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|publisher = Screen Online | url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/532213/index.html | title=Ivory, James (1928-) | accessdate=2007-02-12
|publisher = Screen Online | url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/532213/index.html | title=Ivory, James (1928-) | accessdate=2007-02-12
}}
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</ref> [[Abbas Kiarostami]], [[Elia Kazan]], [[François Truffaut]],<ref>{{cite web|title=THE 'WORLD' OF SATYAJIT RAY: LEGACY OF INDIA'S PREMIER FILM MAKER ON DISPLAY|author=Dave Kehr|publisher=''[[Daily News (New York)|Daily News]]''|date=5 May 1995|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/1995/05/05/1995-05-05_the__world__of_satyajit_ray_.html|accessdate=2009-06-06}}</ref> [[Carlos Saura]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Satyajit Ray is this Spanish director's inspiration|author=Suchetana Ray|publisher=[[CNN-IBN]]|date=11 March 2008|url=http://ibnlive.in.com/news/satyajit-ray-is-this-spanish-directors-inspiration/60900-8.html|accessdate=2009-06-06}}</ref> [[Isao Takahata]],<ref>{{cite web|author=Daniel Thomas|title=Film Reviews: Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka)|date=20 January 2003|url=http://www.danielthomas.org/pop/film_reviews/fireflies.htm|accessdate=2009-05-30}}</ref> [[Philip Kaufman]],<ref name=Metroactive>{{cite web|title=Ghost 'World': The influential presence of Satyajit Ray's 'The World of Apu' lingers over some of the greatest American films of all time|author=Steve Palopoli|publisher=[[Metroactive]]|date=October 8–15, 2003|url=http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/10.08.03/apu-0341.html|accessdate=2010-01-16}}</ref> [[Wes Anderson]]<ref name = "The Statesman">{{cite web
</ref> [[Abbas Kiarostami]], [[Elia Kazan]], [[François Truffaut]], [[Carlos Saura]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Satyajit Ray is this Spanish director's inspiration|author=Suchetana Ray|publisher=[[CNN-IBN]]|date=11 March 2008|url=http://ibnlive.in.com/news/satyajit-ray-is-this-spanish-directors-inspiration/60900-8.html|accessdate=2009-06-06}}</ref> [[Isao Takahata]],<ref>{{cite web|author=Daniel Thomas|title=Film Reviews: Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka)|date=20 January 2003|url=http://www.danielthomas.org/pop/film_reviews/fireflies.htm|accessdate=2009-05-30}}</ref> [[Philip Kaufman]],<ref name=Metroactive>{{cite web|title=Ghost 'World': The influential presence of Satyajit Ray's 'The World of Apu' lingers over some of the greatest American films of all time|author=Steve Palopoli|publisher=[[Metroactive]]|date=October 8–15, 2003|url=http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/10.08.03/apu-0341.html|accessdate=2010-01-16}}</ref> [[Wes Anderson]]<ref name = "The Statesman">{{cite web
| title = On Ray's Trail
| title = On Ray's Trail
| url = http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=30&id=172929&usrsess=1
| url = http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=30&id=172929&usrsess=1

Revision as of 05:20, 26 February 2010

The Apu Trilogy is a trilogy consisting of three Bengali films directed by Satyajit Ray: Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu). The films—completed between 1955 and 1959—were based on two Bengali novels written by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay: Pather Panchali (1929) and Aparajito (1932). The original music for the trilogy was composed by Ravi Shankar.

Produced on a shoestring budget[1] of Rs. 1.5 lakh ($3000)[2] using an amateur cast and crew,[3] the trilogy was a milestone in Indian cinema and remains one of the finest examples of Parallel Cinema. The three films went on to win many national and international awards, including three National Film Awards and seven awards from the Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film Festivals. They are today frequently listed among the greatest films of all time and considered one of the greatest film trilogies ever made.[4]

Plot

Apu and his sister Durga running to catch a glimpse of a train, a famous scene in Pather Panchali (1955).

The movies are a "coming of age" narrative in the vein of a bildungsroman, describing the childhood, education and early maturity of a young Bengali named Apu Roy in the early part of the 20th century. The first film Pather Panchali is about Apu's early experiences in rural Bengal, as the son of a poor but high caste family. His father Harihar, a Brahmin, has difficulty in supporting his family. After the death of Apu's sister, Durga, the family moves to the holy city of Benares.

