THE APU TRILOGY

series edited and designed by Ian Cameron

· .: THE APU TRILOGY

ROBIN WOOD

NOVEMBER -----'~

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© Movie Magazine Limited, 1972

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SBN 856]I 002 6 (paperback)856310034 (hardback)

I want to thank John Turner, of theCanadian Film Institute, Ottawa, for hisgenerous help in arranging for me to view theApu films at length and leisure, and BrianLinehan, of Janus Films, Toronto, tor hispersonal interest and encouragement and theloan of a print of Two Daughters. My wifeAline has as usual been a great influence onmy work, both directly and indirectly; shealso did the typing. The book is dedicated,with aDection, to Michael Walker.

The titles by which Ray's films are generallyImown to English-speaking audiences showmarhed linguistic inconsistency. No one evercalls Pather Panchali 'Song of the LittleRoad'; Aparajito is sometimes, but not often,referred to as 'The Unvanquished'; TheWorld of Apu, on the other hand, is nevercalled 'Apur Sansar'. Aftel' brief hesitation Ihave preferred familiarity to consistency andretained the titles most of us normally use.

Frontispiece: Satyajit Ray directing 'Auntie'in Pather Panchali.

Stills by courtesy of Contemporary Films andthe National Film Archive.

1 CONTENTSIntroduction

Pather Panchali

Aparajito

The World of Apu

Credits

Film List

Bibliography

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INTRODUCTIONOne likes to begin a book with a bit ofcontroversy, punching a few critical noses andoffering one's own for the return poke orsmash that all too seldom comes. The readeralways enjoys finding a few insults bandiedaround: aside from the dubious pleasure ofsharing in a probably quite unjustified feelingof superiority, it gives him the sense thatthere must be some issue at stake for him to

make up his own mind about. Alas, in the caseof Satyajit Ray, it is next to impossible toachieve this desirable effect: there seems neverto have been any controversy about him.

This certainly does not mean that thereis uniformity of opinion about the value ofhis work: the critics with whom my own namehas most often been linked, the founders andauthors of Movie, reject him to a man. Butthen 'reject' is altogether too strong a word.Rather, they offer him the insult that is be­yond insult: they ignore him. One once told methat Pather Panchali 'seemed quite a nice littlefilm', which seems to be ab-out the maximumenthusiasm Ray's films have aroused in thosequarters. Critics who detest Jean-Luc Godardand Ingmar Bergman usually find them suf­ficiently interesting and stimulating to beworth the bother of attacking, but Ray appearsto provoke in his detractors nothing more

intense than apathy. Where most of Godard'sdetractors wouldn't dream of missing a neWGodard film, there is a general sense amongRay's that Mahanagar and Charulata wouldn'tbe worth the time and bus fare. The corollaryis that Ray's admirers (in print at least) tendto be critics of the conservative Establishment.Film enthusiasts who don't know Ray's workwell at first hand probably build up a mentalimage of it as the sort of primitive andliterary cinema that has a solid, dull worthi­ness but is difficult spontaneously to enjoy orget excited about.

I propose to begin by attempting to do thedetractors' work for theJ.ll: to elaborate, outof the shrug of indifference which is the mostthose hostile to his work seem willing to offer,a case against Ray (in order, naturally, to,refute it); to imagine, that is, the obstaclesthat interfere with other people's response tofilms -that have always communicated verydirectly and movingly to me.

First, perhaps, I should confront theproblem - which, confronted, appears morehypothetical than real - of the accessibilityof Ray's films for western audiences: can wefeel any confidence that we are adequatelyunderstanding, intellectually and emotionally,works which are the product of a culture very

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different from our own? The problem hastwo aspects. One is content, our intermittentsense that certain passages or details in thefilms may mean something more, or some­thing different, to Indian audiences. Theother is tempo: the chief explicit grumble inthe West about Ray's films is that they moveslowly.

The 'content' problem can easily be stoodon its head: what is remarkable is how seldomin Ray's filius the spectator is pulled up byany specific obstacle arising from culturaldifferences. Partly, this can be attributed tothe fact that Ray appears to have learnt hisart mainly from the western cinema. Thedirectors he repeatedly refers to, as antece­dents rather than direct influences, are JeanRenoir (The Southerner, The River), VittorioDe Sica (Bicycle Thieves), Jolin Ford andFrank Capra; he has expressed admirationfor directors as diverse as Ingmar Bergmanand Alfred Hitchcock. In terms of generalsubject-matter, Ray's films usually deal with )­hwnan fundamentals that undercut all culturaldistinctions. The subject-matter. of the trilogy- family, the parent-child relationship, mar­riage, irreparable loss, reconciliation - isobviously universal in its accessibility. EvenRay's apparently more 'exotic' films like Devi- in which a young girl is mistaken by herfather-in-law for a reincarnation of a goddess- can be reduced to conflicts (usually relatedto social change and the gulf between gener­ations) that are certainly not restricted to oneculture. When a specific cultural peculiaritydoes play a part in the narrative it oftenbecomes evident that the attitude to it en­couraged by the fihn as a whole is .not all thatfar removed from our own. The impromptu

wedding in The World of Apu is a case inpoint. We no longer arrange marriages forour daughters with men they have nevermet, and even if we did and the groom, onarrival, proved to be insane, we would not as­sume that the girl was cursed and perenniallyunmarriageable if a substitute were not foundat once to go through with the ceremony. Butthe consciousness through which we view allthis is Apu's, and his immediate reaction is'Are we still living in the Dark Ages?'Similarly in Devi, the attitude we are en­couraged to identify *ith most closely is thatof the horrified young husband: the super­stition is seen unequivocally as that, andmonstrous.

The 'tempo' problem presents more seriousobstacles; it is also much more difficult todiscuss or remove, depending as it does partlyon subjective reaction, and on aspects of filmit is impossible to cope with at all adequatelyin words. Even making allowances for possiblenational differences in expectation, there arepassages in Ray which I feel to be 'stretched':within the trilogy, the later sequences ofAparajito; outside it, the later scenes of thesecond story of Two Daughters. In both thesecases, we see where the film is moving longbefore it gets there, and feel we would accepta more elliptical treatment than Ray's pains­taking analysis of each phase in the develop­ment of character and narrative. Even here,however, we should be ready to allow for thefact that Ray is less interested in expressingideas than in communicating emotional ex­perience. In the West, we are conditionedprimarily either by the classic Americancinema with its taut narrative structures inwhich, when a scene has made its point, we

are carried swiftly on to the next, or by theEuropean (an' cinema with its tendency tointellectual thematic structures. We may feel,with Ray, that we have already got the pointwhen we are in fact continuing to miss it, for'the point' may be not an extractable thematicor narrative issue but the total experience acharacter is undergoing.

More generally, the only answer to thecomplaint that Ray's films move 'slowly' isthat this is surely their right. Rules cannot beapplied externally to works of art, for eachwork defines its own rules. To ask Ray's filmsto move faster is like asking Brahms orBruckner to be Stravinsky. This is not to saythat either Brahms or Bruckner (or Ray) isnecessarily beyond criticism, but the right tocriticise is earned only by submitting to thework in question sufficiently to feel its move­ment, its rhythms, its breathing. Only thencan we decide with any degree of authoritywhether or not a point is being laboured; thecriterion is not the tempo adopted but oursense of the artist's succcss in realising hisconcepts, and, ultimately, the value of theconcepts as realised.

In fact, Ray has himself stated unequivo­cally that the best critical writings on his filmshave appeared in the West. Certainly anydiffidence about discussing films which rhevery different cultural background may leadone partly to misconstruc, is best dispelled byturning to the critical work of some of Ray'sfellow countrymen, A Bombay magazinecalled Montage devoted an entire issue toRay's work (July t956). It constitutes avaluable documenr, though nor entirely be­cause of the quality of its contents, which is,to say the least, variable. Most interesting, in

fact, apart from Ray's own contributions ininterviews and articles, are the interviews withhis collaborators, both actors and technicians.The critical articles are not uniformly undis­tinguished, but the level of some of themmight well encourage the hesitant Westerncritic to feel that his cultural differences donot necessarily disqualify him from attempt­ing to analyse Ray's work responsibly. Anarticle on 'Death in the Trilogy' by T. G.Vaidyanathan, for instance, offers this accountof a scene closely following the announcementof Aparna's death in The World of Apll:( ... as Apu is preparing to leave and crossesthe railway tracks, he notices a white goatwhile simultaneously discerning the approachof a train. The train emits a long whistle as itapproaches, and on nearing Apu, the cameraveers skywards and the blankness of the emptysky envelops us as the long deepening screechof the whistle takes the train past Apu. Thewhite goat is almost certainly run over ... 'We might charitably forgive the curious sub­stitution of a (white goat' for the film's quiteunambiguous pig, as a lapse of memory; butso striking a lapse does rather undermine anyfaith in the accuracy of the rest of the descrip­tion, offered with such a confident show ofdetail. And why 'is almost certainly run over'?We see the animal dead! The sequence in factbegins with the empty sky and the smoke;Apu notices the pig only "When he hears itsdeath-scream. But the really startling omissionis the writer's total lack of awareness of whatthe staging, acting and editing of the scenemake clear beyond any shadow of a doubt:that Apu, as he awaits the train's arrival, iscontemplating suicide; that it is only the pig'sdeath that prevenrs him from casting himself

• und.er the train. The next essay 'The Themeof Love in Ray's Films', by Goutam Kaul,offers an even more remarkable distortion,and with reference to a film whose subject­matter might well occasion the Western criticsome qualms. The subject of Devi, accordingto Mr. Kaul, is ' ... a man's growing aware­ness that his wife was a goddess incarnate'. Idon't see how anyone - Eskimo, Hottentot orAnthropophagu~- who attended at all to thefilm could make that of it. Obviously, it wouldbe rash, from such meagre evidence, to jumpto the conclusion that Ray's films are under­stood better by westerners than by his com­patriots; but at least it is an encouragementto overcome any natural diffidence and scnseof disadvantage.

By aligning Ray, in my rough-and-readyanalogy, with Brahms and Bruckner againstStravinsky, I may have seemed to concedethe detractors' strongest point: Ray is, afterall, a twentieth-century artist - isn't hiscinema desperately old fashioned? To whichone can imagine the hypothetical detractoradding, as an afterthought, the dread words'literary' and (academic'. The emergence inthe Wesr of Ray's early work preceded by afew years the breaking of the New Wave andEnglish-speaking critics' discovery of Antoni­oni. The quiet and undemonstrative qualitiesof Pather Panchali of course never generatedthe sort of excitement associated with earlyGodard. By the time The World of Apu wasreleased in London, it could have been seensandwiched between L'Avventura the daybefore and Les Bonnes Femmes the day after,in which context, with no allowances for theartistic and social environment from which itcame, it must have certainly appeared old-

fashioned, But not to make such allowancesis manifestly absurd, and to call PatherPanchali old fashioned in relation toL'Avvenlura is as meaningless as to callBroken Blossoms old fashioned beside Breath­less: of course it is, and the label does notreduce the film's value in the slightest. It iseasy to guess that, in the context of theBengali cinema, Pather Panchali was posi­tively revolutionary. Ray's models wereRenoir 'and the Italian neo-realists, but'models' isn't really the right term becauseRay's film does not in any real sense imitatethem; rather, they gave Ray the kind of hintsa great artist can take from others and use inhis own way. It is true that Ray has notobviously extended the boundaries of cine­matic expression, except perhaps in thecontext of Indian cinema; he is naturallyconservative by temperament. But the samecould be said of Ford and Hawks, and evenof Renoir and Mizoguchi. Other directors canlearn from all of these abundantly, as theycan from Ray, but none has been responsiblefor the kind of startling, instantly transform·ing innovations one associates with CitizenKane or Breathless. Ray hasn't been afraid toadopt the innovations of others when they suithis purposes (the use of the zoom lens and'freeze' shots in Charulata, for example), buton the whole he has shown himself contentwith the film-maker's traditional means andmethods, which he has turned to consistentlypersonal use. The term 'academic' only hasforce if it implies a characterless following ofrules, the safe reliance on repetition of whathas been done before. Analysis will show, Ithink, that the decisions one can discernthrough Ray's mise-en-scene nearly always

grow out of a personal response to thematerial. Nor is Ray in any real sense a'primitive', as my analogy with Griffith mayhave misleadingly suggested. The sensibilitywith which one makes contact through thefilms is notably refined and civilised, and thetechnique, within the limits of 'classical'mise-en-scene (a term I take to includeMizoguchi and Renoir, so the limits are notexactly constricting), has a correspondingdelicacy.

