Tracing Satyajit Ray's influence on Hindi cinema; Netflix anthology on auteur's short stories is only a drop in the ocean
3 years, 5 months ago

Tracing Satyajit Ray's influence on Hindi cinema; Netflix anthology on auteur's short stories is only a drop in the ocean

Firstpost  

In one of the most famous quotes to emerge from the world of cinema, Akira Kurosawa once said, “Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.” Satyajit Ray, the auteur from Bengal, whose centenary year we continue to celebrate, put Indian cinema on the world map in the mid 1950s, when his debut film Pather Panchali toured the major global film festivals including Cannes, Berlin, San Francisco, Rome, and the BAFTA to name a few. Ray’s cinema was a complete antithesis to the larger-than-life, glossy, simplistic, melodramatic, and loud world of Hindi cinema, barring rare exceptions of Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa and Kagaz Ke Phool or Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen. However, in the world as it exists today, feeding a film industry largely preoccupied with posturing, there remains little space for Ray’s brand of pure, unassuming cinema to flourish, feels Nawaz. Mark Twain once famously said, “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read, but nobody reads.” Ray’s cinema is seeing a similar plight as far as young movie-watchers in India are concerned.

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History of this topic

Shatrughan Sinha Regrets Not Being Able To Work With Satyajit Ray, Lauds Rich Legacy Of Bengali Cinema
2 weeks, 5 days ago

Shatrughan Sinha Regrets Not Being Able To Work With Satyajit Ray, Lauds Rich Legacy Of Bengali Cinema

ABP News  

Veteran Bollywood actor and MP Shatrughan Sinha on Wednesday said the iconic trio of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen had shaped his vision about films, world cinema and India's new wave cinema. Shatrughan Sinha on being inspired by Bengali cinema Speaking at the inauguration of the 30th Kolkata International Film Festival, Sinha credited his time at the Film …

Content-driven films thrive with support from big stars in competitive market
1 month, 2 weeks ago

Content-driven films thrive with support from big stars in competitive market

Live Mint  

Laapataa Ladies and Meiyazhagan are both small-budget, content-driven films that have done well and won critical accolades. “The backing of mainstream stars like Suriya and Aamir Khan lends credibility and garners attention to content-driven films that otherwise might struggle for visibility,” said Devang Sampat, managing director, Cinepolis India. This can lead to strong word-of-mouth marketing, critical for such films.” Laapataa …

Book Review | Appreciating Melodrama: Challenging Western perceptions Piyush Roy offers a fresh view on Indian cinema
1 year, 3 months ago

Book Review | Appreciating Melodrama: Challenging Western perceptions Piyush Roy offers a fresh view on Indian cinema

Firstpost  

Melodrama, as an art form, has a rich history that continues to captivate audiences worldwide with its emotional intensity and dramatic storytelling. In the book Appreciating Melodrama: Theory and Practice in Indian Cinema and Television by Piyush Roy, the author explores and acknowledges the enduring impact of the ancient Sanskrit drama treatise, the Natyashastra, and its aesthetics theory, the ‘Rasa’ …

Satyajit Ray: The script and track of a master storyteller
1 year, 7 months ago

Satyajit Ray: The script and track of a master storyteller

The Hindu  

Satyajit Ray, director, script writer, documentary film-maker, author, illustrator and composer, to name a few, had a flair for sketching from his childhood. Decades later, in an interview with the film critic, Iqbal Masud, on Shatranj Ke Khilari, Ray said, “One can well imagine a treatment of annexation with Wazid painted whiter and General Outram blacker, which would automatically enhance …

‘Cinema of aspiration’: The romance filmmakers who redefined Bollywood’s quintessential genre
1 year, 10 months ago

‘Cinema of aspiration’: The romance filmmakers who redefined Bollywood’s quintessential genre

CNN  

CNN — A woman in a billowy white dress runs through a bright green and yellow field, her long hair streaming behind her as she reunites with the man she loves in “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” one of the most successful Indian movies of all time. “DDLJ” was produced by the late Yash Chopra, a man often referred to as …

Finding screen space for Dalit-Bahujan cinema
1 year, 10 months ago

Finding screen space for Dalit-Bahujan cinema

The Hindu  

In 2022, the box-office debacle of big-budget populist Hindi films offers a clue that cinemagoers are rejecting the ‘masala-clad’ mindless cinema and are looking for newness and artistic calibre. It is well known that Hindi mainstream cinema as well as experimental or art-house cinema often cater to the cultural taste and social interest of the middle-class social elites. The rich …