In the second film Aparajito, the family's finances are still precarious. After his father dies there, Apu and his mother Sarbajaya come back to a village in Bengal. Despite incessant poverty, Apu manages to get formal schooling and turns out to be a brilliant student. The growing Apu comes into conflict with his mother. Later, when his mother dies too, he has to learn to live alone.

In the third film Apur Sansar, attempting to become a writer, he accidentally finds himself pressured to marry a girl who has rejected her mentally ill bridegroom. Their blossoming marriage ends in her death in childbirth, after which the despairing Apu abandons his child, but eventually returns to accept his responsibilities.

Production

In 1950, Ray had decided that Pather Panchali, the classic bildungsroman of Bengali literature, published in 1928 by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay, would be the subject matter for his first film. This semi-autobiographical novel describes the growing up of Apu, a small boy in a Bengal village. He went ahead with the film after meeting Jean Renoir during filming of The River (1951) and after watching the Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) while he was in London. Besides the influence of European cinema and Bengali literature, Ray is also indebted to the Indian theatrical tradition, particularly the rasa theory of classical Sanskrit drama. The complicated doctrine of rasa "centers predominantly on feeling experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the spectator. The duality of this kind of a rasa imbrication" shows in The Apu Trilogy.[5]

Ray gathered an inexperienced crew, although both his cameraman Subrata Mitra and art director Bansi Chandragupta went on to achieve great acclaim. The cast consisted of mostly amateur artists. Shooting started in late 1952, using Ray's personal savings. He had hoped once the initial shots had been completed, he would be able to obtain funds to support the project; however, such funding was not forthcoming.[6] Pather Panchali was shot over the unusually long period of three years, because shooting was possible only from time to time, when Ray or production manager Anil Chowdhury could arrange further money.[6] With a loan from the West Bengal government, the film was finally completed and released in 1955 to great critical and popular success, sweeping up numerous prizes and having long runs in both India and abroad. During the making of the film, Ray refused funding from sources who demanded a change in script or the supervision of the producer, and ignored advice from the government (which finally funded the film anyway) to incorporate a happy ending in having Apu's family join a "development project".[7] Even greater help than Renoir's encouragement occurred when Ray showed a sequence to John Huston who was in India scouting locations for The Man Who Would Be King. The sequence is the remarkable vision Apu and his sister have of the train running through the countryside. It was the only sequence Ray had filmed due to his small budget. Huston notified Monroe Wheeler at the New York Museum of Modern Art that a major talent was on the horizon. In India, the reaction to the film was enthusiastic, The Times of India wrote that "It is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema [...] Pather Panchali is pure cinema".[8] In the United Kingdom, Lindsay Anderson wrote a glowing review of the film.[8] However, the reaction was not uniformly positive. After watching the movie, François Truffaut is reported to have said, "I don’t want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands."[9] Bosley Crowther, then the most influential critic of The New York Times, wrote a scathing review of the film that its distributor Ed Harrison thought would kill off the film when it got released in the United States, but instead it enjoyed an exceptionally long run.

Ray's international career started in earnest after the success of his next film, Aparajito (The Unvanquished).[10] This film shows the eternal struggle between the ambitions of a young man, Apu, and the mother who loves him.[10] Many critics, notably Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, rank it even higher than the first film.[10] Aparajito won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film is also notable for introducing the technique of bounce lighting, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets, pioneered by the cinematographer Subrata Mitra.[11]

Ray had not thought about a trilogy while making Aparajito, and it occurred to him only after being asked about the idea in Venice.[12] The final installation of the series, Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) was made in 1959. Just like the two previous films, a number of critics find this to be the supreme achievement of the trilogy (Robin Wood, Aparna Sen). Ray introduced two of his favourite actors Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore in this film. The film finds Apu living in a nondescript Kolkata house in near-poverty. He becomes involved in an unusual marriage with Aparna, the scenes of their life together forming "one of the cinema's classic affirmative depiction of married life",[13] but tragedy ensues. After Apur Sansar was harshly criticised by a Bengali critic, Ray wrote an article defending it—a rare event in Ray's film making career (the other major instance involved the film Charulata, Ray's personal favourite).[14] His success had little influence on his personal life in the years to come. Ray continued to live with his mother, uncle and other members of his extended family in a rented house.[15]

