Stars: Chhabi Biswas, Gangapada Bose, Kali Sarkar, Padma Devi | Written and Directed by Satyajit Ray
After the commercial failure of the second part of his Apu Trilogy, Bengali auteur Satyajit Ray opted for more commercially viable material for his next project. He turned to writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, and a short story about a landlord clinging to his last motes of power as his empire crumbles around him. The result was 1958’s Jalsaghar, released internationally as The Music Room.
The landlord (or zamindar) in question is Lord Roy, played by Chhabi Biswas with a gravitas that matches his contemporary, Laurence Olivier. The film opens halfway through the narrative, with Roy as a bent old man, and the last of his servants, Ananta (Kali Sarkar), still at his side. We jump back four years to show what brought Roy to near-ruin, before the second half of the movie shows us how he...
After the commercial failure of the second part of his Apu Trilogy, Bengali auteur Satyajit Ray opted for more commercially viable material for his next project. He turned to writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, and a short story about a landlord clinging to his last motes of power as his empire crumbles around him. The result was 1958’s Jalsaghar, released internationally as The Music Room.
The landlord (or zamindar) in question is Lord Roy, played by Chhabi Biswas with a gravitas that matches his contemporary, Laurence Olivier. The film opens halfway through the narrative, with Roy as a bent old man, and the last of his servants, Ananta (Kali Sarkar), still at his side. We jump back four years to show what brought Roy to near-ruin, before the second half of the movie shows us how he...
- 8/3/2017
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
Editor’s Note: This article is presented in partnership with FilmStruck. Developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection, FilmStruck features the largest streaming library of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films as well as extensive bonus content, filmmaker interviews and rare footage. Learn more here.
Wes Anderson has one of the most original voices of any filmmaker working today, but his movies are full of clues as to which directors have influenced him the most. From Orson Welles to François Truffaut to Federico Fellini, some of the most iconic filmmakers in the history of cinema have had a hand in inspiring Anderson’s distinctive style. Here are 10 films that had a lasting impact on the indie auteur.
“The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942)
Orson Welles’ period drama about a wealthy family that loses its entire fortune at the turn of the 20th century...
Wes Anderson has one of the most original voices of any filmmaker working today, but his movies are full of clues as to which directors have influenced him the most. From Orson Welles to François Truffaut to Federico Fellini, some of the most iconic filmmakers in the history of cinema have had a hand in inspiring Anderson’s distinctive style. Here are 10 films that had a lasting impact on the indie auteur.
“The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942)
Orson Welles’ period drama about a wealthy family that loses its entire fortune at the turn of the 20th century...
- 4/26/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Starring: Vidya Balan, Arjun Rampal, Jugal Hansaraj, Tota Roy Choudhury
Directed by Sujoy Ghosh
It’s just another ordinary humid laconic night in Chandanagar, a small dusty town on the outskirts of Kolkata where, as one grinning havaldar informs his senior, nothing ever happens.
Well, all that is about to change. Sujoy Ghosh’s small-town suspense thriller knocks the bottom of the thriller genre. Kahaani 2, no relation to the first film in the suspenseful series that Sujoy directed to ever-casting fame (it’s Vidya Balan all the way in this franchise) is not only a first-rate action drama with some of the most ingenious action (including one absolutely spellbinding fist-to-fist between the brave Balan and female khaki-clad assassin) it is also a haunting deeply disturbing mirror of our times when normalcy and decorum often hide grievous disturbances, best left untampered and unrevealed. Until someone dares to tell the truth.
Directed by Sujoy Ghosh
It’s just another ordinary humid laconic night in Chandanagar, a small dusty town on the outskirts of Kolkata where, as one grinning havaldar informs his senior, nothing ever happens.
Well, all that is about to change. Sujoy Ghosh’s small-town suspense thriller knocks the bottom of the thriller genre. Kahaani 2, no relation to the first film in the suspenseful series that Sujoy directed to ever-casting fame (it’s Vidya Balan all the way in this franchise) is not only a first-rate action drama with some of the most ingenious action (including one absolutely spellbinding fist-to-fist between the brave Balan and female khaki-clad assassin) it is also a haunting deeply disturbing mirror of our times when normalcy and decorum often hide grievous disturbances, best left untampered and unrevealed. Until someone dares to tell the truth.
- 12/4/2016
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
Of the Big Three new wavers of German cinema—Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders-- who “came of age” as it were in the ‘70s, when I was in college and my own stake in the movies was budding into something more learned and substantial than what it was when I first discovered my love for them, Herzog has emerged as the director who most speaks to me now as an adult. I think that’s true at least in part because when his movies do speak to me it never feels like a one-sided conversation. I feel like I’m in there engaging in a push-pull with Herzog’s ability to seduce me (disarm me?) with his simplicity of approach, an ability which rarely seems satisfied to consider subjects from the less-perverse of two perspectives, and his tendency to rhapsodize and harangue and sidestep visual motifs...
- 12/19/2015
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 40: Late Ray.
About the films:
The films directed by the great Satyajit Ray in the last ten years of his life have a unique dignity and drama. Three of them are collected here: the fervent Rabindranath Tagore adaptation The Home and the World; the vital An Enemy of the People, based on the Henrik Ibsen play; and the filmmaker’s final work, the poignant and philosophical family story The Stranger. They are complex, political, and humane depictions of worlds both corrupt and indescribably beautiful, constructed with Ray’s characteristic elegance and imbued with autumnal profundity. These late-career features are the meditative works of a master.
Subscribe to...
About the films:
The films directed by the great Satyajit Ray in the last ten years of his life have a unique dignity and drama. Three of them are collected here: the fervent Rabindranath Tagore adaptation The Home and the World; the vital An Enemy of the People, based on the Henrik Ibsen play; and the filmmaker’s final work, the poignant and philosophical family story The Stranger. They are complex, political, and humane depictions of worlds both corrupt and indescribably beautiful, constructed with Ray’s characteristic elegance and imbued with autumnal profundity. These late-career features are the meditative works of a master.
Subscribe to...