Review: The Cinema of Satyajit Ray by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay
2 years ago

Review: The Cinema of Satyajit Ray by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay

Hindustan Times  

Bhaskar Chattopadhyay’s The Cinema of Satyajit Ray is divided into two parts - the first analyses all 39 of Ray’s films, including his feature films and the controversial documentaries Sikkim and Bala, that he made over 36 years while the second part comprises in-depth interviews with 17 personalities who have been deeply impressed by the auteur’s cinema. Satyajit Ray Vikramaditya …

‘Cinema is in the heart of every Kashmiri’: Vikas Dhar
2 years, 2 months ago

‘Cinema is in the heart of every Kashmiri’: Vikas Dhar

The Hindu  

A multiplex in Kashmir was unimaginable even a while ago and now we have an INOX franchise here. My father used to run the Broadway cinema hall, which was once a prestigious haunt in Srinagar. Cinema is in the heart of every Kashmiri —their fashion, language, manners were dictated by the Indian film industry. “Jwala boots”, designed after Jitendra’s mustard-coloured, …

From Nehru to New India: Five films that capture Hindi cinema’s 75-year journey
2 years, 4 months ago

From Nehru to New India: Five films that capture Hindi cinema’s 75-year journey

Firstpost  

Nothing can be a bigger testimony of New India in cinema than ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’, and the reaction of the critics and audiences sums up the 75-year journey One of the most powerful communication tools, cinema, has long been used by powers across nations to craft the thinking of its people. Majrooh was imprisoned for an anti-Nehru line in …

What ails Hindi cinema: It’s disconnected, disillusioned and disingenuous
2 years, 4 months ago

What ails Hindi cinema: It’s disconnected, disillusioned and disingenuous

Firstpost  

The movies that the Hindi film industry has produced lack both skill and substance, especially in comparison to south Indian films. In the last couple of months, some of the biggest failures of the Hindi film industry clearly demonstrate the latter’s lack of depth and also detachment from Bharatiya society. But, according to the Hindi film industry, the hero of …

Ray-esque | Satyajit Ray’s French Connection
2 years, 4 months ago

Ray-esque | Satyajit Ray’s French Connection

Firstpost  

Sandip Ray, Satyajit Ray’s son narrates his father’s relationship with renowned French filmmaker Jean Renoir and how the French equation in Ray’s life took off when he finished making Pather Panchali Renowned French film director Jean Renoir arrives in Calcutta to carve out a new movie creation, his well-known, The River. Thus, he readily embraced the idea of father keeping …

The Flawed Nayaks of Satyajit Ray
2 years, 7 months ago

The Flawed Nayaks of Satyajit Ray

Firstpost  

Filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s vision of male characters in his movie stemmed from his own cinematic belief of creating realistic characters — in both his short stories, stacked to the brim with lonely men and his cinematic offerings. Much of the filmmaker’s vision of male characters in his movie stemmed from his own cinematic belief of creating realistic characters — in …

Satyajit Ray's documentaries: A mixed bag
3 years, 2 months ago

Satyajit Ray's documentaries: A mixed bag

The Hindu  

Between 1961 and 1987, Satyajit Ray directed five documentaries and six short films. In 1961, Ray observed the birth centenary of Rabindranath Tagore by making a documentary on the poet for the Films Division of the Government of India, and an omnibus feature film called Teen Kanya, which brought together three short films adapted from well-known Tagore short stories— Monihara, …

Film time, family time: Sandip Ray on Satyajit Ray
3 years, 2 months ago

Film time, family time: Sandip Ray on Satyajit Ray

The Hindu  

Sandip Ray announcedhis arrival as a film-maker with the release of Phatik Chand in 1983. Excerpts: When you were growing up, Satyajit Ray was publishing one classic story for children after another in ‘Sandesh’. A fairy tale for children You were 13 when Satyajit Ray made ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ in 1969, at a time when there were not many …

Cinema, for Satyajit Ray, was all about salvation
3 years, 2 months ago

Cinema, for Satyajit Ray, was all about salvation

The Hindu  

Age and decrepitude failed to dismay him, as did the vicissitudes of the box office. As he recounts in My Adventures with Satyajit Ray: The Making of Shatranj ke Khilari : “My first film, Rajnigandha, based on the story ‘Yehi Sach Hai’ by Mannu Bhandari, turned out to be the sleeper hit of the year. It came with a warning: …