Critical reception

This trilogy is considered by critics around the globe to rank among the greatest achievements of Indian film, and is established as one of the most historically important cinematic debuts. Pather Panchali won at least thirteen international prizes (including Best Human Document at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival), followed by eleven international prizes for Aparajito (including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival) and numerous other awards for Apur Sansar (including the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival). When Ray made Pather Panchali, he worked with a cast and crew most of whom had never been previously involved in the film medium. Ray himself at the time of directing Pather Panchali had primarily worked in the advertising industry, although he had served as assistant director on Jean Renoir's 1951 film The River. From this foundation, Ray went on to create other highly acclaimed films, like Charulata, Mahanagar, and Aranyer Dinratri, and his international success energized other Bengal filmmakers like Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak.

This extract from the South African author J. M. Coetzee, talks of the music in the Apu trilogy, which is based on Indian classical music. From Coetzee's Youth:

At the Everyman Cinema there is a season of Satyajit Ray. He watches the Apu trilogy on successive nights in a state of rapt absorption. In Apu's bitter, trapped mother, his engaging, feckless father he recognizes, with a pang of guilt, his own parents. But it is the music above all that grips him, dizzyingly complex interplays between drums and stringed instruments, long arias on the flute whose scale or mode - he does not know enough about music theory to be sure which - catches at his heart, sending him into a mood of sensual melancholy that last long after the film has ended.

At Rotten Tomatoes, Pather Panchali has a 97% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 34 reviews,[16] Aparajito has a 93% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 14 reviews,[17] and The World of Apu has a 100% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 16 reviews,[18] with all three films having a 100% fresh rating based on reviews from top critics.[16][17][18] Pather Panchali has been included on Rotten Tomatoes' list of top 100 foreign films.[19]

Legacy

Sight & Sound, the British Film Institute's film magazine, listed Pather Panchali several times in its Critics' Poll of all-time greatest films, in 1962 (ranked #11),[20] 1982 (ranked #79),[21] 1992 (ranked #6)[22] and 2002 (ranked #22).[23][24] The World of Apu appeared in 1982, ranked at #42.[21] In the 1992 edition, both Aparajito and The World of Apu were tied at #127,[25] while The Apu Trilogy was ranked separately at #88.[20] In a combined list of Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll results in 2002, Pather Panchali was ranked at #28, The World of Apu at #93 and Aparajito at #160.[26] If the votes are combined, then The Apu Trilogy as a whole would be ranked at #14 in 1982,[21] #4 in 1992[20] and #14 in 2002.[26]

In 1988, John Kobal's poll of critics and filmmakers ranked The Apu Trilogy at #35 on the list.[27] In 1998, the Asian film magazine Cinemaya's critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked The Apu Trilogy at #7 on the list, while Pather Panchali alone was ranked at #2 on the same list. If the votes are combined, then The Apu Trilogy would be ranked at #1.[28] In 1999, The Village Voice ranked Pather Panchali at #12 (tied with The Godfather) in its top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics, while The Apu Trilogy was ranked separately at #54 in the same poll. If the votes are combined, The Apu Trilogy would be ranked at #5.[29] In 2000, an audience poll of best Asian films conducted by MovieMail ranked The Apu Trilogy at #2 on the list.[30]

Pather Panchali was included in various other all-time greatest film lists, including Time Out magazine's "Centenary Top One Hundred Films" in 1995,[31] the San Francisco Chronicle "Hot 100 Films From the Past" in 1997,[32] the Rolling Stone "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" in 1999,[33] and the British Film Institute's Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films in 2005.[34] In 1996, The World of Apu was included in Movieline Magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films".[35][36] In 2002, Pather Panchali and The World of Apu featured in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made".[37] The Apu Trilogy as a whole was included in film critic Roger Ebert's list of "100 Great Movies" in 2001 [38] and in Time magazine's All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005.[39]

Influence

According to Michael Sragow of The Atlantic Monthly in 1994:

In the four decades since Ray's debut as a writer-director — with the first Apu movie, Pather Panchali (1955) — his influence has been felt both in the type of work other directors attempt and in the means they employ to execute it. The youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy, which Terrence Rafferty has rightly called "cinema's purest Bildungsroman." (In baggy-pants homage to Ray, American TV's cartoon-burlesque Bildungsroman, The Simpsons — which could be called "The Education of Bart Simpson" — contains an Indian convenience-store owner named Apu.)[40]

Across the world, filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese,[41][42] James Ivory,[43] Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Carlos Saura,[44] Isao Takahata,[45] Philip Kaufman,[46] Wes Anderson[47] and Danny Boyle[48] have been influenced by The Apu Trilogy, with many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising the work.[49] In Gregory Nava's 1995 film My Family, the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of Apur Sansar. Similar influences and references to the trilogy can be found, for example, in recent works such as Sacred Evil,[50] Key's 2004 visual novel Clannad,[51] Paul Auster's 2008 novel Man in the Dark,[52] the Elements trilogy of Deepa Mehta and even in films of Jean-Luc Godard.[53] The technique of bounce lighting pioneered by Subrata Mitra, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets, has also had a profound influence on the development of cinematography.[11]

Awards and nominations

See also: List of awards conferred on Satyajit Ray

National awards

President's Medals
National Film Awards

International film festivals

Cannes Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
British Film Institute Awards, London Film Festival
Edinburgh International Film Festival
  • Winner - 1956 - Diploma Of Merit - Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road)
  • Winner - 1960 - Diploma Of Merit - Apur Sansar (The World of Apu)
San Francisco International Film Festival
  • Winner - 1957 - Golden Gate for Best Picture - Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road)
  • Winner - 1957 - Golden Gate for Best Director - Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) - Satyajit Ray
  • Winner - 1958 - Golden Gate for Best Picture - Aparajito (The Unvanquished)
  • Winner - 1958 - Golden Gate for Best Director - Aparajito (The Unvanquished) - Satyajit Ray
  • Winner - 1958 - International Critics' Award - Aparajito (The Unvanquished)
Vancouver International Film Festival
New York Film Festival
  • Winner - 1959 - Best Foreign Film - Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road)
Stratford Film Festival
  • Winner - 1958 - Critics' Award for Best Film - Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road)

Other international awards

National Board of Review Awards (United States)
Kinema Junpo Awards (Tokyo)
Bodil Awards (Denmark) [2]
British Academy Film Awards (United Kingdom)
Other awards