- 12/2/2015
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
“Songs Of Humanity”
By Raymond Benson
I’ll bet many of you cinephiles out there have heard of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed trilogy of films from the 1950s (Pather Panchali, aka Song of the Little Road, 1955; Aparajito, aka The Unvanquished, 1956; and Apur Sansar, aka The World of Apu, 1959), but have never actually seen them. Here is your chance to rectify that egregious error. Quite simply put, anyone interested in film history needs to have this trio of motion pictures under the belt.
Satyajit Ray, who received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992, began his career as an illustrator of books. One of these was Pather Panchali, a classic of Bengali literature (1928) written by Bibhutibushan Bandyopadhyay, and its sequel, Aparajito (1932). They comprise the story of the growth of a boy from infancy to adulthood over the course of twenty-five years or so (from the 1910s to the 1930s...
By Raymond Benson
I’ll bet many of you cinephiles out there have heard of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed trilogy of films from the 1950s (Pather Panchali, aka Song of the Little Road, 1955; Aparajito, aka The Unvanquished, 1956; and Apur Sansar, aka The World of Apu, 1959), but have never actually seen them. Here is your chance to rectify that egregious error. Quite simply put, anyone interested in film history needs to have this trio of motion pictures under the belt.
Satyajit Ray, who received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992, began his career as an illustrator of books. One of these was Pather Panchali, a classic of Bengali literature (1928) written by Bibhutibushan Bandyopadhyay, and its sequel, Aparajito (1932). They comprise the story of the growth of a boy from infancy to adulthood over the course of twenty-five years or so (from the 1910s to the 1930s...
- 11/28/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Pather Panchali/Aparajito/Apur Sansar
Written and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1955/1956/1959
The Criterion Collection set of Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy has been one of the more eagerly anticipated releases in recent years. These masterworks of world cinema, widely acclaimed for decades, have been long overdue a much-deserved superior treatment on home video. Now though, benefitting from a 4K digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and L’Immagine Ritrovata, and with a wealth of bonus features, these exceptional films are available in the superb presentation so many have been waiting for.
But to start at the source, such a treatment would not have been warranted in the first place were the films themselves not so remarkable, and that they most certainly are. As no less an authority than Akira Kurosawa puts it, “To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without...
Written and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1955/1956/1959
The Criterion Collection set of Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy has been one of the more eagerly anticipated releases in recent years. These masterworks of world cinema, widely acclaimed for decades, have been long overdue a much-deserved superior treatment on home video. Now though, benefitting from a 4K digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and L’Immagine Ritrovata, and with a wealth of bonus features, these exceptional films are available in the superb presentation so many have been waiting for.
But to start at the source, such a treatment would not have been warranted in the first place were the films themselves not so remarkable, and that they most certainly are. As no less an authority than Akira Kurosawa puts it, “To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without...
- 11/24/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Pedro Almodóvar explains why he changed the title of his next film from Silencio to Julieta (via THR), and see a new look above:
When we began with preproduction I found out that Martin Scorsese was going to shoot a film with the same title, but I didn’t mind because I thought that I would use the Spanish title, which sounds much different, in the markets. Scorcese and I have finished shooting our respective films and we know that we will coincide in theaters around the world next year around the same time. Additionally, the novel the film is based on by Shusaku Endo will be rereleased.
Pedro Almodóvar explains why he changed the title of his next film from Silencio to Julieta (via THR), and see a new look above:
When we began with preproduction I found out that Martin Scorsese was going to shoot a film with the same title, but I didn’t mind because I thought that I would use the Spanish title, which sounds much different, in the markets. Scorcese and I have finished shooting our respective films and we know that we will coincide in theaters around the world next year around the same time. Additionally, the novel the film is based on by Shusaku Endo will be rereleased.
- 11/18/2015
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.
The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray)
Although it premiered 60 years ago this week at the Museum of Modern Art, Satyajit Ray‘s Pather Panchali remains among both the most accomplished of debuts and cinema’s most universally relatable experiences. Accentuating the basics of human emotions to result in the most complex of reactions, Ray’s subsequent trilogy of films follows the hardships of a Bengali boy as he passes into adulthood, a delicately powerful tale of transition that’s now been gloriously restored.
The Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray)
Although it premiered 60 years ago this week at the Museum of Modern Art, Satyajit Ray‘s Pather Panchali remains among both the most accomplished of debuts and cinema’s most universally relatable experiences. Accentuating the basics of human emotions to result in the most complex of reactions, Ray’s subsequent trilogy of films follows the hardships of a Bengali boy as he passes into adulthood, a delicately powerful tale of transition that’s now been gloriously restored.
- 11/17/2015
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (David Lowery)
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a particular kind of film, one that was probably never destined to find a wide audience. While the basic story, about a jailed robber escaping prison to return to the love of his life and their child, may sound like a fairly rote plot, the earnestness and poeticism of the film could drive people away.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (David Lowery)
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a particular kind of film, one that was probably never destined to find a wide audience. While the basic story, about a jailed robber escaping prison to return to the love of his life and their child, may sound like a fairly rote plot, the earnestness and poeticism of the film could drive people away.
- 10/23/2015
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
Read More: 10 Films That Should Be in the Criterion Collection After touring the country earlier this year courtesy of Janus Films, the 4k restoration of Satyajit Ray's acclaimed "The Apu Trilogy" is finally coming to the Criterion Collection this November. The trilogy, made up of "Pather Panchali" ("Sons of the Little Road"), "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished") and "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu"), is famous for bringing India into the golden age of international arthouse cinema. Based on two books by Bibhutibhusan Banerjee, it follows a free-spirited child in rural Bengal who matures into an adolescent urban student and a sensitive man of the world. The Criterion release will include bonus interviews and audio recordings. Joining Ray's masterpiece is Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown," starring Juliette Binoche. The film will be released in a new 2k print and have a ton of bonus features,...
- 8/18/2015
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
While The Criterion Collection has other releases coming in November, let's just face it — Satyajit Ray's "The Apu Trilogy" is the centerpiece treat and crown jewel, so let's start there, shall we? Read More: The Essentials: Satyajit Ray's 'Apu' Trilogy Plus 3 Other Must-See Ray Films Available Now Yep, as long expected and wished for the, the boutique label is finally putting "Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road)," "Aparajito (The Unvanquished)," and "Apur Sansar (The World of Apu)" into one must have set. These aren't just barebones releases: given spiffy 4K restorations, they come with extras (interviews, documentary excerpts, audio recordings) and basically anything and everything someone who has been waiting for these movies to get officially released stateside could want. It's the cinephile must-have holiday gift this year. Elsewhere, Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown" will mark his first entry into Criterion. The...
