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[ramana]

Pioneer Book Review,

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Revisiting Ray

John Hood has failed to provide anything new about the master filmmaker, says Derek Bose

<b>Beyond the World of Apu: The Films of Satyajit Ray
Author: John W Hood
Publisher: Orient Longman
Price: Rs 550  </b>

<b>The biggest problem about writing on Satyajit Ray is that there is nothing left to write.</b> So much has been written on his life and films over the past 50 years that the moment another book on him appears you are tempted to ask, "Now what?" Ray was himself a prolific writer and a wonderful wizard with words. Anybody would have expected him to have had the last word.

The excuse Australian Indophile John W Hood has for this book is the nature of finishing an unfinished business. Years ago, he had done a compilation of essays on "major filmmakers of Indian art cinema" in which he had tried unravelling the "essential mystery" of Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and others. Obviously, some points on Ray required revision, perhaps as an afterthought. So, he went back to his notes, played around with the language, stretched a few ideas, beat them into shape and has pulled off what he describes as a "personal reassess-ment" on the 29 films Ray made in his lifetime -- from Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) to Agantuk (The Stranger).

<b>Nevertheless, the book has its use.</b> For a generation of young cineastes not exposed to the magic of Charulata (The Lonely Wife), Aparajita (The Unvanquished) and Devi (the Goddess) here is a handy primer that encapsulates the work of the maestro over 37 years of filmmaking. Even otherwise, the synoptic treatment of every film serves as a ready-reckoner for anybody interested in a more in-depth study. For the sake of convenience, the author has grouped the films under broad thematic chapter heads -- 'Apu Trilogy', 'An Early Pastiche', 'The Urban Middle Class', 'The Calcutta Triptych'... rather than deal with them in chronological order.

Two early black-and-white films, Tin Kanya (Three Daughters) and Charulata are thus bunched together with Ghare Baire (Home And The World), made two decades later, in 1984, just because they fall pat under the chapter, 'Tribute to Tagore'. Likewise, two completely unrelated films -- Devi (1960) and Sadgati (1981) -- appear together under 'Cry Against Tradition' (well, which Ray film isn't?).

Devi was intrinsically a Bengali film, based on Prabhat Mukherjee's story of a silly old man (Chhabi Biswas) who "sees" his daughter-in-law (Sharmila Tagore) as a goddess Kali incarnate. In contrast, Sadgati was a tele-film in Hindi, based on Munshi Premchand's story about class conflict -- between a low caste (Om Puri) and a village Brahmin (Mohan Agashe). Ray's approach to these two widely divergent subjects, his treatment, the camerawork, sound design, editing pattern... everything is so dissimilar that bracketing them arbitrarily is rather unfair.

The book can be faulted on other counts as well. What is the purpose, for instance, to get into minute details of films when their storylines have been analysed threadbare by others (including Ray) countless times before? Their interpretation can also be questioned, but that will have to pass as the author does not hide the fact that his observations and impressions are primarily "personal".

The danger of such a subjective treatment lies elsewhere. For, <b>Ray was more than a storyteller -- one who translated great literary works into celluloid -- as the author makes him out to be. He was a visionary, a philosopher and in many ways a historian. He was the only filmmaker to have documented more than a century of social change in India -- from the fall of the Mughal empire in Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) to the collapse of the zamindari system in Jalsaghar (The Music Room), to the awakening of modern India (Apu Trilogy, Devi, Charulata) and women's power in Mahanagar (The Big City) to the rise of the middle class in Pratidwandi (The Adversary) and social decadence in Jana Aranya (The Middle Man) and finally, raising a glimmer of hope in Agantuk (The Stranger). No Indian filmmaker has covered such a wide canvas. This is a point Hood misses.</b>

One is also tempted to question the author's understanding of the social milieu against which some less notable films like Kapurush O Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy Man) Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder) and Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People) are set.

As a known translator of popular Bengali fiction and poetry into English and as one who divides time between Melbourne and Kolkata, Hood is no doubt better placed than such firangs as <b>Marie Seton</b>, Andrew Robinson and Robin Wood who had interpreted Ray from a Westerner's point of view. Instead of providing a fresh insight on the subject, Hood sadly misleads.

-- The reviewer, a well-known author and journalist, specialises in Bollywood and other aspects of India's film industry

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I think the reviwer is vitrolic and acerbic as he is left out of the Ray author genre. I am such afan of Ray that I read any new compilation for all the very reasons that the critic writes about Ray. I will buy the book.

BTW, I have Marie Seton's version on Satyajit Ray. I bought it at UCLA book store in the filmography section. In IITM , they suded to have a book called' Seven Directors" with Ray as the last and ultimate. I was impressed by that book.