Original subtitles

action this is an interview with

satellite ray

recorded in vermont on august 31st

1958 mr ray i'm very glad to have the

opportunity to discuss

indian films and in particular 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 saw 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 started

shooting this film with our own money

this is the film party panchali

discussing that yes

yes that was in other words your first

film you've since made others

i have made the sequel to it

and i have made a comedy after that what

was the name of the comedy the comedy

was called in english 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

uh

it all depended on how the first film

would be received

and do you now 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'm completing

the trilogy

actually both ali was the first part of

a trilogy i had in mind

and i've 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 well i perhaps i could go on

with the trilogy after all

apartheid charlie of course got the

award recently at the uh

stratford film festival oh yes it has

won a few awards

yes it won the first award that it won

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 uh

when you say that uh the third film that

you made was quite a change

and you did it as a change i well i'll

interrupt for a second i did it as a

change and i did it because

i had to make some kind of a film my

unit was sitting idle and we could

couldn't afford to wait any longer and i

had this comedy i 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

when you say formula bound you mean the

formula indian films yes

what is the formula for indian film well

uh they're like uh

mythological and devotional subjects and

even social themes

they do like occasionally but they have

to be uh 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

forum absolutely not the departures

would you say that they are more western

in style no i don't think so i think

i've managed to evolve

uh an absolutely bengali

i wouldn't say indian because india is a

vast country in 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 are

working on well actually a style is a

combination of many factors

of of the movement of the people of the

quality of the landscape

of the textures the visual textures

of the manner in which uh words are used

languages 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 and 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 i

should like to do it very much indeed

with the three films that i have so far

made

and the fourth one that i'm making have

all been based on

existing stories i always do a lot of

adjusting

but both early 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 in arrangements you know

of the sequences the music that was used

in partha panchali seemed to go along

very well with the images in all

instances did you plan

the music ahead of time while you were

shooting no well

actually the music was recorded and uh

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

uh in a single sitting which means

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 blocked string instrument yes

and there are actually two predominating

in instruments used in this film one is

a setup the other is a flute

base flute and some drums we used

percussion instruments were used also

the composer was uh shankar that is the

brother of the dancer

rubbish hunter 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

let's see actually we had to do a lot of

juggling in the editing room you know to

sort of get the music in sync

well if you had 14 hours of music and

the film 14 hours of

composing playing recording that took 14

hours

but 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 in in some cases are

uh rather fast they were

cut like this by you originally yes i

like rough edges once in a while you

know yes

i like a rough quality to my phones does

that in any way

contradict the normal method of

filmmaking in india

a rough edge yes yes it does because

the films produced in bombay and madras

for instance are quite slick

in the hollywood manner excellent

processing and excellent cutting and

this and that

how did the indian public uh like they

liked

it very much indeed they liked pathetic

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 pathetic

shooting outdoors and using

non-professionals 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 well uh

i was completely overwhelmed by my my

bicycle thieves when i first saw it in

london

the seeker yes absolutely i had seen

open city before that

but uh 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 bothered partially in mind even

before that

but i saw bicycle thieves in 1950

i wouldn't say that i was influenced by

bicycle thieves

because there were films that are before

that which i had liked and applied

immensely almost as much as bicycle

thieves

films of flaherty for one thing and from

some of the films of john ford

and some renoir like the southerner

and some dojenko 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 influenced

by literature

by music by by 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 some

accepted methods of filmmaking and to

want to do it in india

well there was no question of my working

away from bengal

because i had always felt that one

is best most creative in one's own soil

you know

i i know bengal better than any other

place in the world

i can't emphasize envisage making films

in europe for instance in italy i know

if italian and french directors have

worked in india

but uh i i do admire courage but i i

shall never be able to undertake her

making a film abroad

or even outside bengal for instance in a

place like bombay which

speaks a different language and which is

a different look

is there anything in pasa panchali that

is i don't want to say autobiographical

but that

reflects any personal

part of yourself more strongly i was i'm

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

uh takes place in the city more i

felt i feel a greater kinship for 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 he's

irrational he's almost an intellectual

you might say

and i understand him best in the third

part

and perhaps some of my own uh my

feelings will go into the character

i'd like to ask you some more technical

questions about

the panchali if i may uh first of all

uh did you shoot all the uh things in a

village

yes not very far from calcutta actually

you can drive 10 miles out of the city

and come to a

village with no electricity you know

it's quite

an authentic village with nothing of the

city about it

how long did you shoot the film how long

did it take you to

shoot all the exterior well you see the

number of shooting days i think was

uh 70 two or three 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 rather all the people who worked with

you on the film were

well the crew they were all friends of

mine you see

and have they worked in other films well

the art director had

some professional experience and the

editor 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 he i think he had done some still

photography

not no as an amateur you know just he

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 and

he had watched claude renoir at 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

they're

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 which

makes you contemplate it for its own

sake is wrong

i mean it's it then it's it's not

serving its function properly i think

were you satisfied with the work that

was done on youtube

well very large part of it i was i found

it very satisfactory of course i have

you know i have my own satisfactions

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

well 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

you