- 8/17/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
So here we are, smack dab in the middle of the dog days of summer (and if you don’t get that little saying, try lying out on the sidewalk in 100-degree heat for 15 minutes or so, like Fido does, and see if a light bulb doesn’t go off). The dogs are often howling in movie theaters too—at times it seems as though August has replaced January in the hearts of moviegoers as the dumping ground for pictures not really worthy of our attention (or a serious investment in the marketing department). Movies like Pixels and Fantastic Four have their perverse fascination—just how bad can they possibly be? Both were greeted with reviews so scathing and unyielding in their acidity that studio heads can only pray nothing in October, November or December will be perceived as worse, and I have to admit a certain curiosity. But that...
- 8/13/2015
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
It’s all in the eyes, and this case they belong to Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), a housewife-turned-saleswoman in Satyajit Ray‘s classic film The Big City. Her personal growth is charted through her gazes, whether they are exchanged with husband, customers, boss—or even her own reflection. Throughout The Big City, Ray uses eye contact to establishes familiarity, intimacy and shifting power dynamics; the story of the film is told through the way the characters look at one another.>> - Joel Bocko...
- 7/6/2015
- Keyframe
It’s all in the eyes, and this case they belong to Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), a housewife-turned-saleswoman in Satyajit Ray‘s classic film The Big City. Her personal growth is charted through her gazes, whether they are exchanged with husband, customers, boss—or even her own reflection. Throughout The Big City, Ray uses eye contact to establishes familiarity, intimacy and shifting power dynamics; the story of the film is told through the way the characters look at one another.>> - Joel Bocko...
- 7/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray is generally considered one of cinema's greatest artists, but his most seminal achievement was nearly scarred beyond repair. The original negatives for the 'Apu' Trilogy were severely burned in a nitrate fire more than 20 years ago, all but killing any hope for future generations to see it in decent condition. But now that The Criterion Collection has given it a miraculous new 4K digital restoration (this Av Club interview on the painstaking restoration process is a must-read), the films will live on and even look as good as, if not better, than ever. Ray is one of those directors whom most movie fans have probably read or heard about without necessarily having watched one of his films. Wes Anderson acolytes may recall the director’s effusive praise of Ray’s work during the press rounds for his 2007 “The Darjeeling Limited,” a film set in India that...
- 6/4/2015
- by Erik McClanahan
- The Playlist
There is a pivotal moment in Satyajit Ray’s film Aparajito: Apu’s mother, Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) descends a staircase, obviously torn by the decision she must make after the death of Apu’s father Harihar (Kanu Banerjee). Should she remain as the cook for the family she has been working for in Benares, happy with her work, even though this would mean taking Apu to Dewanpur? Or should she take up the offer of her uncle, to move to a house he has in the village of Mansapota, where she will at least be sure to be looked after? She pauses on the staircase long enough to watch Apu through a barred window, and it’s at this moment that she makes her decision.
This scene almost sums up everything about her role in Aparajito: the troubles of a mother, alone after the death of her husband,...
This scene almost sums up everything about her role in Aparajito: the troubles of a mother, alone after the death of her husband,...
- 5/26/2015
- by Katherine Matthews
- Bollyspice
As Janus Films' restoration of "The Apu Trilogy" makes the arthouse rounds, here's what cinema luminary Akira Kurosawa had to say about Satyajit Ray in 1975: The quiet but deep observation, understanding and love of the human race, which are characteristic of all his films, have impressed me greatly. … I feel that he is a “giant” of the movie industry. Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon. I can never forget the excitement in my mind after seeing it (Pather Panchali). It is the kind of cinema that flows with the serenity and nobility of a big river. People are born, live out their lives, and then accept their deaths. Without the least effort and without any sudden jerks, Ray paints his picture, but its effect on the audience is to stir up deep passions. How does he achieve this?...
- 5/20/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Times of India today reported that Bengali filmmaker Q (Gandu, Tasher Desh) is preparing to play Satyajit Ray in a movie about the making of Ray's seminal work in Indian cinema, Pather Panchali. The film will center around Ray's struggle to get the film off the ground and will feature several other notable personalities from the era in supporting roles. This announcement comes hot on the heels of the brand new restoration of Ray's Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu) currently making the art house rounds from Janus Films. There are no more internationally revered Indian films than this trilogy, so it is perfectly ripe for adaptation as a story.The film, which is as yet untitled, already has several other main...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 5/19/2015
- Screen Anarchy
Pather PanchaliMy memories of Satyajit Ray's work before this year are blurred—they come up but they don't come out concretely developed. They aren't stenciled into the cohesive aesthetic dominating my attitude toward art. The first is gooey and, not surprisingly, Oscarized. His supporters in Hollywood knew of his terminal illness and in 1992 he was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar, “in recognition of his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures, and of his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world,” a few weeks before his death. Speaking from his deathbed, it was one of the first videotaped acceptance speeches. A diminished man, Ray cradled the glistening award, as the producers cut away from Ray’s words for two close-ups of the little golden man. Nevertheless, Ray came off witty when recounting writing to Ginger Rodgers and Billy Wilder...
- 5/11/2015
- by Greg Gerke
- MUBI
I could tell you all sorts of things about Pather Panchali (“Song of the Little Road”) and the Apu Trilogy that you’ll no doubt have read elsewhere: that Satyajit Ray was inspired, most particularly, by Italian neo-realist cinema such as that of Vittorio De Sica, whose Ladri di biciclette or “Bicycle Thieves” — I can understand that, it’s a film that makes me weep, no matter how many times I’ve already seen it. That it was based on two works by Bengali writer Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, which Ray eventually adapted into the three films of the trilogy. That the trilogy forms a bildungsroman, a coming of age story, focusing on the life of Apu. That the film is visually beautiful but is also languorous and winding and requires patience on the part of the viewer.
I could tell you that Pather Panchali was critically acclaimed, that it won the...
I could tell you that Pather Panchali was critically acclaimed, that it won the...