The charge of Ray's cinema being 'literary'might seem to carry rather morc weight.Most of his films arc adapted from novels andstories and most of the originals have thcreputation of bcing respectable, distinguishedworks in their own right. His art clearly hasaffinities with that of the novelist, his mostobvious concern being with the nuances ofcharacter-relationships and character develop­ment. Yet careful examination of almost anysequence in Ray's work will show that it hasbeen conceived - or, when the literary originalis closely followed, re-conceived - in termsthat are essentially cinematic. This holds trueeven of simple dialoguc-scenes raking placewithin a single sct: camera-position, camera­movement and editing are not mere functionalappendages but play a leading creative rolc,so that the overall effect is not only non­literary but non-theatrical.

At this point it might be useful to supportthese assertions with an example - which, asthe Apu films will be discussed in detail later, Ishall take from one of Ray's later works. Con­sider, then ... as a representative specimen, therule rather than the exception - a scene fromthe first story of Two Daughters. The story(the original is by Tagore)is about aneducated

young man from the city who gets the job ofpostmaster in a primitive rural village. Withthe job, he inherits from his predecessor asmall orphan girl called Ratan, whose dutiesinclude cleaning the house and driving awaythe local lunatic. Without family or guardians,Ratan begins to develop an attachment to theyoung man, taking very much to heart hisremarks about cleanliness and domesticefficiency. Just before the sequence in ques.tionwe see her taking off the line her clothes,diligently washed to please him. There followsa scene organised by Ray into thirteen shots:I) The all-purpose living-room in the post­master's house. He is lying on his stomach onthe bed in very grubby clothes, face towardsthe camera, looking at a postcard, holding anopen book. The camera is sufficiently far backfO reveal much of the 9ccor: the familyphotograph the postmaster has put on thewall, left; the umbrella he carries everywherewith him, emblem of his importance, hangingon the wall. The background of the shot issunlit. The young man's face suggests a quiethappiness. Just before Ratan enters in thebackground, the camera tracks in, so that thetwo fi.gures arc framed more tightly. Shespeaks; he'slips the postcard into the bookand turns on his back. 2) A medium shot ofRatan, standing against the window. Shepauses, expectant: she wants him to noticeher clean clothing. Then she asks him whothe letter is from. The postmaster (outside theimage) tells her it's from his mother. Shesmiles. 3) The postmaster: 'Why do yousmile?' 4) Ratan. She runs teft to the photoon the wall, triumphantly pointing out thefigure she has deduced (correctly) to be hismother. The camera first follows Ratan left,

• then tracks back to take in the young man aswell, as Ratan points to another figure andasks who she is. 'l\1y sister Rani', he tells her.5) Close-up, Ratan. She looks troubled. 'Canshe read and write?' 6) The postmaster hasturned his back on her and is lying on hisside. We see him from her point of view.'And sing roo', he says. 7) Ratan again. Theyoung man's voice continues: 'She's not likeyou'. 'But I can sing', the child promptlyanswers. 8) The postmaster's back. Ratan'svoice: 'Shall I show you?' 9) Ratan beginsto sing, nervously fingering her sari, lookingdown at the floor. The camera tracks back toshow the postmaster apparently asleep, thentracks in to a close-up of him to show hiseyes opening as the hesitant song continues.10) Ratan fingering the sari, singing. Shestops. 'That's all I know'. II) The postmaster,close-up. He laughs. 'It was very good.' Thecamera tracks back to take in Ratan. He goeson to tell her she must learn to" read andwrite too - then she'll be like his sister. Hetells her to look for money in his coat pocket,to buy a slate and penciL The camera tracksin slightly as he gives her some of the moneyshe brings him. 'I only need eight pennies',she says. 12) The postmaster: 'Keep the rest.If you study hard. ' 13) A shot of themboth. His voice continues: '. . you'll getmore.' Ratan runs out of frame right, thencomes back and pauses again. 'Oh' he says,noticing at last, 'you've washed your clothes'.

Acting is one of the aspects of film leastsusceptible to verbal analysis, but it must besaid that much of the scene's delicate andtouching quality arises from the precisionand sensitivity of the performances, the man'scasual indifference, then faint stirring of imer-

est contrasted with the child's shy eagerness toplease (Ray is arguably the cinema's greatestdirector of children). And it is real filmacting, much too delicately nuanced to makean effect from a stage. What can be pointedout more satisfactorily is the way Ray usesthe purely cinematic means of camera-move­ment and editing to express the essence ofthe scene: the sense of hesitant contact. Thedevice of cutting, not with the dialogue, butin counterpoint to it, so that one character'swords are combined with the other's reactionto them, is not just a means of achievinggreater fluidity in the editing. In 7), forexample, the effect of juxtaposing the youngman's words, 'She's not like you', with ashot of Ratan, is greatly to intensify ourawareness of their thoughtlessness; the obviousway of cutting from the words to a reactionshot of Ratan would lessen the immediacy,and our sense of the continuity of emotionaldevelopment and interchange.

The whole scene is conceived in terms of asubtle interplay between separateness (editing)and contact (camera-movement) which ex­presses the emotional flow with extraordinaryprecision. In the first shot the aparrness of thecharacters is suggested by having Ratanhovering in the background of the imagewhile the man has his back to her. When hehlrns to her, Ray separates them by cutting.From there on, each time the camera moves,it is to express an inner movement towardscontact. In 4), the camera tracks back toinclude the postmaster in the image at themoment when Ratan proudly displays heridentification: of the mother in the photographand her ensuing question about the girl. Raycuts to a close-up of Ratan immediately she

knows it is his sister, her sense of being unableto compete isolating her. In 9), the camera isat first on Ratan, thcn moves back to includethe man; but he has his back to her and seemsto have fallen asleep. The image becomes oneof separation umil the camera tracks in, with­out a cut, to show his eyes opening, the con­tinuity of movement expressing the way thecharm of the tentative, artless little songgradually gets through to him. 10) and I I)have the characters separate again as Ratanfalters and admits 'That's all I know' and thepostmaster laughs; but I I) continues with atrack back from the close-up of him to takein Ratan as he says 'It was very good', andthe two arc again in emotional connection.The last shot, 13) has them both in frame,with Ratan mnning out at the door by whichshe entered, reversing the movement of theopening shot of the sequence, giving the wholescene a formal symmetry. But this time thepostmaster is facing her, and as she comesback and hesitates, he at last notices whatshe first came in to let him sec, a confirmationof the new awareness of her and interest inher which has developed in the course of thescene. Hitchcock draws a distinction between'pure cinema' and 'photographs of peopletalking', but if the concept of 'pure cinema'is to have validity it must be allowed to

extend to a scene like this, in which the actionis minimal and contains nothing that couldnot be done on a stage.

Ray's cinema is 'literary' only in the sensethat it is firmly rooted in narrative. He thinksprimarily in .terms of plot and character, andthe significance of the films grow naturallyout of this, extractable ideas or themes beingthe product rather than the starting-point.

In this respect he is closer to the Hollywoodmasters than to European directors like Berg­man, Antonioni or Godard. Ray's own state­mcnt (the specific reference is to Malzanagar,but the words can be taken to apply·generally)is relevant here; indeed, several of the follow­ing remarks could be taken as texts for adisscrtation on Ray's work.'What I try to do in my films is to presentcertain situations. I try as far as possible,potto comment - not to make didactic state­ments, not to be propagandist in any way. Imerely show what it mcans for a family to

have to change, what happens thcn; andcertain problems are presented as clearly aspossible showing all aspects, and then leavethe public to draw their own conclusions. Ina story like Mahanagar, I felt it was importantto establish the fact that ch'l:nge was necessary,because in modern India certain ideas haveto be put across. Important ideas, necessaryideas, you know. But nobody ever says in thefilm that you have to change or it's good tochange. I merely present certain incidents,and through the incidents, and through thereaction of people to the incidents, certainfacts emerge. Fairly complex facts, becausethere are always two sides to a thing. It'scertainly not desirable that two old persons,the parents of the boy, should suffer inwardly.They suffer because they have not been ableto change. But they do suffer and you dosympathise with their agony, their grief.That's how I like to present my stories, witli.­out making any kind of bombastic propa­ganda statements. They're stories first andforemost, they're tales, shall we say. I believein plot; I'm not a non-believer in plot.Because India has a great tradition of stories.

And it makes for a kind of orderliness whichhelps an audience which is not used to

intellectual subtleties. And yet it affords youto be subtle in other things.'. Such emphasis on plot and character, how­ever, needs to be balanced and qualified bythe 'pure cinema' aspects of Ray's art, thoseaspects that bring the cinema closer to musicthan to literature. From this point of view,Two Daughters marks an advance on theApu trilogy, and Ray's subsequent films showfurther refinements. Chamlata tells a story,certainly, but it can also be regarded as builton a complicated pattern of echoes and cross­references, both thematic and visual, withalmost every incident finding an 'echo some­where, down to details of camera-movementand set-up. Ray himself said of this:'I'm very conscious at all times of the musicalaspect of a film, of its rhythm, of its silencesand of its general pattern. I'm a great loverof Mozart, and certainly I had Mozart inmind when I made Cllarulata, very much.It's consciously planned, but not worked outlike a mathematical problem. I find it's moreand more what emerges naturally. It's con­scious and subconscious at the same time Ithink.'

The reference to Mozart is an importantclue to the nature of Ray's art. It points uphis affinities with Renoir. It also helps us toconnect the emphasis on the 'musical' aspectsof his films with the awareness that 'there arealways two sides to a thing' - several sides ina film like Charulata or Days and Nights inthe Forest. The simultaneous awareness ofdifferent, even incompatible, viewpoints is acharacteristic that finds supreme expressionin Mozart's operas.

This emotional complexity, the delicatebalancing of responses, what one might callthe Mozartian aspect of Ray's art, whichlinks him with Renoir, is already characteristicof Patller Panella/i. It reaches fullest expres­sion in Days and Nights in tile Forest, themost recent of his films to reach the West atthe time of writing, and perhaps his master­piece to date - certainly the most 'musical'of his films. It is impossible to do it justicein a short space; a single sequence (thememory game, for example, with its extra­ordinary precision of nuance) would offermaterial for a short essay. I shall representthe film's quality by considering a single shot.

The film is about four young men from thecity who go on a 'back-to-nature' holiday,staying at a rest house in a forest region.Nearby, another, middle-aged, city-dwellerhas his private holiday residence, where he isstaying with his widowed daughter-in-lawand his daughter, Aparna, a young lady ofextreme beauty and considerable education,with whom Ashim (Soumitra Chatterjee, theadult Apu of the trilogy and one of Ray'sfavourite actors) begins to fall in love. Theladies drive up to the rest house when themen, stripped to the waist, arc washing them­selves beside a well in the grounds. Generalconsternation and embarrassment. One man,Sanjoy, in whom the daughter-in-law hasshown incipient interest, plunges to theground behind the well; the plump, slightlyclownish Sekhar, the upper part of his bodycovered in soap, is left to perform the neces­sary civilities while Ashim looks on diffident­ly. In a single shot we have the car in theforeground of the image, Aparna, in the backseat, right of screen, looking out away from

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the men, towards the audience, with herhabitual expression of slightly enigmaticirony; Sekhar on the other side of the car,bowing and smiling ingratiatingly, but writh­ing with cmbarrassment; Ashim standing inthe background to the left of d>e image,looking towards thc car, wanting contact withAparna but feeling at a hopeless disadvan­tage. We arc also constantly aware of Sanjoylying prone on his belly behind the well inthe far background, although we can't seehim, so that he becomes an invisible buteffective presence in the mise-en-scene. Ashimand Aparna are left and right of the screenrespectively, their background / foregroundpositioning forming an imaginary diagonal.The careful composition of the image framesSekhar's well-intentioned, overstated bumbl­ings between their shy silence, and Aparna'sface is constantly averted from the youngman in a way that underlines her awarenessof him. The spectator's response is conse­quently divided betwcen the comic and thetender, so thal each aspect of the shot coloursthe others. The delicate efTect of balance andcounterpoint achieved here could be paralleledagain and again in a film where Ray's affinitywith Mozart is even more apparent than inCham/ata.

