One of biggest
contribution of Ray to the world of cinema was his choice of subjects.
He explored a range of characters and situations. Many of these were
alien to popular Indian cinema, as they were not considered suitable
film subjects in India. He brought real concerns of real people to
the screen - villagers, city middle-class, intellectuals, rich and
famous, detectives, kings...Ray himself summed up a very important
aspect of his films: "Villains bore me." Good Vs evil, white
vs. black, the hero and the villain. It was an age-old formula for
evading the real truth. He explored the complex shades of grey in
stead.
His films show a diversity of moods, techniques, and genres - comedy,
satire, fantasy, and tragedy... Usually he made realistic films
but he also experimented with surrealist devices and fantasy -
Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970), Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (Adventures
of Goopy and Bagha, 1968) and Hirak Rajar Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds,
1980) to name a few.
In Devi (The Goddess, 1960), he produced
an Ibsen-like parable on the power of superstition, and later in Ganashatru
(Enemy of the People, 1989).
Ray was deeply concerned with the social identity of his characters.
He believed that behaviour of people emerges from their existence
in a particular place and time in a particular social context. This
was and is, largely ignored in most popular Indian song-and-dance
films. In an effort to appeal to different linguistic states of India,
the makers of Bollywood (Bombay / Mumbai film industry) films consciously
avoid any references to a particular place. Even the names of characters
and places are made as "universal" as possible.
On the other hand, the extraordinary believability of Ray's characters
comes from their being firmly rooted in a well defined society- usually
Bengali life in the nineteenth or twentieth century. Curiously, the
feeling of "universality" stems form this authentic localism
and specifics. He generally suggests the context by meaningful details,
gradually forming an enveloping world.
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Aparajito, 1956 ©Teknica
Devi, 1960©Teknica
Charulata, 1964 ©Teknica
Nayak, 1966 ©Teknica |
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