- 5/9/2015
- by Katherine Matthews
- Bollyspice
Janus Films is bringing new restorations of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy—tag>Pather Panchali (1955), tag>Aparajito (1956) and tag>Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959)—to New York's Film Forum for a three-week run, starting today. The Trilogy will then tour the States through September. In the New York Times, Andrew Robinson, the author of three books on Ray, tells the story of the films and their maker, how the young graphic designer found a mentor in tag>Jean Renoir and inspiration in tag>Vittorio De Sica’s tag>Bicycle Thieves before completing his debut. The support of tag>John Huston was instrumental in securing a run in New York, eventually leading to a watershed screening at Cannes. We're collecting fresh raves from the critics. » - David Hudson...
- 5/8/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Janus Films is bringing new restorations of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy—tag>Pather Panchali (1955), tag>Aparajito (1956) and tag>Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959)—to New York's Film Forum for a three-week run, starting today. The Trilogy will then tour the States through September. In the New York Times, Andrew Robinson, the author of three books on Ray, tells the story of the films and their maker, how the young graphic designer found a mentor in tag>Jean Renoir and inspiration in tag>Vittorio De Sica’s tag>Bicycle Thieves before completing his debut. The support of tag>John Huston was instrumental in securing a run in New York, eventually leading to a watershed screening at Cannes. We're collecting fresh raves from the critics. » - David Hudson...
- 5/8/2015
- Keyframe
Marking the 60th anniversary of the release of Satyajit Ray’s iconic classic Pather Panchali, the fully restored films of The Apu Trilogy with English subtitles will be released in theaters for a limited time starting this Friday May 8 at Film Forum in New York City. A new behind-the-scenes video has premiered chronicling the once unthinkable restoration of the legendary trilogy whose negatives were thought to have been lost to fire.
Following an incredible seven-year restoration program, Janus Films proudly releases The Apu Trilogy in North American theaters beginning in New York followed by releases in several other major cities throughout May and June allowing film lovers of all generations to experience one of India’s greatest masterpieces on the big screen. Additional cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Houston and Vancouver.
These delicate masterworks – Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished...
Following an incredible seven-year restoration program, Janus Films proudly releases The Apu Trilogy in North American theaters beginning in New York followed by releases in several other major cities throughout May and June allowing film lovers of all generations to experience one of India’s greatest masterpieces on the big screen. Additional cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Houston and Vancouver.
These delicate masterworks – Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished...
- 5/7/2015
- by Stacey Yount
- Bollyspice
Pegged as a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, The Criterion Collection curates, restores, and distributes a variety of movies old and new to avid film lovers like you and me. It's no secret the task of restoring older films is a difficult and painstaking one, but Criterion seems driven to make each film it puts out look as good as it possibly can, and based on the image above and the video below it seems the company has done just that with Satyajit Ray's revered trilogy of films known as The Apu Trilogy -- which comprises Pather Panchali (Song Of The Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World Of Apu). What follows is a restoration trailer for the trilogy, which is set to hit select theaters in May and is presumed to make its official Criterion Collection home video debut later this year.
- 4/30/2015
- by Jordan Benesh
- Rope of Silicon
Janus Films is proud to announce today the release of glorious new 4k restorations of master filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s seminal The Apu Trilogy (with new subtitles). Frequently listed as one of the top accomplishments in the history of cinema, the trilogy helped bring India into the golden age of international art-house cinema – but this restoration was long thought to be impossible, after a fire severely damaged the original negatives in 1993. Whatever was left of the original negatives was salvaged by the Academy Film Archive and it wasn’t until the technology improved that this restoration was possible.
The three films – Pather Panchali (Song Of The Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World Of Apu) – will begin a national re-release in New York City at Film Forum on Friday, May 8th and in Los Angeles at Landmark’s Nuart Theater on Friday, May 29th. The films will...
The three films – Pather Panchali (Song Of The Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World Of Apu) – will begin a national re-release in New York City at Film Forum on Friday, May 8th and in Los Angeles at Landmark’s Nuart Theater on Friday, May 29th. The films will...
- 4/25/2015
- by Press Releases
- Bollyspice
If you’ve never seen Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy, you’re missing out, but you’re not alone. The films have been highly rare, and the existing prints and DVD transfers have been in sorry disrepair. And yet Ray’s films, including Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), are considered some of the best of all time, or at the very least some of the best to ever come out of India. Don’t you love how we care for our cinematic history?
All three films, originally from the ’50s, have now been restored by The Criterion Collection, and Janus Films will distribute the trilogy in theaters across the country starting on May 8, where the films will premiere at New York’s Film Forum. Criterion had been working on this restoration of some of Ray’s severely...
All three films, originally from the ’50s, have now been restored by The Criterion Collection, and Janus Films will distribute the trilogy in theaters across the country starting on May 8, where the films will premiere at New York’s Film Forum. Criterion had been working on this restoration of some of Ray’s severely...
- 4/23/2015
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
When The Criterion Collection put out Satyajit Ray’s “The Music Room” on Blu-ray/DVD a few years ago, there was immediate speculation among fans as to when they would get around to “The Apu Trilogy.” Sure, Satyajit Ray may have made twenty-eight films over the course of his career, but it’s his “Apu Trilogy” that’s widely considered to be his most seminal work. Well, it turns out Ray’s trilogy has recently undergone a very lengthy restoration process, and now Janus Films (Criterion Collection’s partner-in-crime) apparently have much bigger plans for “The Apu Trilogy” than just releasing them all on home video. If you are one of the lucky peeps who lives in one of the cities listed below, you will get a chance to catch “Pather Panchali,” “Aparajito,” and “Apur Sansar” on the big screen this year. The trilogy will premiere at New York City...
- 4/23/2015
- by Ken Guidry
- The Playlist
One of the most talked about, yet infrequently seen film trilogies of all time has to be Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy -- Pather Panchali (Song Of The Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World Of Apu). You can find poor quality versions on YouTube and purchase shoddy DVD copies on Amazon and eBay, but soon these classics will be available in newly minted restored versions as Janus Film announced today the upcoming $K restoration of all three films will be begin a national re-release in New York City at Film Forum on Friday, May 8 and in Los Angeles at Landmark's Nuart Theater on Friday, May 29, followed by releases in art houses nationwide throughout the summer. Frequently listed as one of the top accomplishments in the history of cinema, the trilogy helped bring India into the golden age of international art-house cinema - but this restoration...