Except in the vague sense in which all majorart is 'religious' (a reaching out towards asignificance beyond the individual human lifelived simply for itself), Ray is not a religiousdirector. One guesses, however, that Hindu­ism has its importance in the background tohis work, rather as Christianity is likely tohave its importance for even a non-religiousWestern artist, as a generalised source and14

influence. But there is no temptation todevote years of scholarly research to the trac­ing of Hindu influences in films madeperfectly intelligible by their universality ofconcern. A simple and convenient way ofsuggesting the kind of importance such an in­fluence may have is offered by Renoir's TheRiver, that harmonious union of East andWest which also offers one the chance tosuggest the nature of Ray's affinities withRenoir.

When Renoir went to India to make TheRiver in 1950, Ray, then working in advertis­ing, already cherished the project of filmingPatlte,. PancltaJi, having drawn illustrationsfor an edition of Bannerjee's novel. Heintroduced himself to Renoir, for whom healready had great admiration, helpcd himfind locations, accompanied him several timeson long trips, and watched ;iome of the shoQ[­ing. He also told him the swry of PatherPanchaJi ('1 already had a kind of treaunentin my head - it was still not written down'),and Renoir gave him enthusiastic encourage­ment.

The River can be regarded as Renoir'sdelightcd discovery that hc'd always been aHindu without knowing it. From the spiritof generosity that informs La Regle du jeu,with its awareness that 'everyone has hisreasons', to rhe Hindu belief that God'" ispresent in all pcoplc and all things is but a­short step. Just such an awareness underliesRay's art as well, from the ensembles ofPatlzer Panchati wherein the spectator is en­couraged to experience a situation from_­several viewpoints simultaneously, to theMozartian complexities of Days and Nightsin the Forest. The single shot I described

from the latter film is sufficient in itself tosuggest the spirit that links Ray's art toRenoir's.

Even more interesting in relation to Ray'swork - and to the trilogy, perhaps most ofall - are the references in The River to thegoddess Kali and their connection with thefilm's central image, the giant pepul tree.Kali is the Goddess of Destruction andCreation, 'for without destruction there canbe no creation'. She could perhaps be re­garded as the presiding dcity of the Apufilms, with their recurrent motif of simul­taneous loss and gain. The central unifyingthematic preoccupation of all Ray's work 't.Q

date is change or 'progress': again and againhe returns to an investigation of people'sani tudes to change, how they cope with it(or fail to cope), the gaps it produces betweengenerations or between people from culturalbackgrounds at different stages of develOp­ment. And the overall attitude to 'progress'is consistently ambivalent; what is createdis always balanced (though not negated) bywhat is destroyed. The pepul tree in TheRiver is sacred to women, who bring to itofferings in the hope of being fertile andproducing male children: within its recesseslives a cobra, which kills the only son of theBritish family who are the film's centralcharacters. The flowing of the river itself isused by Renoir to suggest the continuity oflife; the character-relationships in the filmcontinually hint at a balancing of gain andloss, the death of the child bringing a newunderstanding and closeness to those nearhim, the end of innocence being the start ofmaturity. Such concerns, and the attitude to

life they imply, are by no means restricted in

Renoir's work to The River, but it is onlyin that film that their affinities with Hinduismbecome manifest. Perhaps it was Hinduismthat attracted Renoir to India, and attractedSatyajit Ray to Renoir.

Although a considerable time gap and twoother films intervened between the shootingof Aparajito and the shooting of The Worldo{ Apu; although Apu himself is incarnatedby three different actors in the course of thetrilogy; and although each film makes senseif seen in isolation, it is nevertheless possibleto trace a clear structure in the trilogy as awhole, and to view it as one long film inthree parts.

Apu is the only character who appears inall three films, and (obviously enough) it ishis development that provides the trilogy withits main unifying impulse. One strikingoverall structural feature is the-way in whichthe focus is progressively narrowed, so thatour attention is concentrated more and morcexclusively on Apu himsclf. Although in animportant sense he is already central toPather Pancha/i, it is essentially an ensemblefilm, our interest being involved in the com­plex interplay between the five members ofthe family rather than directed exclusively~

towards anyone of them. Aparajito begins asa trio (Apu and his parents) and dwindles toa duet (Apu and his mother). The World o{ApllJ despite its title, is more about Apu thanhis world, and his developing consciousness ismore unequivocally central to the film thanto its forerunners. This is true even in rhesequences depicting Apu's marriage, as canbe seen by comparing these with Ray'shandling of the mother/son relationship in

15

Aparajito. The overall effect that mostdecisively characterises the earlier film isachieved by the division of our consciousness,hence of our sympathetic allegiance, betweenmother and son; we sec Sarbojaya more fuHythan Apu ever quite does, and share heremotions in ways he can't allow himself-to.OUf awareness of Aparna, on the other hand,­is scarcely separable from Apu's. Only in theclosing stretches of The World of Apu is thecentral position of Apu's consciousnesschallenged: the end of the trilogy is really anew beginning, and this is expressed structur­ally in the way in which the consciousness ofApu's son is allowed equality (in the presenta­tion of the action) with Apu's own.

This progressive concentration of focus onthe trilogy's protagonist is accompanied bithe removal through death of those ncaresJhim. There are no less than five importantdeaths in the trilogy: 'Auntie', the agedfemale dependent, and Apu's sister Durga, inPat/leI' Panchali; Apu's parents in Aparajito;Apu's wife Aparna in The World of Apll.Of these, three seem to have a s2ecial strustural significan..ce: those of the three females

I.II:!...-who have a decisive influence on Apu's lif~

~~sister, mother, wife._ They are roughlyequidistant in the trilogy: Durga's deathoccurs near the end of the first film,Sarbojaya's at the end of the second, Aparna'sapproximately mid-way through the third.Each, at the time of her death, is the personemotionally closest to Apu. One speci~

recurring circumstance in the three deat~s

heightens our sense of them as a leitmotivrunning through the trilogy: each death takesplace at a time of separation. It is true thatwe share intimately in the mother's experience

16

of Durga's death, but the irrevocable fact ofit is brought home most forcefully when Rayleads us sympathetically to shate the fathet'sshock when, returning home, he learns whathas happened. Sarbojaya dies alone beforeApu can get horne to her. Aparna di~s inchildbirth several days' journey away fromher husband. In each case the fact of absencegreatly intensifies the sense of loss, of humanhelplessness in the face of death's abruptnessand finality, and of life's terrible unpredict­ability.

But the deaths, felt as so terrible in them­selves, are never merely negative in results.Throughout the trilogy loss is usually accom­panied by gain, and each death leads, eitherimmediately or indirectly, to progress.Durga's death provides the family's finalincentive to leave the village for the city;Sarbojaya's releases Apu. to follow his ownpath untrammelled; Aparna's, the most pain­ful of all, leads him eventually (the effect isfar more delayed) to a complete maturity andfully adult depth, out of which grows hisability to accept the child with joy. Our dualsense of Apu's emotional rebirth and the boy'srelease into a new and fuller life with thefather whose lack has so disturbed his earlychildhood provides the whole trilogy with irsemotional climax and culmination. The boyis very like the young Apu. Life has comefull circle, but it has also advanced: the lifeinto which Apu will be able to initiate his sonis richer in potentialities for development thanthat into which Apu himself was born. Itis not just a matter of physical environment,the city opposed· to the village: the crucialpresence in the child's environment will beApu himself, with his hard-won maturity and

)

affirmation.The trilogy certainly encourages one to

draw the inference that the progress fromthe primitive village of Pather Parzclzali to

the city of The World of Apll constitutes anadvance; but the point mustn't be allowed tosrand unqualified. Ray is by no means asimple-minded believer in progress, and thesense of advance at the end of the trilogy willbe modified for us, if we glance back over allthat has led up to it, by, again, a sense ofcorresponding loss. If the life Apu has won.through to is incomparably richer in potenti- f

alitics than that into which he was born, it isalso ftaught with far greater problems anduncertainties. The obvious comparis'on is with'The Rainbow' (though it must be concededat once that the trilogy suffers somewhatbeside the extraordinary range and density ofLawrence's great novel): Apu's progressthrough the trilogy to some extent corresponds~to the movement from the comparativestability of the Marsh farm, with irs rooted­ness in a defined cultural tradition, its knownand tested values, to the bewildering contem­porary complexities (and they still feel con­temporary, almost sixty years after the bookwas written) which Ursula Brangwen faces inthe latter patt of the book. The possibilitieslife offers in the village of Pather Panchali

are too meagre for the comparison to be veryclose - Lawrence's characters are never forcedby necessity to squander their emotional andphysical energies on the bare basic busin~ss

of sustaining life - but the movement of thetrilogy from a united (if poverty-stricken)family within a clearly defined (if extremelylimited) community to an isolated individualin a great city is, as in 'The Rainbow', amovement of social history as much as anarrative about individual characters.

The ~mbivalence of the trilogy's attitudeto 'progress' is epitomised rather beautifullYin the development of its most obvious unify­ing motif.; the train. There is nothing forcedor arbitrary about Ray's use of train imagesas a unifying device. There is no simple sym­bolism involved. The meaning of the imagesshifts and changes and accumulates complexemotional-overtones as the trilogy progresses.From the magical moment in Patlzer Panchaliwhen the sound of a distant train first im­pinges on the child Apu's consciousness as thefamily sit in their home at night, to the adultApu's attempted suicide on the railway tracksamid the squalor of a Calcutta slum in TheWorld of Apll, is a movement that shouldremove any suspicion that the concept of'progress' in the trilogy - and in Ray's workgenerally - is simple or naive.

17

PATHER PANCHALIis sent to return the fruit she has stolen fromthe local landowner's orchard. In one shot,we see Durga run out of the frame at the left,Auntie in the foreground rinsing her mouth(she has been eating the fruit Durga stole),and the kittens entering the frame from the

Still: Sarbojaya, Durga and Apu.

right. When Auntie, threatened with expulsionby Sarbojaya, indignantly packs her bundleto leave, she hurls it out on to a kitten playingin the dust. Durga follows Auntie to try tobring her back, Sarbojaya calts her in to sweepthe yard, and we see the three kittens playingas she sets to work. The association of thesenile and useless Auntie with the 'new life'

Apu is born near the beginning of Pather fields.Panehali, and we sec him briefly as a baby, The first shot, apparently very simple andbeing sung to by the senile female dependant containing no 'significant' action, is charactcr-known as 'Auntie'. However, our real intro- istic of the style and method of Patherduction to him comes when, some years A:- Panchali in several ways. The characters -arehaving elapsed, we sec him being awakened in long-shot throughout, so that we are awa~e-

by Durga in time for school. The way in of them within their environment and inwhich he is presented is crucial to his role in relation to each other. The women of threeFather Panchali and to some extent in the generations are shown going about theitwhole trilogy. The sequence of shots is as ordinary daily routines, e?-ch separate, scarce-follows: I) Durga enters the yard, followed ly aware of each other, yet linked by the can-by a cat. The camera pans left with her, to tinuity of the take ....The"'effect here, as of manytake in Auntie shaking her bed-rag to air it. comparable 'group' shots in the film, is ofThe mother, Sarbojaya, crosses the image on different lives being lived simultaneously, ather way to fetch water. At the end of the shot once separate and interconnected. Cuttingonly Auntie and the cat are left in the frame. from one to the other - the 'documentary'2) Durga shakes Apu, who is completely con- way of clarifying and emphasising theircealed under a tattered blanket. 3) A closer various chores - would have destroyed rheshot: Durga pries open a hole in the covering sense of family and the sense of life continl.!-with her fingers. 4) A larger close-up shows ing in time, the items in a montage tendingApu's closed eye within the hole. The eye to appear fixed and timeless. With Ray, onesuddenly opens and looks out. 5)« Durga is repeatedly aware of flux within the image.shakes him again. 6) Apu sits up. Rapid The age-death-continuity motif, importantdissolve to 7) Apu cleaning his teeth, which throughout the trilogy but central to Patherintroduces a series of shots linked by dissolves Panchali, is unobtrusively present not only inshowing Durga combing Apu's hair, Apu the linking of three generations within a singledrinking milk, having his face wiped, the take. In the sequence leading up to Apu'schildren moving along the path to school, birth, Auntie was visually linked in .severaltowards a cloudy horizon beyond the flat shots with white kittens. For example: Durga18 10

of the kittens is referred to again in the shotwe are considering; only now the cat is fullgrown and there is only one. The 'lvaste of lifein the natural world is almost subliminallysuggested; and in Auntie herself we see whatlife, in the environment depicted, can become.The figure is presented quite unsentimentally:we are led to see her as selfish and grotesque:but this never detracts from the pathos of hersituation, useless and generally unwanted,with no aim or purpose beyond cadging bitsof food.