‘Ray’s vision is universal’: Girish Kasaravalli on Satyajit Ray
3 years, 2 months ago

‘Ray’s vision is universal’: Girish Kasaravalli on Satyajit Ray

The Hindu  

Girish Kasaravalli, Kannada film director, is one of the pioneers of ‘parallel cinema’ in India. I do not think that the films of Ray had such a huge impact on India’s mainstream cinema, for the simple reason that his films, which were in Bengali, were not accessible to film practitioners of other languages, especially those from the south. Ray’s cosmopolitan …

How Satyajit Ray foregrounded modernity and enlightenment throughout his career
3 years, 2 months ago

How Satyajit Ray foregrounded modernity and enlightenment throughout his career

The Hindu  

Satyajit Ray was of the world, as were Chaplin and Bunuel and Renoir and Mizoguchi and Eisenstein and De Sica and Kurosawa and Godard and Pasolini, not to speak of other twentieth century masters, but he was of the breed who belonged to a particular developed culture and carried out the transfer of technology into a freshly evolved form. Children’s …

‘He lived life cinema’: Adoor Gopalakrishnan on Satyajit Ray
3 years, 2 months ago

‘He lived life cinema’: Adoor Gopalakrishnan on Satyajit Ray

The Hindu  

Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of the most notable and renowned film-makers in India, pioneered the new wave in Malayalam cinema during the 1970s. Venkiteswaran on Satyajit Ray’s legacy: Satyajit Ray brought about a radical break in Indian cinema in terms of aesthetics, form, content and narrative style. Then came his comment, “Now I understand.” In the last three films of Ray, …

Satyajit Ray's son Sandip says he's 'hearing both praises and criticisms' for Netflix series, is yet to watch it
3 years, 5 months ago

Satyajit Ray's son Sandip says he's 'hearing both praises and criticisms' for Netflix series, is yet to watch it

Hindustan Times  

Sandip Ray, the son of writer-director Satyajit Ray, has said that he hasn't yet seen the four-part Netflix anthology based on his father's short stories, but is aware of the mixed reception that it has received. Ray, created by Sayantan Mukherjee, features four films directed by Srijit Mukherji, Abhishek Chaubey, and Vasan Bala. Ray's four chapters include Srijit Mukherji's Bahupriya …

Sandip Ray says he's yet to watch Netflix India's anthology based on father Satyajit Ray's short stories
3 years, 5 months ago

Sandip Ray says he's yet to watch Netflix India's anthology based on father Satyajit Ray's short stories

Firstpost  

Sandip Ray said he has watched the promo of the film but it was important to see an entire work to form one’s own opinion. As the Netflix anthology of four short films based on the story of Satyajit Ray have evoked mixed reaction from viewers, Ray’s son Sandip said he would soon watch the films to have his own …

Streaming Now: Satyajit Ray's Stories Come Alive in Ray, Satya Vyas' Book Chaurasi Adapted as Grahan
3 years, 5 months ago

Streaming Now: Satyajit Ray's Stories Come Alive in Ray, Satya Vyas' Book Chaurasi Adapted as Grahan

News 18  

Two of the major releases in the OTT world this week – Ray on Netflix and Grahan on Disney+ Hotstar – have been inspired by literary works. Ray is an anthology series based on shirt stories by Satyajit Ray, adapted by three talented directors – Abhishek Chaubey, Srijit Mukherji and Vasan Bala. Inspired by author Satya Vyas’ popular book Chaurasi, …

’Ray’ review: Manoj Bajpayee dazzles in this tribute to Satyajit Ray
3 years, 5 months ago

’Ray’ review: Manoj Bajpayee dazzles in this tribute to Satyajit Ray

Live Mint  

Satyajit Ray did everything. Abhishek Chaubey directs Bajpayee in Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa, a Ghulam Ali-tinged adaptation of one of my most loved Ray stories, Barin Bhowmick’s Ailment. Much of Ray’s adventure takes place inside the hero’s head, something Chaubey handles brilliantly by letting Bajpayee not only talk to a mirror but to address an imaginary, admiring audience. Bala deviously …

Ray review: Manoj Bajpayee, Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor stand out in irreverent but inconsistent Netflix anthology
3 years, 5 months ago

Ray review: Manoj Bajpayee, Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor stand out in irreverent but inconsistent Netflix anthology

Hindustan Times  

It’s one thing to adapt the works of a writer. Fortunately for us all — Ray included — director Abhishek Chaubey comes to the rescue with his delightfully delicate film, Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa, starring Manoj Bajpayee and Gajraj Rao as two men who meet on a rail journey, but can't seem to shake the feeling that they've seen each …

Ray Review: Who steals the Spotlight in new Netflix anthology?
3 years, 6 months ago

Ray Review: Who steals the Spotlight in new Netflix anthology?