- 3/25/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Here’s a video from a less-explored part of the late Richard Attenborough’s career. In 1977, Attenborough went to India to take a supporting part in the great Satyajit Ray’s The Chess Players. In this rare fragment from a TV interview at the time, Attenborough marvels at the all-encompassing nature of Ray’s craft: “He writes the screenplay, he composes the music, he directs it, he operates the camera. He half-lights the set. Certainly he works with the lighting cameraman in such detail that any source of light or change that he wants he gets. He edits his own films, almost as […]...
- 8/25/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Here’s a video from a less-explored part of the late Richard Attenborough’s career. In 1977, Attenborough went to India to take a supporting part in the great Satyajit Ray’s The Chess Players. In this rare fragment from a TV interview at the time, Attenborough marvels at the all-encompassing nature of Ray’s craft: “He writes the screenplay, he composes the music, he directs it, he operates the camera. He half-lights the set. Certainly he works with the lighting cameraman in such detail that any source of light or change that he wants he gets. He edits his own films, almost as […]...
- 8/25/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
★★★★☆Place is an inherent part of cinema, it's the sand beneath the feet of form and breathes around content whilst acting within the consciousness of the viewer not unlike the unseen but very much felt constant of existential dread. Two of the artists most associated with place (in this case Bengal) were the dual polymaths Satyajit Ray and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tragore. In 1964 they collaborated for the second time on a film, Charulata (following their 1961 effort Teen Kanya), back in cinemas this week. Ray called Charulata his favourite of all his films and the one that is he had to remake it he would change nothing. The film is also an adaptation of Tragore's novella Nashtanir, first published in 1901.
- 8/20/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
★★★☆☆A nostalgic throwback to the Satyajit Ray heyday of Indian arthouse - though admittedly lacking much of Ray's sociopolitical spice - Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox (2013) blends teasing comic romance with a not-unrealistic portrait of modern Mumbai. Irrfan Khan warms the cockles as the retiring (in every sense of the word) office worker picking through the delight-laden lunchboxes that begin to arrive at his desk each day from a mystery cook. Its more vehement critics will predictably decry its middle-class leanings, but as the success of filmmakers like Joanna Hogg and Jon Sanders here in the UK has proven, there is an appetite for stories about pencil-pushers as well as poverty-stricken slumdogs.
- 7/14/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The picture above was posted to the Criterion Collection Facebook page with the caption "A 35mm negative gets the white glove treatment in Italy," and as many of the commenters have already noted, the film that's getting the delicate treatment is Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955), the first film in Ray's "Apu Trilogy" along with Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959). The trilogy is considered by many to be one of the best of all-time and Roger Ebert included the collective trilogy as one of his "Great Movies" entries opening his review with: The great, sad, gentle sweep of "The Apu Trilogy" remains in the mind of the moviegoer as a promise of what film can be. Standing above fashion, it creates a world so convincing that it becomes, for a time, another life we might have lived. The three films, which were made in India by Satyajit Ray between 1950 and...
- 7/9/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
A portrait of Satyajit Ray by Rishiraj Sahoo | Source: Wikimedia commons
Let’s start to play a game here – What is common between the 9 Bengali films listed below:
1 – Antaheen (2009, dir: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury) advertised that this was the first film after Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri where Aparna Sen and Sharmila Tagore acted together. It went further stating that even the Ray masterpiece didn’t have the two pitted against each other in the same frame as this film did.
2 – Abar Aranye (2003, dir: Goutam Ghose) took three of the four characters of Aranyer Din Ratri to the forest of Dooars on a sequel train at a time when the DVD, CD version of the Ray original was not readily available.
3 – Aborto (2013, dir: Arindam Sil) flaunts that all the characters of the film have the same names as the different major characters in the master’s film oeuvre.
4 – Charulata 2011 (2012, dir:...
Let’s start to play a game here – What is common between the 9 Bengali films listed below:
1 – Antaheen (2009, dir: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury) advertised that this was the first film after Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri where Aparna Sen and Sharmila Tagore acted together. It went further stating that even the Ray masterpiece didn’t have the two pitted against each other in the same frame as this film did.
2 – Abar Aranye (2003, dir: Goutam Ghose) took three of the four characters of Aranyer Din Ratri to the forest of Dooars on a sequel train at a time when the DVD, CD version of the Ray original was not readily available.
3 – Aborto (2013, dir: Arindam Sil) flaunts that all the characters of the film have the same names as the different major characters in the master’s film oeuvre.
4 – Charulata 2011 (2012, dir:...
- 7/8/2014
- by Amitava Nag
- DearCinema.com
Charulata
Written and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1964
Adopting an understated approach, Satyajit Ray tells the story of Charulata the young and beautiful wife of an older man, Bhupati Dutta, who is the editor of a political newspaper. Centered on her restless days and introspective nature, the film takes place almost exclusively within the walls of the couple’s Victorian Calcutta home. The interior private space of the home will come to reflect the interior private space of the woman. The film’s great incident is the arrival of the husband’s younger cousin, Amal, who is urged to keep company with Charulata. Charulata and the cousin bond over a love of art and their friendship disrupt the fragile comfort of Charaluta’s loneliness.
To call Charulata a film without great incident would betray the internal transformations of the characters and to understate the experience of most women. In many ways,...
Written and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1964
Adopting an understated approach, Satyajit Ray tells the story of Charulata the young and beautiful wife of an older man, Bhupati Dutta, who is the editor of a political newspaper. Centered on her restless days and introspective nature, the film takes place almost exclusively within the walls of the couple’s Victorian Calcutta home. The interior private space of the home will come to reflect the interior private space of the woman. The film’s great incident is the arrival of the husband’s younger cousin, Amal, who is urged to keep company with Charulata. Charulata and the cousin bond over a love of art and their friendship disrupt the fragile comfort of Charaluta’s loneliness.
To call Charulata a film without great incident would betray the internal transformations of the characters and to understate the experience of most women. In many ways,...
- 7/7/2014
- by Justine Smith
- SoundOnSight
Apur Panchali, director Kaushik Ganguly’s homage to renowned Bengali director Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy, is all set to win over a whole new generation of British cineastes when it premieres at the world’s best cinema, the British Film Institute’s prestigious National Film Theatre 1 on July 14and subsequently at the Cineworld Wembley on July 15 as part of the 5th anniversary celebrations of the London Indian Film Festival.
