upper class.So natu-
rally it would be true to life to make them aware, that's all.

ANDERSSoN: But is it only awareness, for therealso appearsto be a break-

down somewhereof a whole set of moral values?
RAy: Yes,but that is becauseI've chosen that kind of a story to show a
certain aspect of society, and that has been the theme of the films, par-
ticularly lana Aranya or even Seemabaddhaor The Adversary.So it had to
be part of the film, had to be part of the attitude.
206 SATYAJTT RAY: T NT ERVT EWS

ANDERSSoN : But doesthatreflectyourown view?

RAy: Obviously I was sympathetic to these views. Otherwise
I wouldn't have made the films.

ANDERSsoN : But now when you proceedfurther-for instance,you men-

tioned how in the late sixties and early seventiesyou werepassing through
a processof reevaluatingand reassessing your attifude about your own
environment-has that beencontinually reflectedin your work, or in the way
you think about films?
RAy: Up to a point, yes. As it has always been my method not to repeat
myself, I have tried out new things and themes set in new milieus as I
have not done before. But I have also this desire to go back to the world
of earlier times, like for instance in my film The Home and the World-
GhaireBaireby Rabindranath, which is a political story with a political
background, the first terrodst movement in r9o5 over the partition of
Bengal. I think it is interesting to be able to re-create an earlier period.
That's an interest in itself, carrying out researchon the period, on the
furniture, on the dress,on the speech-this in itself is a preoccupation
of mine.

ANDERssoN : Thenit must be morethan nostalgia.

RAy: It's not nostalgia. I don't think it's nostalgia, it's taking up a sort
of a challenge, like in ShatranikeKhilart. Well, it was interesting to
grapple with this problem of showing something which happened in
the middle of the nineteenth century and to view it from perhaps a
contemporary point of view, from an attitude. It is not iust a straight
re-creation from what's in the book. It is a re-creation filtered through
my own personality, which is, I think, a middle-of-the-twentieth-century
personality.

ANDERssoN: Thereis a criticismfrom somequartersthatyouwere a little

too even-handedin Shatranj betweenthe colonial mastersand the Indians in
the story.How do you react to that?
RAy: I don't agreewith that. It's just that I felt it would be so easyto
run dor,rmthe colonial representative-it would have been an easy
target, and I'm not interested in easytargets really. The point is made
nevertheless, but it was necessary,it was interesting, I think, to show a
 KERST IN ANDERSSON /1992 207

colonial representative having his personal qualms about what he was

supposedto be doing.

ANDERSSoN : The criticism,I think, is basedon the assumptionthat for the

colonizedpeople, the only valid attitude is one whereyou would want to get
rid of the colonial masters,and the critics made the point that in this kind of
a situation the attitude appearedto be a bit even-handed.
RAy: Yes,but the ultimate point that the film was trying to make was
that the two representatives of the Nawabi classwere willing to carry on
with their game of chess and not so anxious to get the colonialists out
of their way. It was their non-involvement that was made responsible
up to a certain extent for what happened. The annexation and the whole
businessof how the British were able to do what they did were because
of certain traits in the Indian character itself.

ANDERSsoN '. YouareIndian and in your films you usea lot of Indian cul-
tural srynbolsand codes.How do you think this affectsa foretgnaudience?
RAy: My films are about human beings, human relationships, and social
problems. I think it is possible for everyone to relate to these issues.On a
certain level, foreign audiences can appreciate Indian works, but many
details are missed. For example, when they seea woman with a red spot
on her forehead, they don't know that this is a sign showing that she is
married, or that a woman dressedin a white sariis a widow Indian audi-
ences understand this at once; it is self-evident for them.
So, on that certain level, the cultural gap is too wide. But on a psycho-
logical level, on the level of social relations, it is possible to relate. I think
I have been able to cross the barrier between cultures. My films are made
for an Indian audience, but I think they have bridged the gap. At least
those are the reactions I get in a lot of letters from foreign admirers.

ANDERssoN: Youhaveso many dialectsin Bengali.How do youusethem

in your films?
RAy: Well, in my urban stories I try to retain the dialect as far as possi-
ble, in the sensethat, for instance, the North Calcuttans would speak
a different kind of Bengali from the South Calcutta people, or people
who have migrated from East Bengal would retain in their speech a lot
of the East Bengal accent. All that one has to keep in mind. But when
 208 sATYAJtT RAy: T NT ERVT EWS

dealing with the village one uses the convention of a roughly rural
speech without being too regional, consciously regional. Even in older
or other Bengali films, in the films from Saratchandra Chattopadhyay
and other Bengali writers who had written about viltage life, they would
use a kind of speechwhich would not be too strongly a dialect, but be a
sort of general rural dialogue which was accepted as a convention. We
didn't depart from that; we used that in Asani Sankef,which, for instance,
is supposed to have been laid in the region of Birbhum where the speech
is not like what is used in the film really. But then I don't identify the
place too much because most of the villages look alike anryay.

ANDERssoN: Do you think thereare human universalsor arepeople

culturally specific?
RAy: There are certain universals. Human problems are common on a
psychological level. Social customs are different. For example, the rela-
tionship between man and woman exists everywhere, but in India you
never see a man and a woman kiss in the streets, even though this might
happen in the very trendy groups. In your countrt however, this is a
normal social practice.
In India you can't show intimate relations or things like sex. Sexual
freedom is impossible to show; it is a very un-Indian thing, although it
does appear in contemporary literature. As a matter of fact, I was the first
to include a scenewhere two people kiss in Indian cinema. And the audi-
ence accepted it.

