Original subtitles

Action.

This is

an interview

with Satyajit Ray, recorded in Vermont

on August 31st, 1958.

Mr.

Ray, I'm

very glad to have the opportunity

to discuss

Indian films

and in particularly

your own films with you this evening.

I would like to start,

for the sake of our listeners,

by asking you just briefly,

to give us a short

history of your work in films.

Actually, I was not a filmmaker before

I was a commercial artist,

but I have always been very seriously

interested in movies

and I

and in 1947,

I think I read a very fine book,

which I thought would make a good film,

and I so I wrote a script

and it was in 50, I think, that I

started looking for a sponsor.

I had my script

and I couldn't find a sponsor.

So in 52,

I think it took one year

to find out that nobody would back me

financially.

Yes, financially. Yes.

And in 52,

I and a few friends of mine

managed to pull our resources

and we started shooting this film

with our own money.

This is the film Project Panchali

that you are suggesting? Yes, yes.

That was, in other words,

your first film.

And you have since made others.

I have made a sequel to it, a projector,

and I have made a comedy after that.

What was the name of the comedy?

The comedy was called in English

and The Philosopher's Stone,

and these were all made in India.

Yes,

they were all made in India, in Bengal,

in Calcutta, in my hometown.

And when you began

making the preparations for your film,

did you have an idea

that you would devote

the rest of your life to directing films?

Yes, I had I had some such hopes.

You know,

I it all depended on

how the first film would be received.

And do you think that

that is what you will do?

Yes. Oh, yes.

I'm absolutely definite about it.

Do you have any plans

now for other films?

Yes, I am completing the trilogy.

Actually, Pather

Panchali was the first part of a trilogy

I had in mind,

and I just started the third part.

And what was the reason that you made a

another a third film, a comedy

not part of the trilogy in between.

Actually, the second one was not

very well

received in India and it lost some money.

And well, I did it as a change, you know.

And then the second one

got the Venice award,

and I felt that

perhaps I could go on with the trilogy

after all.

The Price of Panchali,

of course, got the award

recently at the Stratford Film Festival.

Yes, it has one of the few awards.

Yes, it won the the first award.

That one was at Cannes.

What year was that?

That was 1956, I think.

For direction.

Yes.

No, no,

it got a special Grand Prix

as the best human document.

When you say that, the

third film that you made

was quite a change

and you did it as a change.

Well, I interrupt from second.

I did it as a change,

and I did it

because I had to make

some kind of a phone.

My unit was sitting idle,

and we couldn't afford to wait

any longer,

and I had just come,

and I thought I would just

experiment with a comedy.

How was it received?

It was received

very well in the big cities, of course,

but in the suburbs

they like the more

formula bound films,

you see, and let's say formula bound.

You mean the formula formula in film?

Yes. What is the formula for Indian film?

Well, they like,

mythological and devotional subjects

and even social themes.

They do, like, occasionally,

but they have to be, spiced with songs

and dances, you know, generally,

I mean that as a rule.

But there are exceptions, of course.

Then your films are not made

according to the Indian form.

Absolute in Australia and departures.

Would you say that

they are more Western in style?

No, I don't think so.

I think I've managed to evolve,

an absolutely Bengali.

I wouldn't say Indian

because India is a vast country

and a very varied sort of country.

I think I've I've been able to evolve

a Bengali style of a realistic

sort of filmmaking.

Do you suppose you could put in words

some of the things that are involved

in this Bengali style

that you're working on?

Well, actually,

the style is a combination

of many factors of of the movement

of the people,

not the quality of the landscape,

of the textures, the visual textures,

the manner in which words is used.

Language is spoken

and the rhythm of life itself.

I think the rhythm of the film

must, to a certain extent,

reflect the rhythm of

the life of the people

that are involved in the story.

I like simple themes,

simple emotional situations, and

I think simple things are more universal

than complex ones.

When you, begin working on a script,

do you always look for a story

which already exists in a written form,

or will you, in your future work,

try to write scenarios

based on ideas of your own?

I should like to do it very much indeed,

but the three films that I have

so far made, and a fourth one that I am

making,

have all been based on existing stories.

I always do a lot of adjusting,

but both are partially.

For instance,

the incidents in the film

are all in the book,

but not in the order

in which they appear in the film.

You see,

I made changes and arrangements

for no other sequences.

The music

that was used in Pather

Panchali seem to go along

very well with the images, and always.

Did you plan the music ahead of time

when you were shooting?

No.

Well, actually the music was recorded

and composed. I wouldn't say composed.

It was played

all in a continuous session of 14 hours.

One day,

actually, after the film was finished,

not quite finished,

but the composer was available

at a particular time

and I had to use him then.

You see,

I had discussions with him

before he started doing music,

and I told him that I needed certain

kinds of music,

and he was able to give me what I needed.

It just

played, recorded,

in a single setting, which meant the

the composer played

the instruments,

he played the instruments,

and he had other instrumentalists

as well.

But much of the music was played

by himself on an instrument

which we call the sitar,

which is a string plot.

String instrument. Yes.

And there are actually two

predominating instruments

used in this film.

One is a sedan, the other is a flute

based flute.

That was, and some transfused

percussion instruments were used.

Also the composer was, Shankar.

That is the brother of the dancer.

Ravi Shankar is the name of the composer

I see.

And he has written music

for films before.

No, that is the first film that he made.

I see.

Actually, we had to do a lot of juggling

in the editing room, you know, to sort of

get the music in sync.