The event is being held in association with the Satyajit Ray Foundation and the screening will also honour the Foundation’s Founder and Chairperson Pam Cullen, a dear friend and tireless advocate of Ray during his lifetime, and former member of the Free India Movement in her younger days.
The President of the Foundation is Mrs Bijoya Ray and the Vice President is Sandip Ray. The Foundation’s Patrons are a glittering array of film personalities including Lord Attenborough Cbe,...
The event is being held in association with the Satyajit Ray Foundation and the screening will also honour the Foundation’s Founder and Chairperson Pam Cullen, a dear friend and tireless advocate of Ray during his lifetime, and former member of the Free India Movement in her younger days.
The President of the Foundation is Mrs Bijoya Ray and the Vice President is Sandip Ray. The Foundation’s Patrons are a glittering array of film personalities including Lord Attenborough Cbe,...
- 6/28/2014
- by Stacey Yount
- Bollyspice
Madhabi Mukherjee in Mahanagar
A digitally restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Bengali classic Mahanagar (The Big City) will be released on April 18, in select theatres in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pune, under the PVR Director’s Rare banner.
The film, which was originally released in September 1963, will be re-released with English subtitles.
Mahanagar has been digitally restored by The Rdb Organization headed by Kamal Bansal. The British Film Institute (BFI), had held screenings of the restored version in the United Kingdom last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
Made in 1963, the timeless classic based on Narendranath Mitra’s short story ‘Abataranika’, stars Madhabi Mukherjee as Arati, a housewife who takes a job of a saleswoman and unsettles her family in the process.
Ray won the Silver Bear for Mahanagar at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival in 1964.
A digitally restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Bengali classic Mahanagar (The Big City) will be released on April 18, in select theatres in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pune, under the PVR Director’s Rare banner.
The film, which was originally released in September 1963, will be re-released with English subtitles.
Mahanagar has been digitally restored by The Rdb Organization headed by Kamal Bansal. The British Film Institute (BFI), had held screenings of the restored version in the United Kingdom last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
Made in 1963, the timeless classic based on Narendranath Mitra’s short story ‘Abataranika’, stars Madhabi Mukherjee as Arati, a housewife who takes a job of a saleswoman and unsettles her family in the process.
Ray won the Silver Bear for Mahanagar at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival in 1964.
- 4/11/2014
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Kolkata, March 3: K. Ramachandra Rao, who taught at one of India's leading film schools, says legendary director Satyajit Ray's "scepticism" of the institutions later changed his opinion.
A veteran editor, Rao was a professor at Pune's Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii) when Ray came visiting in 1969 and then in 1974.
"I have vivid memories of Ray's visit to Ftii in 1969. He spent three days there talking to teachers and students. Ray, five years later, in his convocation address to the 12th convocation, spoke about film schools.
"Earlier he was sceptical about film schools. But after his first visit to Ftii, he changed his view," he said while addressing participants at the closing ceremony of National.
A veteran editor, Rao was a professor at Pune's Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii) when Ray came visiting in 1969 and then in 1974.
"I have vivid memories of Ray's visit to Ftii in 1969. He spent three days there talking to teachers and students. Ray, five years later, in his convocation address to the 12th convocation, spoke about film schools.
"Earlier he was sceptical about film schools. But after his first visit to Ftii, he changed his view," he said while addressing participants at the closing ceremony of National.
- 3/3/2014
- by Diksha Singh
- RealBollywood.com
Kaushik Ganguly’s Apur Panchali takes off on Pather Panchali and is about the child actor who played Apu in the film – Subir Banerjee – and what happened to him because he never made another film after Ray’s masterpiece.
Cinema in India has now split up into several pan-Indian categories. Apart from the mainstream Hindi film we have the ‘indie’ cinema represented by films like The Lunchbox and Ship of Theseus as well as the documentary (Fire in the Blood), which has become commercially viable, as it was not. Apart from these categories, there is the regional art film which, unlike its popular counterpart, is pan-Indian rather than local – because it is aimed at audiences at film festivals and other pan-Indian cultural gatherings, and cannot be imagined without subtitles in English. The pan-Indian art film is gaining ground across India and well-known film critics were also recommending the Indian Panorama...
Cinema in India has now split up into several pan-Indian categories. Apart from the mainstream Hindi film we have the ‘indie’ cinema represented by films like The Lunchbox and Ship of Theseus as well as the documentary (Fire in the Blood), which has become commercially viable, as it was not. Apart from these categories, there is the regional art film which, unlike its popular counterpart, is pan-Indian rather than local – because it is aimed at audiences at film festivals and other pan-Indian cultural gatherings, and cannot be imagined without subtitles in English. The pan-Indian art film is gaining ground across India and well-known film critics were also recommending the Indian Panorama...
- 2/13/2014
- by MK Raghavendra
- DearCinema.com
T he 64th edition of Berlin International Film Festival that kicks off today has strong Indian presence with ten Indian films screening in various sections. The festival will be held from February 6-16, 2014.
Imtiaz Ali’s Highway and Jayan Cherian’s Papilio Buddha, which is in contention for the Teddy Award, will be screened in the Panorama section.
Pushpendra Singh’s Lajwanti, K. Hariharan and Mani Kaul’s Ghashiram Kotwal (1976) and Jessica Sadana & Samarth Dikshit’s Prabhat Pheri will be screened in the Forum section.
The Forum Expanded section will see the screening of Blood Earth directed by Kush Badhwar and Mount Song directed by Shambhavi Kaul.
Avinash Arun’s Killa and Gaurav Saxena’s Rangzen will be screened in the Generation K Plus section, targeted at children and young audience of the festival.
Satyajit Ray’s Nayak will be screened as a part of the Berlinale Classics section.
Here...
Imtiaz Ali’s Highway and Jayan Cherian’s Papilio Buddha, which is in contention for the Teddy Award, will be screened in the Panorama section.
Pushpendra Singh’s Lajwanti, K. Hariharan and Mani Kaul’s Ghashiram Kotwal (1976) and Jessica Sadana & Samarth Dikshit’s Prabhat Pheri will be screened in the Forum section.