The first shot of the sequence, then, servesto provide the context into which Ap""ll isintroduced: a metapllysical context (howeversketchy at this point) as much as a physicalone, for Ray's method itself, with its emphasison continuity and flux, implies a metaphysic, ­and he is offering us something more than adocumentary study of poverty in-a primitivecommunity. The key image is the eye rhatopens and -looks out. Apu illPather Panchaltis-not so much a -character as a developingconsciousness. Our relationship with him isa complex one. We are never invited simplyto identify with him, and Ray's customaryobjectivity of presentation applies to Apu asto the other characters. He is consistently apart of the ensemble. At the same time, inscene after scene we are brought back to anawareness of him as a registering conscious­ness. We are led to see the action with adouble vision: we see partly through Apu'seyes, partly through our own adult conscious­ness. Instead of simply identifying us with thechild's view, Ray makes us increasingly sensi­tive to the child's reactions to what he sees,his storing up of experiences and perceptions,his part-intuitive, part-contemplative way of

20

reaching the decisions that help determine hisown nature, the formation of his own outlookon the world in which he lives and grows.Immediately after the sequence I have des­cribed comes the scene of Apu at the villageschool. The schoolmaster is also the shop­keeper - not at fixed separate hours, butsimultaneously. The 'lesson' consists of theteacher mouthing out a poem and shouting athis pupils as he weighs food and chats withcustomers. He )iawns undisguisedly; ApB. anda class-mate play noughts-and-crosses; an oldman comes in for a gossip. When Apu grinsat them, the teacher bellows, 'What's sofunny? Is this a comedy?', and grabs a cane- with which he then scratches his back, eithertoo indolent or too unsure of his ground touse it for chastisement. The scene· is veryfunny, but its prime function is a serious one:the demonstration that if. Apu, the alert openeye, is going to learn and develop, it will notbe at school. There arc four extendedsequences in the film where we sec Apuundergoing formative experiences and reach­ing decisions about life - the quarrel over thestolen necklace, the children's first view of atrain, the death of Durga, the preparationsfor departure - and I want to examine eachof these in detail.

The sequence of the quarrel over the stolennecklace offers beautiful examples of Ray'ssubtlety and inexplicitness, his method ofpresenting an action with great analyticalclarity while leaving the audience free toponder a significance he refuses to underlineby means of close-ups or emphatic acting:the significant details are there as parts of awhole situation, the integrity of which Ray

Still: Durga gives Auntie the stolen fruit.

is careful to preserve. Underlying this may bethe characteristic Hindu sense that (in thewords of Professor Godbole in 'A Passage toIndia') 'Nothing can be performed in isola­tion'. In any case, Ray is one of the cinema'sgreat masters of interrelatedness.

The sequence begins with a close-up of adog, at which we then sec Apu pointing anarrow fixed in a rudimentary home-madebow. Sarbojaya calls him for his food, andfeeds him with her fingers, but Apu soon runsoff to play, and the food is given to the dog.Dy the simplest means, the shots suggestApu's eagerness for experience and activity -

his impatience with such commonplace occu­pations as eating - and his resourcefulness ininventing means to satisfy such urges withinthe limitations of his environment: we neversee him bored.

The wealthy land-owning neighbourappears, to accuse Durga of stealing herdaughter's necklace. Durga apparently isn't

present, but the box in which she keeps heraccumulation of trivial but treasured posses­sions is produced and its contents brutallystrewn on the ground. Then flarbojaya seesApu furtively gesturing Durga away, and calls

Stills: the schoolmaster (below),' Durgawatches the quarrel about the necklace. ),

the girl out from behind the crumbling wallwhere she is hiding. We already sense a con­flict of feelings within the woman: on the onehand, her desire to be socially respected forhonesty, and to avoid any accusation that shefails to bring up her children properly; on theother, her protective maternal feelings for thegirl. Durga has just returned from stealing

fruit in the neighbour's orchard. Sarbojayadefends her, saying she might steal fruit butwouldn't take anything valuable. The neigh­bour leaves, complaining loudly to anothervillager, 'Like mother, like daughter'. Ray'sstaging of the scene beautifully expresses andkeeps in balance the family tensions andloyalties. The father, Hari, isn't prescnt, but

all the other members of the family eitherimplicitly or explicitly involve themselves inDurga's delinquency. The mother defends herverbally (in a way that half condones fruitstealing), Apu expresses his instinctive com­plicity by gesturing her away, and althoughAuntie, present throughout the scene, is asusual not going to commit herself, we knowthat the fruit was stolen partly for her. It isworth stressing at this point - casting a glanceahead to the ending of the film - that oursympathy for Durga does not depend on anyassumption that she is being unjustly accused.We arc, I think, uncertain about this, but itis psychologically plausible that she is guilty.Growing up in poverty, she is deprived ofmost of the material pleasures of life, and theneighbour makes her particularly aware ofthis, unkindly emphasising her own children'sbetter fortune. Even more important, becausemore universal in its significance, is the impli­cation that even _within Durga's own family_it is Apu who is the favoured child. Thetendency to favour the male child over thefemale, especially strong in primitive culturesin which th~ossible destiny of a Durga is_to­end up aD. 'Auntie', is to some extent commonto all. Sarbojaya unhesitatingly takes theboy's side in quarrels, and when the childrenwant money for anything, Durga sends Aputo plead for it, although she is the elder. Herlittle hoard of possessions becomes the morepathetic when one sees it as an attempt tocompensate for a permanent and continuallyaggravated sense of disadvantage.

We are made to feel acutely the ~umilia­

tion of mother and daughter: Durga's not somuco at the accusation as at the way hertreasures, precious to her, are treated with

thoughtless contempt by the adults, emptiedout of the box like rubbish on to the dustyearth, and then ignored; Sarbojaya's above allat the other woman's closing remarks, inso­lently spoken to be overheard, as if theyswnmed up the judgment of the whole com­munity. It is the mother's humiliation thatprecipitates the rest of the action in the se­quence. In a fury of frustration she pullsDurga by the hair, watched by both Auntieand Apu, drags her to the gate (leaving a trailof stolen berries) and throws her out. Thereis a painful sense that she is acting against herown most deeply human instincts, that sheis punishing Durga not for the proven theftof fruit or even for the unproven theft of thenecklace, but for her own humiliation - socialpressures (the public accusation that she isnot bringing up her children properly) over­powering her maternal sympathies. Apu'sevident shock at his mother's behaviour ispartly shared by the spectator, though quali­fied by our adult insight into emotions beyondthe child's comprehension. Durga's punish­ment culminates in a climactic shot whosevisual balance offers a particularly fine ex­ample of the complexity of response Ray'sobjectivity can provoke. The centre of thescreen is occupied by the broken wall. Out­side the wall, left of screen, Durga limps off,weeping; behind the gate, right of screen,Sarbojaya collapses, also weeping. The spec­tator's sympathy is divided precisely as theimage is divided.

We then see Auntie picking up Durga'streasures and putting them back in the box:even Auntie, usually preoccupied with herown meagre comforts, has been shocked bythe emotional rawness of the scene into per-

I

)

I

Still: Sarbojaya works; Hari meditates.

forming a tenderly considerate action. Wehave so far been aware of Apu more as awitness, a receptive consciousness, than aparticipant. There is now another of Ray'scharacteristic 'group' shots in which Apucrosses the yard, passes his weeping mother,passes Auntie, and rinses out his mouth withwater. The action seems merely casual andirrelevant until we reflect back on the openingof the scene, where Sarbojaya fed him with

her fingers: he is now - albeit unconsciously- expressing his repudiation of her decisionsand her influence. The long-shot, single-takecontinuity prevents any labouring of the point,which is just naturally and unobtrusivelythere, an integral part of the action; it alsocounterbalances our response to what amountsto a moral judgment on Apu's part by keepingus aware of the mother's continuing grief andshame (now clearly shame at her own actions)and the old woman's more passive, less accu­satory expression of sympathy for Durga.

With the mother still weeping by the gate,Apu then reads arithmetic problems (aboutbuying apples!) out aloud. In tetrospect ftomAparajito, it strikes one as something of a feymoment in· his development: book-learningin the family is exclusively associated withHari, the father, Sarbojaya remaining c2m­pletely uneducated. Apu is turning - and notwithout ostentation - from his mother tQ. hiSfather's influence, and to the education thatwill increasingly separate him from Sarbojaya.The scene is an admirable example of Ray'~

ability to express his character's unconsciouspsychological impulses through actions. "

The train is a recurrent image throughout thetrilogy. On its first appearance, in the scenethat immediately precedes the stolen necklaceincident - when it is not even an im~e,

merely a sound in the night - it is juxtaposed_with Apu's education: his father is teachinghim to write. The children hear the train andApu asks where it is. 'Let's go some day', hesays, and Hari praises his work. The trainsuggests, obviously, a means of movement toa wider worlcl where educalional possibilitiesare..-Iess restricted; but its primary associationhere is with progress itself. The scene has twOother main components: Sarbojaya is doingDurga's hair, and the girl, on the thrcshold ofneedle, with extreme short-sighted concen­tration and little success. The sound of thetrain suddenly puts all the scene's componentsin a new pcrspective, evoking a world ofknowledge and achievement that 'places' theold woman's. primitivism and holds out possi­bilities for the children's development thatare beyond their imagination.

The scene where Durga and Apu see a

train for the lirst time is - justifiably - themost famous in the film. But it is impossible,here again, to consider the train imagery inisolation. Its meaning (or more accuratelyperhaps, its emotional force) is determined bya context of interacting developments. It isnecessary to go back at least to the play per­fotmed by a llavelling company which Apuwatches in the village. The scene is a goodexample of the double vision Ray encoucagesin the spectator in Patlrer Panchali: we seethe play with our own eyes as an absurdmclodrama, clumsily staged, with crude rant­ing actors (one made up as a girl to play theheroine); we also see it through Apu's eyes,and sympathetically experience his wonder ata ncw world of imagination and passion open~

ing out before him. The play is in a differentlanguage ftom that spoken in the fihn (thedistributors are clearly right not to subtitleit) and the entire tcxt is presumably meaning­less to Apu, but he is thrilled by the spectacle,the magic of dressing up and pretending, ofimitating heroic lives and passions remotefrom the realm of immediate experience.

The quattcl between Durga and Apu thatleads to their first sight of the train is precipi­tated by Apu's imaginative reaction to theplay. We see him puning on a home-mademoustache and crown, cut from silver foil,which Durga recognises as taken from herbox of treasures. She chases Apu, catches him,beats him, and is rebuked by their mother. SoDurga, impotent and frustrated) runs off, withrude, angry gestures. Apu follows; we secthem running across the open fields beyondthe trees that surround the village; the camera

Still: Auntie.

)

J

tillS up to show the sky, the open country,anticipating the emotional release that willfollow the present tensions.

The remainder of the sequence is built byinter-cutting the children's experience of thetrain and the death of Auntie, until the twoactions afC united as the children return andfind het dying. Earlier, before the play scene,we saw Auntie turned out by Sarbojaya, notfor the first time: the old woman hadwheedled a neighbour into buying her theshawl that Hari couldn't afford, and Sarbo­jaya took this (following shortly after thestolen necklace incident) as a further humilia­tion. Then, immediately before the scene ofthe play, there came a brief but eloquentmoment showing the children playing, run­ning past a pond beside which Auntie stoodmotionless. The rejection of sentimentality inthe presentation of Auntie is maintained rightthrough to her death: we afC never invitedto respond on the Sweet Old Lady level, ornudged into feeling for her anything beyondthe compassion her situation naturally pro­vokes. She is an infuriating, selfish, useless oldhuman being. The uselessness of her life, toherself as much as to others, is made abund­antly clear: she lives only for the next bit ofstolen fruit, or a new shawl. She and Durga3rc fond of each other, there is a fragile bondbetween them (which the old woman exploits),based perhaps on their shared sense of beingsuperfluous. Otherwise, Auntie has outlivedall real connection with anyone. On the otherhand, no one could accuse Ray of callousnessor suppose him to be preaching geronticide.Auntie clutches tenaciously at life, and enjoys

Still: Apu dresses up.

the meagre benefits presented to her. The shotof her standing in hopeless immobility by thepond as the children run past brings home tous the importance, to such a life, of thefamily, however tenuous her vital connectionwith its individual members. Suddenly, re­moved from them, she has literally nothing todo, not even a plant to spriokle warer on:there is no point in going forward or goingback, no point even in sitting down: it is animage of the most ultimate isolation.