India Today  

2021 marks the birth centenary of perhaps one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema, Satyajit Ray. The drama series is inspired by four short stories authored by Satyajit Ray - Spotlight, Bahurupi, Barin Bhowmik-er Byaram and Bipin Chowdhury-r Smritibhrom. Last in the series, Spotlight, is inspired by Ray's short story of the same name and stars Harshvardhan …

Srijit Mukherji on Adapting Satyajit Ray's Short Stories for Netflix: Expecting Backlash from Purists
3 years, 6 months ago

Srijit Mukherji on Adapting Satyajit Ray's Short Stories for Netflix: Expecting Backlash from Purists

News 18  

Srijit Mukherji started what can be termed as a new era in Bengali cinema when he debuted as a director with Autograph in 2010. The movie is a tribute to Satyajit Ray’s 1966 film Nayak and yesteryear Bengali actor Uttam Kumar, who portrayed the title role in the film. The new Netflix anthology series, called Ray, is Srijit’s first attempt …

'Went in with reverence, never held back what we wanted to express': Ray directors, cast on adapting Satyajit Ray's works
3 years, 6 months ago

'Went in with reverence, never held back what we wanted to express': Ray directors, cast on adapting Satyajit Ray's works

Firstpost  

Directors Srijit Mukherji and Vasan Bala, and actors Kay Kay Menon, Harshvardhan Kapoor, and Akansha Ranjan Kapoor open up about their fears of adapting well-known texts, humanising their characters, and how they married style and substance. Ray, Netflix India’s upcoming Original anthology series, is filmmaker Srijit Mukherji, Vasan Bala, and Abhishek Chaubey’s ode to the legendary auteur’s short stories. Director …

Ray on Netflix on June 25. Which Satyajit Ray stories inspired the Manoj Bajpayee and Ali Fazal series?
3 years, 6 months ago

Ray on Netflix on June 25. Which Satyajit Ray stories inspired the Manoj Bajpayee and Ali Fazal series?

India Today  

Netflix dropped the trailer of Ray, an anthology series which is helmed by Abhishek Chaubey, Srijit Mukherji and Vasan Bala. The drama series is inspired by four of Satyajit Ray’s stories Spotlight, Bahurupi, Barin Bhowmik-er Byaram and Bipin Chowdhury'r Smritibhrom. FORGET ME NOT, INSPIRED BY BIPIN CHOWDHURY'R SMRITIBHROM If you have watched the trailer of Ray, you will be aware …

Shikha Mukerjee | Revisiting the legend @100: Ray's iconic role to endure
3 years, 7 months ago

Shikha Mukerjee | Revisiting the legend @100: Ray's iconic role to endure

Deccan Chronicle  

Cultural power surpasses the transient aggregation of political heft in West Bengal. When Ray died in 1992, even manufacturers of objects as entirely mundane as shovels and construction equipment offered their tribute through It is revealing of West Bengal’s unusual ethos that even the BJP, with its claim to being the world’s largest party, scrambled to deploy Satyajit Ray to …

Hindi Cinema is Capable of Healing and Strengthening Itself, Writes Prasoon Joshi
4 years, 2 months ago

Hindi Cinema is Capable of Healing and Strengthening Itself, Writes Prasoon Joshi

News 18  

Cinema, over the last century, has welded itself into the cultural narrative, achieving an impact that no other singular medium could. Let’s understand more intricately why Cinema related issues have become increasingly polemical. What was forgotten was that cinema and many professional industries that emanate from art could not be judged like other businesses, or balance sheet made chief spokesperson. …

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: The groundbreaking defiance of Nagraj Manjule's Fandry
4 years, 5 months ago

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: The groundbreaking defiance of Nagraj Manjule's Fandry

Firstpost  

Fandry is a rigorous cinematic exercise for viewers to contemplate on: what kind of society we have become; what kind of cinema this society has produced; and what kind of society cinema has constructed, in which a man is denied love just because he is Dalit. * In 1913, Dadasaheb Phalke, a Marathi Brahmin also known as “the father of …

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