The Forum Expanded section will see the screening of Blood Earth directed by Kush Badhwar and Mount Song directed by Shambhavi Kaul.
Avinash Arun’s Killa and Gaurav Saxena’s Rangzen will be screened in the Generation K Plus section, targeted at children and young audience of the festival.
Satyajit Ray’s Nayak will be screened as a part of the Berlinale Classics section.
Here...
- 2/6/2014
- by Amit Upadhyaya
- DearCinema.com
Anup Singh’s Qissa and Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar are two Indian films that have been selected to screen at the 20th edition of the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema (Festival international des cinémas d’Asie) to be held from 11-18 February in Vesoul, France.
Qissa will be competing in the Visages des Cinémas d’Asie Contemporains (Faces of the Contemporary Asian Cinema) section while Apur Sansar will be screened in the Avoir 20 ans section.
Qissa, a partition drama starring Irrfan Khan, Tillotama Shome, Tisca Chopra and Rasika Dugal, recently opened the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
The third part in the Apu trilogy by Ray, Apur Sansar was released in 1959. It had won the Sutherland Trophy, the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and was also nominated for the BAFTA awards.
The Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema was started in 1995 and focuses specifically on cinema from Asian countries.
Qissa will be competing in the Visages des Cinémas d’Asie Contemporains (Faces of the Contemporary Asian Cinema) section while Apur Sansar will be screened in the Avoir 20 ans section.
Qissa, a partition drama starring Irrfan Khan, Tillotama Shome, Tisca Chopra and Rasika Dugal, recently opened the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
The third part in the Apu trilogy by Ray, Apur Sansar was released in 1959. It had won the Sutherland Trophy, the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and was also nominated for the BAFTA awards.
The Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema was started in 1995 and focuses specifically on cinema from Asian countries.
- 1/31/2014
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
A still from “Nayak”
A restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Nayak will screen at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival in the ‘Berlinale Classics’ section.
The film, that won a Special Recognition in 1966 at the same festival, has been restored by Rdb Entertainments in 2K resolution last year.
Ray’s Nayak is a film about a film star who is travelling to Delhi from Calcutta to receive his National Award and reveals a lot more about his personality to a young journalist than he intends to.
The film had also won the National Award for Best Feature in Bengali.
Five other Ray classics, including Charulata, Mahanagar, Kapurush, Mahapurush and Jai Baba Felunath had been restored earlier by Rdb Entertainments.
A restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Nayak will screen at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival in the ‘Berlinale Classics’ section.
The film, that won a Special Recognition in 1966 at the same festival, has been restored by Rdb Entertainments in 2K resolution last year.
Ray’s Nayak is a film about a film star who is travelling to Delhi from Calcutta to receive his National Award and reveals a lot more about his personality to a young journalist than he intends to.
The film had also won the National Award for Best Feature in Bengali.
Five other Ray classics, including Charulata, Mahanagar, Kapurush, Mahapurush and Jai Baba Felunath had been restored earlier by Rdb Entertainments.
- 1/24/2014
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
From December 4 to January 8, the Austrian Filmmuseum presented a retrospective of the early works by famous Indian director Satyajit Ray. Not only did it show a complete overview of Ray's work from 1955 to 1965, but also some of the most spectacular works in the history of world cinema that were shot in India. I got completely lost inside the cinema and once again the strange force of the screen has taken me on a trip to different places, different feelings and different times. One of the most famous films shown was Jean Renoir's The River, a film that many filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese cite as one of their favorite films ever. Seeing this colorful cinematic innocence projected on film was not...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 1/10/2014
- Screen Anarchy
What:
The Root Reel presents Anup Singh’s love essay, exploring the life and work of Ritwik Ghatak ~ Ekti Nadir Naam / The Name of a River, followed by an interaction with Amrit Gangar.
Ekti Nadir Naam
Directed by Anup Singh
Written by Anup Singh & Madan Gopal Singh
Cinematography: K.K. Mahajan
Language: Bengali (with English Subtitles)
Duration: 90 mins
When:
Tuesday 28th January,2014, 6:30pm
Entry:
Free, On a First-Come-First-Seated Basis
Venue:
Alliance Française de Bombay
Alliance Française Auditorium,
Theosophy Hall,
Near Nirmala Niketan,
New Marine Lines,
Churchgate. Mumbai.
About the Film:
Anup Singh’s debut feature, The Name of a River, is an ambitious, evocative docu-fictional essay exploring the life and work of the great Indian film-maker, Ritwik Ghatak (1925-1976).
Ghatak’s reputation as India’s most important film-maker has been steadily growing since the first major retrospective of his films was organised internationally in the 1980s. Satyajit Ray has described...
The Root Reel presents Anup Singh’s love essay, exploring the life and work of Ritwik Ghatak ~ Ekti Nadir Naam / The Name of a River, followed by an interaction with Amrit Gangar.
Ekti Nadir Naam
Directed by Anup Singh
Written by Anup Singh & Madan Gopal Singh
Cinematography: K.K. Mahajan
Language: Bengali (with English Subtitles)
Duration: 90 mins
When:
Tuesday 28th January,2014, 6:30pm
Entry:
Free, On a First-Come-First-Seated Basis
Venue:
Alliance Française de Bombay
Alliance Française Auditorium,
Theosophy Hall,
Near Nirmala Niketan,
New Marine Lines,
Churchgate. Mumbai.
About the Film:
Anup Singh’s debut feature, The Name of a River, is an ambitious, evocative docu-fictional essay exploring the life and work of the great Indian film-maker, Ritwik Ghatak (1925-1976).
Ghatak’s reputation as India’s most important film-maker has been steadily growing since the first major retrospective of his films was organised internationally in the 1980s. Satyajit Ray has described...
- 12/27/2013
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
DVD Release Date: Jan. 7, 2014
Price: DVD $44.95
Studio: Criterion
The films directed by the great Satyajit Ray (Charulata) of India in the last ten years of his life have a unique dignity and drama. Three of them are presented in Criterion’s Eclipse Series 40: Late Ray collection: the fervent Rabindranath Tagore adaptation The Home and the World; the vital Henrik Ibsen–inspired An Enemy of the People; and the filmmaker’s final film, the poignant and philosophical family story The Stranger. Each is a complex, political, and humane portrait of a world both corrupt and indescribably beautiful, constructed with Ray’s characteristic elegance and imbued with autumnal profundity.