After we watch Ourga and Apu run offacross the fields, Ray returns us to the yardof their home. Auntie hobbles back in, saying,'I'm nor feeling well.' The seriousness of hercondition is clear at once, not only from herappearance, but from the difference betweenthis humble plea for compassion and thestubborn pride she showed earlier, at the timeof Apu's birth, when she refused to returnuntil Durga gave her the pretext of seeingher new 'nephew'. But Sarbojaya tells herbrutally that this is not her home: we sensethat she is almost deliberately suppressing herawareness of the old woman's need. From theenclosed yard and the helpless, dying oldwoman, Ray cuts to a shot of Durga chewingcane, taken from a low angle so that we seeonly the sky as background; Apu edges intothe frame in long-shot, wanting to makepeace, wanting not to be excluded. Theenclosure/openness antithesis unobtrusivelyreinforces the age/youth opposition.

Back to Auntie. She asks for water, and istold, 'Get it yourself', although the water-potis near Sarbojaya. Again onc senses that theyounger woman is deliberately hardening herheart: there is not enough food for thechildren, and a dependent old woman is

29

expendable. Auntie's forehead is beaded withsweat as she struggles to the water; Sarbojaya,with a sudden involuntary concession tohumanity, raises the lid of the pot for her.A close up: Auntie turns on her a toothless,ingratiating smile, which fades pathetically asshe sees it has failed to ingratiate. She drinks,then sprinkles her head with watef; Sarhojayais preparing food which Auntie will not beinvited to share, licking her fingers, trying toignore the old woman. Auntie sprinkles thelast drops of water on the plant we saw her

30

Still: Durga, Apu and the train.

watering early in the. film, collects her bundle,and hobbles out of the yard: it is as if shehas silently accepted her doom, accepted thatshe has no right to protest or plead. Now thatAuntie's back is turned, Sarbojaya watchesher. As she disappears from view, the dog atwhich Apu tried to shoot the arrow is in theforeground of the image. Ray repeatedlyassociates the old woman with the animalworld (kittens, dog) where death is casual,

almost unnoticed. Her last attention to theplant is a beautiful touch, so fright' psycho­logically - the desire to leave something ofherself behind in the world that is discardingher. - that any symbolic meaning one feels itto have is inseparable from its direct signifi­cance in the action.

Throughout the scene Ray retains oursympathy for Sarbojaya without ever mini­mising the brutality of what she is doing. We3re led to understand so well her need to bebrutal: if she let herself feel anything, thefamily, struggling against starvation already,would be burdened with a completely helplessinvalid. The one small humanising detail,when she involuntarily raises the lid of thewater-pot she has refused to carry to the oldwoman, eloquently expresses the instincts forkindness that she is fighting down.

From the shot of the dog, and Auntie'sdeparture, Ray cuts to a shot of electric wires,with a whirring, humming noise on the sound­track. We see Durga with the cane in hermouth, still, listening. Apu approaches, stillwearing his silver-foil crown, the presence ofwhich throughout the scene keeps in ourminds not only the. children's quarrel but theplay, thereby linking Apu's two leducational'experiences. Cattle arc grazing in the back­ground; feathery seeded grasses grow in thefield by the pylon. Apu puts his head againstthe pylon and listens, Durga wanders amongthe grasses, vaguely troubled by what shedoesn't understand. The cut from Auntie tothe wires seems at first to make a simpleopposition of primitivism and progress; butthe ensuing images complicate this by juxta­posing the machine-made hardness of thewires and pylon with the sensuous and pliant

beauty of the seeded grasses. Apu, fascinated,wanders through a magically beautiful worldof grasses taller than he is; again the spectatorbecomes conscious of a dual ~ision, sympa­thetically responding with Apu to the novelwonder of the pylon and simultaneously feel­ing the natural beauty that the pylon dis­figures.

Durga throws the cane to him: we sensethat her uneasiness at the novelty makes herneed the reassurance of human contact; Apugrins, seeing that he is forgiven and thatcontact is to be resumed. Durga tells him tochew on the cane; their uneasiness at the newexperience of the machinery imperceptiblyreconciles them. He asks what the pylon is.Durga can't answer, but tells him to listen.They stand up, looking round. With thechildren in the foreground of the image, wesee a trail of black smoke rising, movingabove the white, sensuous grasses. Then a shotof the train crossing the horizon, near the topof the frame, as Durga and Apu run towardsit, vanishing from sight into the grasses. Froma shot of Apu running towards the embank­ment Ray cutS to a shot from the other sideof the tracks. We momentarily see Apu run­ning before he disappears from view, theembankment intervening; then the trainpasses, blackening the whole image, and weglimpse Apu again in long-shot between thewheels. Ray's decision to present the child'sexperience in this way, and distance us fromit, is crucial. The obvious thing would havebeen to present it subjectively: close-up ofApu's face, close-up of train, then back to thechild, expressing his wonder. Ray puts us onthe other side of the tracks, to look at Apu'sexperience rather than simply share it. Hence

31

we bring to it our own adult experience of'progress' and technology and cities; the trainobliterates the landscape and shatters itsserenity; Apu becomes a tiny, frail figuredwarfed to insignificance. The sequence iscrowned by a carefully composed landscapeshot that unites the scene's chief components:the grasses filling the bottom of the screen,rhe rap blackened by smoke, the image framedbetween telegraph poles on the left, a signalon the right.

In long-shot, we see Durga and Apu return­

32

ing home, laughing and chattering, completelyreunited, carrying a water-pot and leading acalf: the precise continuity from the previousscene isn't clear, but the children's moodestablishes an emotional continuity. Withouta cut, the camera moves to the right to revealAuntie sitting among the bamboos; thelaughter of the children continues on thesound-track. The following series of shotsshows Apu leading the calf; Durga creepingup on Auntie, then shaking her; Apu grinning.Then Auntie suddenly rolls over. The children

Stills. Left: Durga with the calf. This page:the death of Auntie.

run home, the water-pot is dropped in astre~m. In long-shot we see the calf running,pullmg Apu; then the camera pans down toshow Auntie - again the two are linked withina single shot, a life ending, a life developing.The old woman is still breathing feebly, butIt IS clear that she will never regain conscious­ness.

Auntie dies, Apu sees a train: a moment

33

Durga's death is the first example in thetrilogy of the death-in-separation motif: Hariis far away in the city, trying to make moneyas a professional prayer-caller, to support thefamily. As usual, the incident must be felt inits context to be fully appreciated. Twothreads in particular lead up to it, contribut­ing to its emotional effect: the suggestions of

34

of decisive transition from the primitive world the family's increasing poverty, with the senseof the past to an advaIlccd world of the that they are actually nearing starvation level,future. That is, certainly, the dominant idea and the wedding of Durga's friend. Sarbojayaof the sequence; pm it is modifled and sells the family's possessions to buy rice; norendered complex by other factors. Against word comes from Hari for months. Durgathe 'negative' of the useless old woman's (who had earlier expressed a foreboding thatmeaningless death, the train is not the only she would never get married) attends thepositive. There is also the life in nature, the wedding, staring at the bride with mingledcalf, the stream, the seeded grass, the play of envy and affection. A neighbour rebukessunlight and shadow among the trees: a Sarbojaya for keeping secret the family'sserene, harmonious world the train tempor- plight. At last a postcard comes from tlari:arily blotted out. And there is the emphasis his affairs have improved, he will be backon family feeling: the resolution of the. soon with money.children's quarrel, and their quite unself- j;y. Ra dissolves from the ~ceneof the ~os.tcard

conscious affection for and dependence on to a short sequence showmg water-files on aone another; our sense that what little 'mean- pond, accompanied by a joyful outburst ofing' Auntie's life had was conferred upon it Ravi Shankar music. The initial effect is of aby her acceptance within the family group. kind of celebration: the_father is returning,The sequence is very far from being a simple- the family's troubles arc over, nature is aliveminded statement abom progress: Ray's fl1ms and ferrite, a harmonio~s world of watcr-don't make 'statements' of that sort. Rather, plants, insects, blossoms. But another tradi-what we have is a complex texture in which tional association of blossnms and water-fliesvarious emotional strands interweave. If the is with transience: the sequence is immedi-overall movement of Ray's first film is from ately followed by that in which Durg~ catchesthe primitive to a yearned-for 'progress', we pneumonia. The dual associations make of themay also recall that one of his most recent water-fly passage a perfect transition, thefilms (Days and Nights in the Forest) is about effect of which is completed by passing fromfour young men from the city who return the insects to domestic animals. The sequencebriefly to a primitive community to seek - and of the coming of the monsoon begins with thepartly find - solace and renewal. now familiar dog and kitten, idle in the heat.

But the kitten, though indistinguishable fromits predecessors, is, of course, of anothergeneration. Life renews itself perpetually andin profusion, but, with our developed humansense of individuality, this is only half aconsolation.

The camera moves down from a cagedbird to show Sarbojaya fanning herself.Durga, meanwhile, is making up her eyes,

applying the traditional spot at the top of hernose, between the eyebrows. She is ofmarriageable age, her imagination bent onfollowing the example of her friend. Aceom­panying this image, the sounds of thunder.Then we see Apu outside, against a back­ground of stormy skies. Durga performs acurious little ritual with a plant which pre­sumably means something specific for Indianaudiences, but which in terms of recurrentimagery links clearly enough with Auntie'swatering of a plant (twice) earlier: apparentlyanother 'renewal', or continuity, image. Durgathen runs out after Apu.

There follow further intimations of theimminence of the monsoon: lily leaves on thepond curl over in the wind; Sarbojaya callsDurga, and begins to get the washing in. Wesee an old man sitting by the pond, hunchedup, asleep; a drop of rain falls on his baldhead. Then the downpour: Apu runs under abig tree, the dog runs into the house. Durga,already soaked, deligbredly washes her facein the pouring rain, sticking out her tongue ather brother as he shelters under his treenearby. They huddle together under the rree;she covers him with her shawl. She chants arhyme to stop the rain, then suddenly sneezes.Ray dissolves to the doctor's visit: Durga isin bed, very ill. Apu asks her, 'Shall we gosec the trains again?'

Then night. Durga is worse. Another, moreviolenr srorm begins. Sarbojaya applies clothsto Durga's forehead, and against this helpless,inadequate act of tenderness, Ray sets detailsimplying the fury of the storm: the rag ofcurtain blows in the gusts, the wick burningin the oil flickers, the door moves inwardsfrom its frame as the wind strikes it, a shelf

Still: Sarbojaya nurses Durga.

on which a small idol sits in imperturbablecontemplation stirs. There is a flash of light­ning, the tanered curtain blows down, thedoor bursts open. If one is tempted to des­cribe the Ray of Pather Panellali as a 'naturepoet', in the sense in which \'V'ordsworth wasa nature poet - an artist, that is to say,centrally concerned with man-ill-nature, not\'iith mere decoratiYe description - one has toadd that he is never guilty of the kind ofsentimental simplifications (' Knowingthat Nature never did betray I The heart thatloved her') to which Wordsworth was prone.From the idyllic, 'lyrical' sequence of thewater-flies-and water-510ssoms we have passedvery swiftly to something very like the worldof The Birds: a \vorld where nothing is cer­tain, where terrible destructive forces can beunleashed without warning. F-9r Indianaudiences, the coming of the monsoon itselfcarries implications of the renewal of life,giving Durga's death an inherent irony: thelife-giving rain in which she ecstatically

35

bathed her face and hair is also the rain thatkills her. The image of the idol stirring onthe shelf is a marvellously economical com­ment on the precariousness of human com­forts, of belief in a benevolently guideduniverse.