Notes

  1. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 77 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRobinson2003 (help)
  2. ^ Pradip Biswas (16 September 2005). "50 years of Pather Panchali". Screen Weekly. Retrieved 2009-04-23. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ Robinson 2003, pp. 78–9 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRobinson2003 (help)
  4. ^ "Final chapter of the Apu Trilogy to be screened". Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. 26 September 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-22.
  5. ^ Cooper, Darius (2000), The Cinema of Satyajit Ray: Between Tradition and Modernity, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–4, ISBN 0521629802
  6. ^ a b Robinson 2003, pp. 74–90 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRobinson2003 (help)
  7. ^ Seton 1971, p. 95
  8. ^ a b Seton 1971, pp. 112–15
  9. ^ "Filmi Funda Pather Panchali (1955)". The Telegraph. 2005-04-20. Retrieved 2006-04-29.
  10. ^ a b c Robinson 2003, pp. 91–106 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRobinson2003 (help)
  11. ^ a b "Subrata Mitra". Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  12. ^ Wood 1972, p. 61
  13. ^ Wood 1972
  14. ^ Ray mentions this in Ray 1993, p. 13
  15. ^ Robinson 2003, p. 5 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRobinson2003 (help)
  16. ^ a b Pather Panchali at Rotten Tomatoes
  17. ^ a b Aparajito at Rotten Tomatoes
  18. ^ a b The Apu Trilogy at Rotten Tomatoes
  19. ^ "Best of Rotten Tomatoes: Foreign". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  20. ^ a b c Aaron and Mark Caldwell (2004). "Sight and Sound". Top 100 Movie Lists. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  21. ^ a b c "SIGHT AND SOUND 1982 RANKING OF FILMS". Retrieved 2009-05-29.
  22. ^ "The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1992". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  23. ^ "Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002: The rest of the critics' list". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
  24. ^ Ivana Redwine. ""Apu Trilogy" DVD Review". About.com. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
  25. ^ "SIGHT AND SOUND 1992 RANKING OF FILMS". Retrieved 2009-05-29.
  26. ^ a b "2002 Sight & Sound Top Films Survey of 253 International Critics & Film Directors". Cinemacom. 2002. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  27. ^ George C. Wu. "John Kobal Presents The Top 100 Movies". California Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  28. ^ Totaro, Donato (31 January 2003), "The "Sight & Sound" of Canons", Offscreen Journal, Canada Council for the Arts, retrieved 2009-04-19
  29. ^ "Take One: The First Annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll". The Village Voice. 1999. Archived from the original on 2007-08-26. Retrieved 2006-07-27. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  30. ^ "Lists". Film Journey. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
  31. ^ "Top 100 Films (Centenary) from Time Out Film Guide". Filmsite.org. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  32. ^ "Hot 100 Films From the Past by San Francisco Chronicle Film Critics". Filmsite.org. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  33. ^ "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years by Rolling Stone Magazine". Filmsite.org. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  34. ^ "The Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films by the British Film Institute (BFI)". Filmsite.org. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  35. ^ "100 Greatest Foreign Films by Movieline Magazine". Filmsite.org. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  36. ^ "Movieline's 100 Best Foreign Films". GreenCine. 6 April 2008. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  37. ^ The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, THE FILM CRITICS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, The New York Times, 2002
  38. ^ Roger Ebert (4 March 2001). "The Apu Trilogy (1959)". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  39. ^ "All-time 100 Movies". Time. Time Inc. 2005. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
  40. ^ Sragow, Michael (1994), "An Art Wedded to Truth", The Atlantic Monthly, University of California, Santa Cruz, retrieved 2009-05-11
  41. ^ Chris Ingui. "Martin Scorsese hits DC, hangs with the Hachet". Hatchet. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
  42. ^ Jay Antani (2004). "Raging Bull: A film review". Filmcritic.com. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  43. ^ Sheldon Hall. "Ivory, James (1928-)". Screen Online. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  44. ^ Suchetana Ray (11 March 2008). "Satyajit Ray is this Spanish director's inspiration". CNN-IBN. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
  45. ^ Daniel Thomas (20 January 2003). "Film Reviews: Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka)". Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  46. ^ Steve Palopoli (October 8–15, 2003). "Ghost 'World': The influential presence of Satyajit Ray's 'The World of Apu' lingers over some of the greatest American films of all time". Metroactive. Retrieved 2010-01-16.
  47. ^ "On Ray's Trail". The Statesman. Retrieved 2007-10-19.
  48. ^ Alkarim Jivani (February 2009). "Mumbai rising". Sight & Sound. Retrieved 2009-02-01.
  49. ^ Robinson, A (2003), Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker, I. B. Tauris, p. 96, ISBN 1860649653
  50. ^ SK Jha. "Sacred Ray". Telegraph India. Retrieved 2006-06-29.
  51. ^ Erin Finnegan (January 11th, 2010). "Shelf Life: Road to El Cazador". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2010-01-16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  52. ^ Douglas Kennedy (19 September 2008). "Man in the Dark, by Paul Auster: Reflections from a hall of mirrors where the present changes shape". The Independent. Retrieved 2009-07-09. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  53. ^ André Habib. "Before and After: Origins and Death in the Work of Jean-Luc Godard". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 2006-06-29.
  54. ^ "Pather Panchali". Satyajit Ray official site. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
  55. ^ a b "Apur Sansar". Satyajit Ray official site. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
  56. ^ "Apu Trilogy". Satyajit Ray official site. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
  57. ^ "Aparajito". Satyajit Ray official site. Retrieved 2009-05-01.

See also

References

  • Ray, S (1993), Our films, their films (3 ed.), Asia Book Corp of Amer, ISBN 0863113176.
  • Robinson, A (2003), Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker, I. B. Tauris, ISBN 1860649653.
  • Seton, Marie (1971), Satyajit Ray: Portrait of a director, Indiana University Press, ISBN 0253168155.
  • Wood, R (1972), The Apu trilogy, November Books Ltd, ISBN 0856310034.
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