Swatilekha Chatterjee stars in Satyajit Ray's 1984 film The Home and The World.
All three films are presented in Bengali with English subtitles.
Here’s a closer look at them:
The Home and The World (1984)
Both a romantic triangle tale and a...
Price: DVD $44.95
Studio: Criterion
The films directed by the great Satyajit Ray (Charulata) of India in the last ten years of his life have a unique dignity and drama. Three of them are presented in Criterion’s Eclipse Series 40: Late Ray collection: the fervent Rabindranath Tagore adaptation The Home and the World; the vital Henrik Ibsen–inspired An Enemy of the People; and the filmmaker’s final film, the poignant and philosophical family story The Stranger. Each is a complex, political, and humane portrait of a world both corrupt and indescribably beautiful, constructed with Ray’s characteristic elegance and imbued with autumnal profundity.
Swatilekha Chatterjee stars in Satyajit Ray's 1984 film The Home and The World.
All three films are presented in Bengali with English subtitles.
Here’s a closer look at them:
The Home and The World (1984)
Both a romantic triangle tale and a...
- 11/14/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
★★★★★ The years 1964-5 saw the release of Satyajit Ray's arguable masterpiece The Lonely Wife (Charulata) and the smaller variation on a theme, The Coward (Kapurush), both now reissued in pristine Blu-ray versions by distributor Artificial Eye. Set in the closing years of the nineteenth century, The Lonely Wife tells the story of a privileged woman, Charulata (played by the luminous Madhabi Mukherjee), whose wealthy husband Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee) is committed to producing a political newspaper, and whose main pleasure is the smell of newsprint and the sound of his own voice.
With the arrival of her brother-in-law, the Bohemian poet Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), Charulata begins to realise her yearning for something different both in finding her voice as a writer and her unfulfilled romantic longings in the lighter more attractive brother. Ray takes the conventional premise of the desperate housewife and creates something astonishing, a subtle and measured examination of frustration,...
With the arrival of her brother-in-law, the Bohemian poet Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), Charulata begins to realise her yearning for something different both in finding her voice as a writer and her unfulfilled romantic longings in the lighter more attractive brother. Ray takes the conventional premise of the desperate housewife and creates something astonishing, a subtle and measured examination of frustration,...
- 10/1/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Mumbai, Sep 30: Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan, whose directorial "Vishwaroopam" was in the race with other films for India's official entry to Academy Awards this year, is not disappointed at losing the opportunity.
Instead he feels it would be more sensible when Indian talent works in American movies and wins an Oscar.
"With due respect, my films have gone seven times to the Oscars but I think it will make more sense when the Indian talent takes part in American movies and wins an Oscar or it must be like the way Ray saab (Satyajit Ray) did for world cinema. Otherwise, we are just visiting America, we are tourists," Haasan told reporters here Sunday at the closing of the Jagran Film Festival.
Satyajit Ray, legendary.
Instead he feels it would be more sensible when Indian talent works in American movies and wins an Oscar.
"With due respect, my films have gone seven times to the Oscars but I think it will make more sense when the Indian talent takes part in American movies and wins an Oscar or it must be like the way Ray saab (Satyajit Ray) did for world cinema. Otherwise, we are just visiting America, we are tourists," Haasan told reporters here Sunday at the closing of the Jagran Film Festival.
Satyajit Ray, legendary.
- 9/30/2013
- by Ketali Mehta
- RealBollywood.com
What can a 1989 Indian film about biomedicine, plumbing and the freedom of the press tell us about the Ipcc report?
Want to see a film about evidence based policy and plumbing? Londoners who do are in luck, because Satyajit Ray's 1989 film Ganashatru is currently playing at the BFI in London, and a version of the play it is based on – Ibsen's En Folkefiende, or An Enemy of the People – is also showing at the Albany in Depford. The script makes for a good read on its own though, and there are several translations to choose from.
It's a story that gets around. It's supposed to have partly inspired Jaws. There is something about this play that resonates. Probably because it's not entirely about evidence-based policy and plumbing, but rather the intersection of state, individuals and personal relationships, shot through with tensions between science, belief and politics. There's already been...
Want to see a film about evidence based policy and plumbing? Londoners who do are in luck, because Satyajit Ray's 1989 film Ganashatru is currently playing at the BFI in London, and a version of the play it is based on – Ibsen's En Folkefiende, or An Enemy of the People – is also showing at the Albany in Depford. The script makes for a good read on its own though, and there are several translations to choose from.
It's a story that gets around. It's supposed to have partly inspired Jaws. There is something about this play that resonates. Probably because it's not entirely about evidence-based policy and plumbing, but rather the intersection of state, individuals and personal relationships, shot through with tensions between science, belief and politics. There's already been...
- 9/25/2013
- by Alice Bell
- The Guardian - Film News
His greatest films have an ability to depict realistic situations, and remain alive to both their political and aesthetic dimensions
"Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon," said Akira Kurosawa. Well, now's your chance. Over the next few weeks, visitors to the British Film Institute will be able to watch some of Satyajit Ray's best work: Days and Nights in the Forest, The Chess Players, Company Limited, The Home and The World. What makes them so good? Partly his collective of collaborators: extraordinary actors such as Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore, the cinematographer Subrata Mitra. But his greatest films are marked by an ability to depict realistic situations – the hopelessness of a graduate's job hunt, say, or the hardships of life in a Bengali village – and remain alive to both their political and aesthetic dimensions. Ray...
"Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon," said Akira Kurosawa. Well, now's your chance. Over the next few weeks, visitors to the British Film Institute will be able to watch some of Satyajit Ray's best work: Days and Nights in the Forest, The Chess Players, Company Limited, The Home and The World. What makes them so good? Partly his collective of collaborators: extraordinary actors such as Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore, the cinematographer Subrata Mitra. But his greatest films are marked by an ability to depict realistic situations – the hopelessness of a graduate's job hunt, say, or the hardships of life in a Bengali village – and remain alive to both their political and aesthetic dimensions. Ray...
- 9/11/2013
- by Editorial
- The Guardian - Film News
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