Apu is sent to fetch a friend of his mother.He passes the ruined yard: we see a litter ofoverulrncd and broken pots, damaged fencing)a dead frog, the calf standing in its roofless,flooded pen, a cooking-pot hanging uselessly.Dllrga is dead; the friend tries to comfortSarbojaya. Then we see Apu cleaning histeeth by the pond with his finger. His handsuddenly becomes still, suspended. Sarbojayadraws water, Apu does his own hair, dailyroutine is resumed and life goes on. But theseactions recapitulate things we saw Durgadoing earlier: particularly, they recall ourintroduction to the child APll, when Durgaawakened him for school. Now Apu leavesfor school alone, carrying an umbrella: thedetail, visually slightly comic, becomes touch­ingly so in its context of Durga's death frompneumonia.

At this point Hari reUlfI1S. He calls Apu,finds the wrecked yard, the cow and calfwithout shelter. He calls Durga. His wifecomes out to him, seeming numb, incapableof response. He proudly opens the presents hehas brought, to conceal his disquiet fromhimself, culminating in Durga's new sari:(Our worries are over'. The camera moves upto show Sarbojaya's face streaming with tears,as the music on the sound-track lamentswildly for her. There follows a shor beauti­fully controlled in its intensity. Sarbojayacollapses. The camera moves up and tracksin to Hari's face as he realises what has

36

happened. He half rises: his head moves outof frame, and the camera remains on his bemknees and poised hands, the most intenseemotion - the sense of a brief moment ofagonising duration - conveyed by the physicalsuspension and the way it is framed. Then hetoo sinks down. The camera tracks back asHari cries out agonisedly for the child he willnever see again. Cut to Apu on his way toschool, the absurd umbrella under his arm,arrested by the pond, listening to his fflther'scnes.

The construction of this whole sequence, itwill now be evident, takes up the patternalready established in the film. Throughout it,Apu is not particularly singled out as a centreof attention: Durga) Sarbojaya and Harihave at least equal prominence) the mother)sanxiety and grief, and the father's shock,being the dominant emotions. But Ray returnsus to Apu at the end, 'and the experiencesdepicted take on their final significance asregistered within his experience. Preciselywhat effect Durga's death has on him Raydoesn't teU us: could the experience of hissister's death, his mother)s despair, the dis­covery of the precariousness of life and theessential indifference of nature, be conveyedin a simple statement? The two moments ofreflection - when his finger pauses as hecleans his teeth, and when he hears his father)scries - say nothing and say everything: Raydoesn't simplify or schematise.

In a sense, the real climax of PailleI'Pancllali) the point to which the film builds,is not Durga's death but its aftermath; ormore precisely, one apparently tiny incidentthat the death indirectly provokes. Haridecides ro take what is left of his family ro

I

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the city. We see him sorting his books andpapers. Tben, as the elders of the villagearrive for leave-taking, he sends Apu to bringsome things from a higb, seldom-used shelf.As Hari talks of going to Benares, Apu runs

Still: Hari, returning home with presents,learns of Durga)s death.

in and out in from of the old men, in theforeground of the image: he plays no part inthe conversation, but it is his future that Raykeeps in our minds. Then there is a shot frombehind the shelf as Apu reaches up to pulldown a dusty, cobweb-covered bowl. Thevoices continue on the sound-track: 'Won)tyou ever return here?) - 'Perhaps Apu will

when he grows up.' In the bowl (from whicha spider hastily scuttles), half hidden by thethick cobwebs, is the stolen necklace; Durgawas guilty after all. The counterpointing ofimage and dialogue is important: this is in­deed a place to which one feels Apu willreturn, in memory, when he grows up. Hetakes the necklace, flings it in the pond, andremains watching, motionless, until the water­weeds have completely re-covered the spot.

Throughout the film we have been re­turned, repeatedly, to Apu experiencing,

Still: the village elders have come tor Hari'sleave-taking.

learning, absorbing, developing. Here, for thefirst time in the trilogy, we see him confrontedwith the necessity for making a consciousmoral decision; though 'conscious' is to someextent misleading - onc isn't led to supposethat Apu could explain his actions. I'm notsure that the critic should try to explain themeither: to explain is often, in effect, to sim­plify. Apu's decision is motivated by more

,

than a simple desire to preserve his sister'smemory unblemished. In the row about d1C

necklace, he sided with Durga implicitly:efl.l0tionally, he is involved as an accomplice.More intangibly, his feelings about both hismother and his father play a not preciselydefinable part: on the one hand, his memoryof his mother's humiliation and the revengeshe took on Durga for having caused it; onthe other, his identification with his impracti~

cal, dreamy, idealistic father who obeys hisown emotional drifts rather than externalmoral dictates. Sarbojaya called Durga outfrom hiding to be publicly humiliated, puttingsocial feelings (her desire to appear righteousand honest) before personal (maternal tender­ness); in finally removing the evidence, Apuis confirming his repudiation of his mother'svalues. One might be tempted, more simply,to say that the primary motive is the child'snatural impulse to put from him and burymoral and emotional problems he can't yetadequately cope with, as the boy Johan inThe Silence hides the old waiter's funeralphotographs under the carpet (hides them,essentially, from himself). Bur no sooner hasone made the comparison than importantdifferences spring to mind: the associationsof the necklace are much more present andpersonal to Apu than those of the photographsto Johan, and are consequently felt as closerto conscious formulation; and the more con­scious the associations, the less explainable theactions in terms of blind instincr.

All this said, I am scarcely more confidentthat the motivation behind the concealmentof the necklace has been adequately accountedfor, and this seems to me a strength in the

film rather than a weakness. Ray isn't cheatingby evading difficulties or glossing over them;he is respecting the essential mystery andintegrity of the individual psyche. The effectis of psychological density, not thinness. Thewhole of Apu's life is felt to be behind hisactions at this point, and the underlyingassumption is that a whole life, not merely asingle motive, is behind every decision. Wecome upon this assumption again and againin Ray's work: one might instance Apu'sdecision to marry Aparna in The World 0/Apu; Doyamoyee's decision to return to herhome and her doom in Devi; Mrirunoyee'sdecision to accept her husband in the secondstory of Two Daughters; Charulara's decisionto meet her husband on the threshold. It isnot determinism: there is always the sensethat conscious factors play a part in thecharacters' decisions, that they have an aware­ness of choice and the ability to make it. Butneither is the choice entirely free: a wholecomplex of circumstances and influences con­tributes to these decisions, which we are neverinvited to explain in simple terms.

Pather Panchali ends with the family'sdeparture for Benares. A long snake crawlsthrough the rubble of the yard and over thecracked stone of the porch into the house,Nature is reclaiming what man had tempor­arily usurped, and will eventually obliteratehis traces. But Apu's past survives within him.As the ox-wagon takes them towards the train,we see the mother lost in grief, unseeing, thefather staring blankly back. But Apu is look­ing out with open, alert eyes at his past, as hewill henceforth look towards his future.

APARAJITOThe first shots of Aparajito depend for theiremotional effect partly on our having the endof the previous film clearly in our minds: thecamera is inside a train crossing a hugebridge, through the metal struts of which wesee the Ganges. The backward look from theox-cart that closed Pather PanchaLi is nowturned towards the future - towards Benares,across the river, at which we are lookingthrough Apu's eyes. The struts rhythmicallyflashing past communicate a sense of confus­ion and excitement, and blur the view, butbeyond them lies a great openness. The visualopposition of the open and the enclosed isone of the film's dominating motifs, suggestiveof an indefinite 'open' future from whichApu may he barred.

In its thematic-narrative structure Apara­jito is the simplest of the three fi'lms anddemands the least detailed treatment. Thefirst section shows, in a series of individuallyvivid, loosely connected incidents, the life ofthe family in Bcnares and Apu's experienceof the new world into which he is suddenlyplunged; it ends with Hari's death. The filmthen graduaqy resolves itself into a prolongedand painful conflict between mother and son.Sarbojaya takes Apu back to the country (butnot the same village as in Pather Panchali);

he goes to school, his yearning for knowledgeand growth finds clearer direction; he growsup (the actor changes) and wins a scholarshipfor the college in Calcutta. But he is all Sar­bojaya has left to live for. Apu strugglesagainst her attempts to hold him back, andprogressively neglects her, but he is onlylinally released by her death.

Considered independently, Aparajito is theleast completely satisfactory of the three films.There is the problem of the change-over ofactors: the teen-age Apu (Sumiran Ghoshal)doesn't look much like the child (Pinaki SenGupta, as in Pather Panchali). He looks evenless like Soumitra Chatterjee, which createsa further problem of adjustment if one passesstraight to The World of Apu. (Ray appar­ently considered Chatterjee for the role inAparajito but decided he looked too old.) Thedifficulties here arc superficial and scarcelyinsurmountable: they are of the kind aboutwhich a director surely has the right to inviteus willingly to suspend our disbelief. Rathermore serious is the way in which the mannerand method of the film change halfwaythrough: the first part is organised episodi­cally in the manner of Pather Panchali, thesecond half is built on a single straight line ofnarrative, more like The World of Apu. The

,

construction makes sense when one putsAparajito back in its context, its centre (wherethe structural change occurs) then becomingthe mid-point of the whole trilogy. Thismakes it the more surprising that Ray didnot apparently plan to make The World ofApu when he was working on Aparajito:his second film, slightly disappointing as asequel to Pather Panchali, is more thanadequate considered as a transition to TheWorld of Apu.

The opening scenes are likely to appear

Still: Apu goes to borrow matches.

rambling and inconsequent to spectators whohaven't seen Pather Panchali: a series ofapparently random incidents showing Apu'sexperience of his new Iworld', in which theonly clear narrative threads are Hari's job asprayer-caller on the steps to the Ganges andhis progressive weakening and illness. Therandomness is necessary and expressive: weare presented with the child's experience ofunconnected happenings, some of them be-

yond his understanding, which his developingconsciousness must somehow assimilate. Theprinciple that unifies this part of the film isthe opposition of Apu's openness to new ex­perience and his parents' enclosure. Up to thetime of Hart's death, we never see Sarbojayaoutside the family's apartment. It is Apu whois sent shopping, Apu who is sent upstairs toborrow matches from a neighbour; Sarbojayais imprisoned in her role as wife and mother,washing floors, preparing meals, driving awayintruding monkeys. A 'social comment' on

Stills: the Ganges; Ap,,'s first appearance.

the position of women in Indian society nodoubt. But one feels also that it is in part avoluntary imprisonment, that Sarbojaya istrapped not only within the apartment butwithin her own limited mental attitudes: rightup to her death, her instinct is to shut herselfaway from anything she doesn't alreadyunderstand.

Apu, on the other hand, we sec outside near­Iy all the time; and when hc is in, he is want-

ing to go out. His first appearance in the film- his face suddenly peering round a corner ­reminds us of his introduction in Patlter Pan­chali: the emphasis is again on the alert,watching eyes. The scenes in which he experi­ences the city - pursued by a gang of boys,and escaping by scrambling under a cow;wandering along the Ganges steps, past variousprayer-cal1ers and a strong man practisingwith a club-shaped weight - magically conveythe child's excitement and wonder at a strangenew world. (Perhaps Western audiences be-

come too simply identified with the child'sviewpoint in these sequences - for Indianaudiences, presumably more familiar withwhat Apu sees, the etTect may be closer to the'double vision' of Pat/ler Panehali.)

If Sarbojaya is imprisoned in her role ashousewife, Hari seems imprisoned in his pro­fession. Where Apu wanders freely, Harifollows a single daily route) from home to hisbase near the bottom of the Ganges steps andback, a long, hard, straight climb, lookingneither to right nor left. It comes across as a

Stills: Hari prays; Apu watches.

logical extension of Hari's introversion inPather Paneha/i. his unawareness of his en­viroruuent, his enclosure in vague dreams ofsuccess as a writer. The move to the cityeffects no radical change in the outlook ofeither parent. In PatILer Panclzali, Apu turnedto his father as a way towards knowledge andfreedom; in Aparajito, Hari becomes for thechild simply a part of the general spectacle.We see Hari reciting prayers on the steps,

surrounded by spectators. Apu stands listeningfor a moment, holding a toy windmill, thenruns off to explore the great buildings nearby,the river, its boats and the variety of peopleengaged in mysterious adult activities, ofwhich Hari is now merely one. Apu's devel­opment throughout the trilogy is partlyanalysable in relation to what he casts off, interms both of people and attitudes.