But if you had 14 hours of music

and the film,

14 hours of composing, playing,

recording, that took 14 hours.

And you know,

thought

not 14 hours of music,

it was the session which lasted 14 hours.

The music was about,

I think, an hour and a half altogether.

The transitions from incident to incident

in the film, which and in some cases are,

rather fast.

They were

cut like this by your original ears.

I like rough edges once in a while.

You know,

I like a rough quality to my films.

Does that in any way

contradict the normal method

of filmmaking in India?

The rough edges, as it were,

is it does,

because the films produced in Bombay

and Madras,

for instance, are quite slick,

and the Hollywood manner

excellent processing

and excellent cutting in this and that.

How did the Indian public, like.

They liked it very much indeed.

They liked it very much.

And did they?

Do you think that perhaps

there is a

development away

from the traditional

film in India,

as spurred perhaps, by your work?

I think some new directors

in Bengal

at least, are working on similar lines.

They have been given encouragement

to make different kinds

of film, rather on the lines of

their children

shooting outdoors

and using nonprofessionals

and that kind of thing,

because it's cheaper

to make films that way.

For one thing,

is there anything in

the history of world cinema

that has influenced you, particularly?

But,

I was completely overwhelmed

by my bicycle thieves

when I first saw it in London.

De Sica yes, absolutely.

I had seen Open City before that, but,

it was Bicycle Thieves,

which really sort of opened

my eyes, opened windows for me.

This was before you made any films?

Yes,

I had bought it partially in mind

even before that.

But I saw Bicycle Thieves in 1950,

and I wouldn't say

that I was influenced by Bicycle Thieves,

because there were films of the time

before that

which I had liked and imbibed immensely,

almost as much as Bicycle Thieves films.

A flat, for one thing,

and for some of the films of John Ford

and some Renoir, like the Sadhana.

And, some dodgy ankle.

I think that they had contributions

towards

the ultimate evolution of my style,

whatever it may be.

I mean, but

one is not necessarily

influenced by films alone, you know,

one is by literature,

by music, by my bike,

by just looking at things,

absorbing impressions and

all manner of things.

But it would seem to me that it took

considerable courage in 1950 to envisage

making a film

which presents a complete departure

in some accepted methods of filmmaking,

and to want to do it in India.

But there was no question

of my working away from Bangalore,

because I had always found that one

is best,

most creative in one's own style.

You know,

I know Bengal

better than any other place in the world.

I can't

envisage making films

in Europe, for instance in Italy.

I know if Italian and French

directors have worked in India,

but I do admire their courage.

But I shall never be able to undertake

making a film abroad

or even outside Bengal, for instance,

in a place like Bombay,

which speaks a different language

and which has a different look.

Is there anything in Partha Panchali?

That is.

I don't want to say autobiographical,

but that reflects any personal

part of yourself more strongly.

I was essentially a city man,

but I was very sympathetic

to the theme to the

to everything in the book.

And it's in the second film

and the third film,

which sort of takes

place in the city more I felt

I feel

a greater kinship

with the central character,

because I understand him

more and more as the film

sort of progresses and

I think the third film,

is very much after my own heart,

you know, because

he's supposed to be an educated young man

who was rid of all his prejudices.

His irrational is almost an

intellectual, you might say,

and I understand him best in

the third part,

and perhaps some of my own.

My feelings will go into the character.

I'd like to ask you

some more technical questions

about you, about the Panchali, if I may.

First of all,

did you shoot all the,

things in the village? Yes.

Not very far from Calcutta, actually.

You can drive ten miles out of the city

and come to a village

with no electricity.

You know, it's a quite

authentic village

with nothing of the city about it.

How long did you shoot the film?

How long did it take you to shoot

on the exterior?

Well,

you see, the number of shooting days

I think was, 72 or 3 in all,

but it was spread over

a period of three years

because we had no money for

long stretches in between,

and we were just

waiting for the next installment of money

from somewhere or other.

All the people who worked

with you on the film were,

well, the crew,

they were all friends of mine, you see.

And they have they worked in other film.

Well,

the art director

had some professional experience,

and the editor

had had some professional experience

about the cameraman.

But the cameraman was absolutely new.

He he was a young musician.

He was a good friend of mine.

He played the sitar

and I think he had done

some still photography,

not as an amateur, you know, just

you had to happen to have a camera,

that's all.

But he was an ambitious young boy

and he wanted to make a movie

if possible.

He had watched Claude Renoir

work on the river.

But of course

that was color and the problems,

they were quite different

and lighting, etc.

absolutely different.

Did you have a lot to do

with the design of every frame,

or was it more or less?

No, I don't like to sort of

well composed frames.

You know, there

after all,

generally you have panning shots

and things.

So composition

and filmmaking

is not quite the same as composition

and painting, for instance,

I think a too well designed

sort of frame,

but it makes you contemplated for its own

sake is wrong.

I mean, it's it

then it's not serving

its function properly, I think.

Well,

are you satisfied with the work

that was done on your film?

A very large part of it

was I found it very satisfactory.

Of course I have.

You know,

I have my own dissatisfaction

with certain aspects of it,

but we did our best.

We were not always

able to do what we wanted.

And I think,

I think the cameraman

did a very good job indeed. Oh, yes.

But I certainly think that you did

your best. I may say so.

And I'd like to thank you

for being with us this evening

and discussing your film work with you.

I'd like to wish you

good luck in the future.

Thank you. Thank you very much.