ANDERSSoN: Mr. Ray,most of your films havedealtwith changeactually.

Yourcharacters,your main charactersare usually either coping with or adapt-
ing to this change. It starts with your trilogy and carries all the way through
to Jana Aranya. When you have dealt with that, you have also dealt with
women in Charulata andMahanagar, andhow they are copingwith
change.But beyond that I don't think you have done very much work about
women in your fiIms. Why are you not interested?
RAy: Well, I'm trylng to think what I've done actually. In the trilogy
of course Apu was the main character, t}:renlalsaghar, Parashpathar,
Abhiian-all films about men really in the center. Mahanagar presum-
ably was the first film (about a woman), although in Devi you had this
young girl who, you know, was a victim of circumstances, not so much
 KERST IN ANDERSS ON /1992 209

change; well, change arso in away, but not in the senseMahanagar

is about change or charulata is about change. After Mahanagar and
charulata, Kapurush to a certain extent is about the same thing. Then
what did we have? Then we had the calcutta stories which deal mainly
with iobless young men or men with
iobs. No, it's not that I,m not very
interested in that question, but it's just that I didn,t come acrossan inter_
esting enough story. My fl,m The Home and the world is again about a
woman in the center, and about change, very much about change. But
it's just one of those things, becauseI've been doing all kinds of different
things over the years.

ANDERSSON: couldyou say somethingabout the subiectof your latest

picture, Agantuk?
RAy; My latest film is dealing with urban civilization. The main char-
acter is an anthropologist. The anthropologist thinks that the man who
eats human flesh is better than the man who drops the nuclear bomb.
He studies and wants to be an artist. Then he runs into a painting of
a
bison, made by a prehistoric people. when he seesthis painting, and
realizesthat it has been done by those people, he thinks that he can
never learn as much as they did. He realizes that savagepeople are bet-
ter than the civilized.
The main character is taken by wanderlust. He leaveshome and comes
back after thirty-five years. He studies tribal peoples around India for five
years. He gets a iob on a boat and staysfor a time in London. He starts
writing about his experiencesand studies anthropology. Then he goes
to
America, where he stays for twenty-five years. He studies an Indian tribe
that is almost extinguished by civilization. when he comes back to India,
he lives with his niece.
The film puts the urban civilization contra the savagesociety. I filmed
near Santiniketan, among a tribe called "Santals.,,But the film is mostly
about urban people. It is very argumentative, putting ideas against ideas,
and contains much dialogue. The end, though, is more visual. At the
same time, it is a suspended story, since the niece doesn,t know if he
really is her uncle.
There is a contradiction between simple life and modern life. I am
interested in this contradiction between the savageand the modern.
I
am influenced by simplicity. Even in a barbaric state you can learn and
210 SATYAJtT RAY: INT ERVIEWS

develop technology. For example, the Eskimos, when making igloos,

use two kinds of snow: one is transparent, which they use for windows,
and the other they use to make walls. This they have discovered by
themselves.

ANDERssoN: BothDevi and Ganasatru explorethe contradictionbetween

scientific thinking and religiousbeliefs.Do you think it is possibleto explain
everything sci entifi cally ?
RAy: There are some things that you can't explain scientifically, or
at least can't explain scientifically yet. Just before my father died, for
example, he had a psychic experience. He was giving a lecture when he
suddenly started to sweat and get a feverl he knew that his death was
close.

ANDERssoN: Lastyear in VaranassiI met a Brahmin, well educated,who

drank Gangeswater.
RAy: You know, there is something special about the water from the
Ganges. If you keep it in a container, it doesn't get muddied as water
usually does when you keep it for a long time.
In my latest film there are other mysteries that you can't explain: for
example, this bison painting, so delicately executed. How could they do
that? Then there is the interplay between the sun and the moon. When
the sun and the moon are in eclipse, they are equally big. My main char-
acter in Agantuk is convinced that no other planet can have human life,
since they don't have this interplay between sun and moon.

ANDERssoN: Whatis your opinion on this contradictionbetween modemity

and tradition?
RAy: The doctor in Ganasatru,that's me, Ganasatruis an adaptation of
Ibsen's An Enemy of the Peopleto contemporary Indian cultural reality,
and what that doctor believes-that's what I believe in. In my latest
film, the anthropologist is my spokesman. I am happy to have found a
very sensitive actor to play him.
In Aganfuk, there is a cross-examination by a barrister' One question
is, "When you get ill, do you call a doctor or a witchdoctor?" The answer
is, "I should call both, but where do I find a doctor in the iungle?" I am
not a savage;the intellectual tradition is part of me. But I regret that
 KERST IN ANDERSS ON /1992 211

I am not a savage,becausethey are in sympathy with what they are

doing.
I don't believe in modern life. I am disappointed, disillusioned. Take,
for example, the Iraq war, what has happened to communism and social-
ism, and how the two Germanys have united. I try not to bother about it.
I only try to work. If you start thinking about all this, your head will
become full of it. I expressmyself through my films.
But film can't change the world or society. you can,t give people new
ideas through films. They affect people, but only for a short while. In
1937,Renoir made a film, Grandlllusion.It was against the war. A short
time later, the war broke out. In Ganasatru,I show that it is dangerous
to drink holy water from the temple tank, but people still drink it.