The scene in which Rari's illness is firstrevealed expresses the enclosure / opennessopposition - a matter of states of mind as

45

much as of physical environment in acharacteristically poetic juxtaposition of im­ages. It is a feast-night. The sky is lit byfireworks. Hari returns home; Sarbojaya islighting little flames within the apartment.She asks, 'Couldn't we take Apu?' But Hariisn't well - he felt faint on the steps. We seehim against the bars of a window, with fire­works shooting up outside in the darkness.Then Apu appears in the doorway holding alighted sparkler. He is told he must stay withhis father. He is learning English from a

46

friend, and practises: 'Apu is a good boy.'The sick man and the window-bars; the nightsky and the fireworks; Apu with the sparklerbringing the 'magic' of the outside world intothe apartment: the poetic movement finds itslogical culmination in the boy's new learning,which goes beyond what Hari is equipped toteach him.

The scene of Hari's death, and the se­quences surrounding it, are built of furtherjuxtapositions of enclosure and freedom. Wesee Sarbojaya driving a monkey out of the

Stills. Left: Hari - the climb up the stairs.Above: Hari dying.

apartment; the brief incident finds its'answer' in a scene following soon afterHari's death, in which Apu watches monkeysplaying in a temple, and feeds them. Twoattitudes to environment: to the mother, theanimals are a nuisance, to be excluded; to thechild, they are a source of wonder and amuse­ment, spontaneous wild creatures in the city,with which he feels a natural affinity. Hari is

out at the river. He begins the long climb upthe steps towards home, and is called back:he has forgotten his spectacles. The incidenthints at his growing weakness but also sug~

gests his habitual inability to sec anythingoutside him. A high angle shot as he climbsemphasises both the effort of the ascent andthe straight line in which he moves. Hecollapses at the top of the steps, and is carriedhome. The doctor diagnoses congestion of thechest; in fact, Hari will never leave the apart­ment again alive. Cut to Apu, outside: he is

47

watching a full and dtipping water-hag beinghauled up from a well. Then, with Hari illand Apu out, the upstairs neighbour, drunk,tries to make advances to Sarbojaya; shedrives him Qut with a kitchen-knife. As Apu'slife increasingly opens, his parents' lives be­come marc and morc closed. In the earlymorning, the dying father cries out for holywater from the Ganges. Apu goes down tothe river, which is almost deserted. In themisty morning light an athlete is practising,and the child watches briefly. Ray intercuts

48

Stills. Above: Sarbojaya and Apu. Right: Apualso has war!? - searching for ticks.

this with Hari groaning as he dies, and regis­ters the moment of death with a shot ofpigeons flying up in great swarms, as ifsuddenly disturbed. The effect may sttikeone as somewhat rhetorical and self-conscious­ly 'symbolic' in a manner farc in Ray's warleit has been seen by an Indian critic as sug­gesting 'the flight of the soul from the body'(T. G. Vaidyanathan, 'Death in the Trilogy',

the Montage issue on Satyajit Ray). It ismore than this, however. Like the image ofthe athlete exercising by the river in themorning light, it evokes a sense of energy andfreedom in opposition to the progressivelyenclosed life of Apu's father; the image ofthe birds is as much triumphant as desolate,and contradicts the sense of death at the sametime as it expresses it.

Durga's death led to the move to the city;Hari's reverses this. Sarbojaya's decision toleave Benares for the country has as much

claim to be considered the film's pivotal pointas the marc obvious one of the time gap dur­ing which Apu grows to adolescence. Asusual, Ray doesn't 'spell out' the motivationbehind the dticision, preferring to leave uswith a sense that it grows out of the woman'swhole life rather than from a single event.After Hari's death, Sarbojaya gets work as acook. When Hari's father comes, she is facedwith a choice: she can accompany the familyshe works for to Dewanpur, or she can returnwith her father-in-law to his village. Even asher employer encourages her to go with them,Sarbojaya catches sight of Apu, hovering be­yond some pillars, alone and neglected, wait­ing for her to be free. She decides; the nextimages return us to, yet reverse, the openingof the film, as we see the city from the train,disappearing from view, shut away beyondthe strutS of the bridge - they return withApu's grandfather. On one level Sarbojaya issacrificing the new possibilities that were opento her in order to devote herself to her child:in the grandfather's village, she can becomeagain simply a mother, and Apu will nolonger be neglected. Yet the decision is alsoprofoundly characteristic of Sarbojaya'spsychology throughout and expresses hertendency to withdraw from life's challengesand novelties into rhe safe and the alreadyfamiliar. In the name of motherhood, she isagain voluntarily imprisoning herself, andraking Apu into prison with her. When theyarrive at the walled village in which they willnow live, Ray gives us Apu's view of the trainpassing along the horizon in the distance, be­yond the open fields; but he is wirhin thegateway, which encloses the foreground of theimage.

49

Of the three films of the trilogy, Aparajito isthe one I least often feci an urge to return to.The episodic first part, though continuouslytouching, lacks the density of Patllel' Panchali;the remainder, built on a much straighternarrative progression, moves very slowly to­

wards an inevitable outcome. But if thissuggests failure, the film is one only in relativeterms, viewed in the context of its neighbours.The justification for the very slow tempo isthat Ray is not trying to tell us things but to

communicate a total experience: the film

50

Stills. Above: ApI! and Sarbojaya back it! thecountry. Opposite: APll gro'ws up.

invites us to steep ourselves in the characters'feelings and live-through their conflict to itsoutcome rather than take an intellectual'point'. It invites rather than compels: theaction is presented with Ray's customaryobjectivity and our response is not forcedupon us. We arc given time to enter fully intowhat the characters are experiencing, but it isessential that a certain distance be preserved,

,r

because the emotional force and complexitydepends on the precise division of our sym­pathies between mother and son. This is onesection of the trilogy (the sequences of Apu'swanderings after the death of Apama in TheWorld of Apll are another) which demands acertain deliberate exercising of patience fromspectators brought up on the faster tempi ofthe American cinema or the French NewWave, but the patience is amply repaid.

The universality of Ray's concerns is no­where more evident. The film resolves itselfinto a conflict between the most basic needsof its characters: the need of the son to study,to learn, to widen his experience and reachout to a richer existence in which his poten­tialities can develop more fully; the need of ~

the mother, widowed, with no one but Apuleft to her and with no other resources - eitherinner or from outside - to give purpose to herlife, to keep him with her. Successive scenescan scarcely fail to strike sympathetic chordsin all of us, because the development of thesituation is so closely related to universalexperience: the scenes, for instance, showingApu's delight in learning, his sense of personaltriumph and of growing towards fulfilment,with at the same time his mother's feelings sodelicately and serisitively conveyed: a womantorn between pride in her son's developmentand distrust of the very learning that willtake him progressively further away from her.

The division of feelings within Sarbojayais already evident in the scene in which Apufirst expresses his desire to go to school. Sheis half-pleased, and willing to make the effortto cope financially, yet it is clear that shealready senses his movement away from herinto experiences beyond her grasp - senses it

51

long before there is any consciol/s impulse inApu to free himself from her. But theemphasis, in the early scenes of Apu's educa­tion, is on the child's delighted response tolearning, and the freshness and immediacywith which this is conveyed is typical of theallirmative nature of Ray's art. Apu pleasesan inspector, and is praised by the head­master, who tells him, 'We live in a remotecorner of Bengal, bur we need not have anarrow outlook', and gives him books onLivingstone, Archimedes, Galileo, Newton.There is a tiny scene, handled by Ray withtenderness and humour, where Apu tries to

teach his mother astronomy, and Sarbojaya'sface registers a whole complex of emotions:humiliation at her ignorance, pleasure in herson's knowledge, and that shrinking awayfrom the unfamiliar that characterises herwhole development. And there is the magicaland comic moment whert Apu startles her byleaping out, dressed as a savage, with a cryof 'Africa!' - assimilating by imitation, as hedid in Pather Panchali when he made himselfthe silver-foil crown and moustache afterwatching the play. The simple incidentsbeautifully balance the typical and the partic­ular, evoking all our childhoods yet suggestingthe unusual energy and eagerness and sensi­bility of the young Apu. Our last glimpse ofApu the child is of him asleep at night overan exercise-book, a single lantern burningbeside him, the frail light driving back thesurrounding darkness. The camera tracks inon him, and several years pass.

Apu's impulse towards fulfilment throughlearning thus firmly established, Ray movesat once to the decisive point in the conflictbetween mother and son. We see the head­

52

master addressing the adolescent Apu: he hasthe chance of a scholarship of ten rupees amonth to study in Calcutta. He must ask hismother. The following sequences betweenmother and son, culminating in Apu's depart­urc, arc an admirable example of the balanc­ing of distance and involvement, objectivityand sympathy, that is the essence of Ray'sart. He is never a 'message' director: hisallcgiance is not to some given attitude somuch as to the emotional truth, often many­sided, inherent in a total situation. The se­quences could have been staged and shot soas to carry the meaning: 'Son struggles forfreedom against the attempted restrictions ofpossessive mother', or 'Lonely, self-sacrificingmother is cruelly abandoned by thoughtlessson'. Either of these would imply a simple ­and defensible - attitude towards life: theformer a 'pagan' belief in the supreme valueof self-fulfilment and the necessity of castingoff all that inhibits it; the latter a 'Christian'belief in the supreme value of compassion andself-sacrifice. The construction and mise-en­scene of these and subsequent sequences ofAparajito make it impossible for us to see theaction exclusively from either of these view­points. In this balancing of possible respon~es,

both tragedy and optimism are implicit, asense of realisable potentials co-existing witha sense of inherent and inescapable pain.

We see Apu and Sarbojaya in their homeat night. He tells her he came second atschool, and goes on to mention the offeredscholarship. As he mentions Calcutta, we hearthe noise of a distant train softly on 'thesound-track, with its opposed emotionalassociations for the two characters. Sarbojayais hurt because he wants to go: 'Who will

I

look after me?' He tells her he doesn't wantto be a 'priest' all his life. 'Your father was',exclaims Sarbojaya, and slaps his face. Apu'sremark, with its youthful brutality, its implicitcontempt for Hari, partly deserves rebuke, burSarbojaya's reaction is too extreme to beaccountable for simply in terms of a desire tohave her husband's memory honoured. Theresponse expresses her deeply conservativenature, and beyond it her fear of loneliness.­Apu's tactlessness, on the other hand, is partlyexcused by his sense of the need to fight forwhat he must have. At the end of the ex­change, Ray unites the various componentsinvolved in a single shot: Sarbojaya 'is framedbetween the two posts of the .doorway which

Still: Sa..bojaya, Apu and the globe.

enclose her; at her feet arc the tokens ofApu's aspirations to a more open future, abook, his small globe, and the lantern. 'Welive in a remote corner of Bengal, but weneed not have a narrow outlook.. '

Later, Sarbojaya goes out to find Apu andtell him he can go. From a box under her bedshe takes a bag of money: her savings fromher work in Benares - the work, we recall,which she gave up in order to devote herselfexclusively to her child. Apu reacts withunmitigated delight: his air of triumphaffects us as at once moving (because itexpresses an affirmation of life's possibilities)and cruel (because it leaves Sarbojaya's feel­ings entirely out of account). He shows herhis globe, on which the camera tracks in. Wenext see the packing of Apu's case and his

farewell. He is carrying his case and theglobe - touchingly meagre yet appropriatcequipment with which to face the world ofCalcutta and the future. Sarbojaya places awhitc spot on his forehead as he leaves (ablessing?). He walks away down dse pathwithout even a backward glance. As thecamera tracks in on Sarbojaya the smile ofpleasure and pride fades from her face. Sheturns away, and is last seen framed inside thedoorposts, another image of loneliness andenclosure.

Stills. Above: Apll's depart"re. Right: Ap"reading; Sarbojaya as intruder.

The remainder of the film alternatesbetween the village and Calcutta. Apu attendscollege during the day, works for the 'RoyalPress' at night to pay his lodging, and fallsasleep during a lesson on metonymy andsynecdoche, supplying the lecturer with aconvenient example of euphemism ('Notwholly anentiv(1). He and his friend are sentout, and stroll by the river, talking of leaving

on a ship. Apu says his mother would neveragree to it: he is still tied to her, across thegreat distance, held back from the hypotheti­cal. future the ship represents.

Then it is vacation time. Sarbojaya waitsfor Apu to come home. We sec her by apond, as a train passes across the distanthorizon: two recurrent motifs brought to­gether. The static pond, reminding us of thatbeside which Auntie stood in her final isola­tion, where Apu heard his father's agonisedcries at the revelation of Durga's death, andinto which he cast the stolen necklace; thetrain moving along the open horizon, with itsassociations of a freedom and potentialityfrom which Sarbojaya is cut off; stagnationand development, the circle of enclosure andthe straight line of liberation: Ray l s simpleimagery is rich in emotional connotation.

When Apu gets home - he has delayed hishomecoming in order to work - the exchangesbetween him and his mother poignantly revealthe widening of the gulf between them. Dur­ing his first meal she asks him about food:does the cook in the city prepare food as wellas his own mother? It is the one way in whichshe can compete, and she herself clearly feelsits pathetic inadequacy. The question impliesher total inability to grasp what is importantto Apu in the life he is pursuing1and her half­awareness of this inability - of her exclusionfrom all those aspects of her son's life thatarc most significant to him. Then we see Apureading in bed. Sarbojaya comes to his bed­side - as if he were still a child - and makeshim put his book away and tell her all he'sseen. Mentally searching for something out­side her experience yet within her grasp, hementions cremations: the moment is a nice

example of Ray l s fusing of the poignant andthe comic. Sarbojaya's response: 'I hopeyou're careful on the roads.1 She talks of ill­ness and death, tells Apu she doesn't eatmuch. 'I don't suppose you'd leave college tolook after me?1 But her son is already asleep.

The sequence showing Apu watching thelocal amusements - a man drumming, a boywalking on his hands - becomes more mean­ingful in relation to similar incidents inPailleI' Panella/i. Apu the child discoveredwonder in the most trivial events; Apu theyoung man, returned from Calcutta, views allbefore him with boredom. He turns away,walks to the river, pushes at a tree, half­indolent, half-frustrated; and he refuses topostpone his return to Calcutta in order toaccept a local invitation. On the ·night before

his return, he impresses on his mother that hemust be called at sunrise to catch his train.At early morning, we see Sarbojaya leaningover him as he sleeps. The day before, shehas treated him with bitterness and resent­ment; now, she looks down at him withtenderness. Asleep, he is her child again. But,in the sudden horror with which she backsaway, we see her realisation of the falsenessof this - her realisation that as soon as hewakes up she loses him again. He awakes, andsees nothing of the intense and conflicting

emotions she is experiencing; he seems scarce­ly aware of her existcncc; he is merely furiollsbecause it is latc. Apu's surface indifferencehere makes all the stronger the sense of deeptics conveyed by what follows: Ray cross-cutsbetween Apu at the station, buying his ticket,and sitting on the platform, and Sarbojaya,leaning disconsolately against the post of theporch with the noise of the coming train in

Still: APIl'S boredom 'when he is at homeduring his vacation.

the distance. We see the train arrive. Ray cutsto Sarbojaya looking up: Apu returns, andtells her he missed the train. He'll go to­morrow.

What emerges from these scenes above allis the sense of necessary tragedy: for Apu tosacritke his future would be at least as tragicas for his mother to be abandoned. Destruc­tion is necessary to creation, the two forccsctcrnally interlinked.

And so, the last 'act' of Aparajito. Raysuccinctly recapitulates the main elements of

Still: Sarbojaya sits apathetically beneath thetree, waiting Nr Apu to return.

Apu's life in Calcutta - ,a montage of lessons,the press, Apu with his friend looking atships. Then an exchange of letters. Apu readshis mother's: 'Why do you write so seldom?';he answcrs, evasively, that he has no holidays,his exams arc next momh. We see Sarb9jayaholding his lettcr in her hand, her eyes darkand heavy. Ray's simple poetic imagcssimple in themselves, emotionally complcx in

the connotations they carry - are nowheremore beautifully used than in these closingsequences. Sarbojaya, as she dwindles towardsdeath, becomes associated with a greatmajestic tree beneath which she sits apatheti­cally, awaiting the son who never comes butwho is now her only reason for existing. Thewoman's life has become little more than amatter of vegetable growth - or vegetabledecay - except for our sense of continuingdeep hurt that makes further striving mean­ingless. The flourishing, inanimate tree thathas irs 'meaning' in just physically existing;the dying woman sinking into some sub­human state as her 'meaning' is lost: thepoetic juxtaposition takes on further over­tones when Ray shows us Apu reading a bookunder a similar tree in the grounds of thecollege, an image that at once links and con­trasts him with his mother.

We are returned to the village and to

Sarbojaya by means of a shot of a sundialApu made during his early schooldays ­evoking at once the past when he and hismother still lived in harmony, and the learn­ing that progressively separated them. Dark­ness falls. The camera slowly tilts down thetree to show Sarbojaya beneath it still; atrain passes along the dusky horizon in distantsilhouette. Sarbojaya goes into the house. Awick is burning low in the oil. She hears asound, thinks it's Apu rerurned to her. Thesequence of images recapitulates that of hisprevious homecoming; only this time themother remains alone, as the shadows of nightclose in.

At last Apu gets a letter telling him of hismother's illness, and leaves for home. Afterthe 'false' homecoming, the real one: he

walks along the familiar path, is met by abarking dog, passes the pond, and enters theenclosure, framed for a moment in its doo.r­way. The emotional effect of the scenedepends on the familiarity of each motif. Hemeets his grandfather, and understands with­out need of words that Sarbojaya is dead. Hesits under her tree, and weeps. The cameratracks back until he is in long-shot, leaving agreat open space to the left of the frame\.. incontrast to the 'tighter' framing of the earlierimages of Sarbojaya in the same position.

But Apu is 'aparajito' - the unvanquished;the film's last moments show his triumph - avery muted triumph - over grief and guilt.His grandfather urges him ~o perform hismother's last rites, then become a holy manlike his father. Apu doesn't commit himselfverbally, but we next see him packing hisbundle: he is returning to Calcutta. 'I've gotmy exams', he tells the old man. AndSarbojaya's funeral rites? He'll perform themin Calcutta. The divided response the filmrepeatedly evokes is felt again here, thespectator torn between a sense of Apu'sbrutality towards the past and his mother'smemory and a sense of the necessity to pushstraight ahead on his path, rejecting hin­drances which serve no useful purpose what­ever their 'pulls' in terms of sentiment. Thegrandfather is left framed in the doorway ofthe enclosure as Apu walks off along the openpath towards the train - towards Calcutta.The camera tilts up to show the sky, Apuremaining within the frame in the lower partof the image. Each film of the trilogy endswith a new beginning.

Still: the grandfather.

fTHE WORLD OF APUAfter Aparajito Ray made two films uneoo-:neered with the trilogy, The Philosopher'sStone, a comedy, and The Music Room(fa/saghar). He has said that he had no defi­nite intention at that time of making TheWorld o[ Apu but was persuaded to do solater. The film shows no sign of such reluc­tance. Far from suggesting any lack of inspir­ation or commitment on the part of itsdirector, it is the crowning achievement ofthe trilogy, and (with Chantlata and Daysand Nights in the Forest, of those I havebeen able to see) one of Ray's finest films.The technique of Pather Pane/zali and Apara­jito is never less than adequate to Ray'sexpressive needs, bur in The World of Apu,the customary sensitivity and emotional deli­cacy are joined by a sense of greater assurance,both in the construction of the scenario and inthe shooting and editing. There is nothinghere of the hesitancy that somewhat detractsfrom the impact of Aparajito, no uncertaintyof the direction in which the fiLm is moving,and individual sequences have a greater com­pactness and force than anything in the earlierfilms. From Path... Panclzali, Ray has always

Still: Soumiira Chatterjee and Sharmila Ta­gore in The World of Apu.

been a consistently sensitive director of actors,and it is difficult to think of a performancethat is less than excellent in his films; butsomething of the strength of The World o[APll doubtless derives from the fact that itintroduces for the first time in Ray's filmstwo of his favourite players, Soumitra Chat­terjee and Sharmila Tagore, familiar figuresin a number of his subsequent works. In TheIVorld o[ ApI<, their beauty - at once physicaland spiritual - seems the ideal incarnation ofRay's belief in human potentialities. It issurely onc of the most moving films evermade.

To talk of the 'beauty' of Ray's protago­nists is dangerous - the kind of thing hisdetractors crinkle up their noses at, suspectingthat one is being precious or 'aesthetic' orsentimental - but it is also inescapable. Rayshows no interest in evil characters - indeed,is there one in his films? There arc manyharmful actions, but they are almost invari­ably performed in good faith: one thinks ofthe father's sanctification of his daughter-in­law in Devi under the delusion that she is agoddess incarnate. There is also weakness:the son's inability effectively to oppose hisfather in the same film, or the vanity thatprompts Amal to encourage Chamlata to fall

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in love with him. The tragic tone is frequentin Ray's films, but the tragedy results fromweak or misguided rather than deliberatelymalicious actions (the only exception I knowof is the assault on Hari in Days and Nightsin the Forest). There are no Gonerils andRegans in his work, nor even a Macbeth. Thisdoubtless constitutes a limitation, but, as isusually the case, the limitation helps to definethe qua Ii tics for which one values him.

Ray in the Apu trilogy is concerned central­ly with events so basic and universal that tosome the films appear simplistic: birth, death,marriage, the family, parenthood. This doesnot mean, however, that his characters are atall ordinary. On the contrary, he is concernedalmost exclusively with exceptional people.This is already apparent by the end of PatherPanchali. The little boy who throws Durga'snecklace into the pond is no 'ordinary' child,but a child of exceptional sensitivity and in­sight. When, in The IForld of Apu, Apama'smother sees Apu as the God Krishna andhis friend Pulu adds, 'complete with flute',irony plays a part in the effect, but only asmall part. Ray cuts to a shot of Apu, froma slightly low angle that emphasises hisstature, standing with a shy, pleased, half­embarrassed grin. He is at once very humanand very god-like, nalve and immature, butilluminated by an inner grace. Can one speakof 'idealisation'? Both yes and no. In termsof potentialities - sensitivity, intelligence, thequality of aliveness, the ability to develop ­Apu clearly embodies a human ideaL At thesame time, Ray never sentimentalises him.The character is clearly grasped and held infocus, at every moment, as a character withhuman shortcomings and weaknesses, tenden­

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cies to egoism and fecklessness. False idealis­ation is always the product of the little mantrying to be big. He presents a sentimentallyidealised figure whom he doesn't understand,because he is too small to understand. Suchan artist always betrays himself by his tone:his work becomes pretentious and strained,we arc aware of rhetorical gestures and anunderlying emptiness and unreality. Ray'sfilms are entirely devoid of pretentiousness,and the rhetorical gesture is almost entirelyforeign to them; his characters, 'ideal' or not,remain intensely reaL We feci we can trusthim in his presentation at a human ideal:he understands his people intimately and canmove freely among them because he existson their leveL The finest qualities of Ray'scharacters are those perceptible in his ownfilms: while watching them, one feels in thepresence of an exceptionally kind, generous,warm and sympathetic human being. If Apuis an 'everyman' figure, it is in the sensethat he embodies what is fincst in universalhuman potentiality: he is ourselves, and heis the God Krishna made manifest. This isthe essence of Ray's 'humanism'.

T. F. Powys wrote in one of his novels('Unday') that 'In every good book a lightshines, that compels the reader to be joyful'.Powys is a very unfashionable novelist, andthis, in these days of Losey and Polanski andAIASH, is a very unfashionable remark. ButI believc it to be. true. I don't know exactlywhat Powys means by the 'light'; for me ithas nothing to do with whethcr the work inquestion is comic or tragic, whether it has ahappy or sad ending. The 'light' is that striv­ing of the artist's being towards the establish­ment of standards for human life - towards

Ias complete an understanding of life's poten­tialities as possible. It shines with uncommonstrength and consistency in the films of Sat­yajit Ray, and there is a sense in which eventhe .most tragic moments of his films, evenas they evoke in us the profoundest sense ofsorrow, at the same time 'compel the viewerto be joyful'.

Even quite minor characters in Ray's filmsare often granted a grace or dignity beyondthe demands of their function in the plot.Consider the little scene near the beginningof The World of Ap", where Apu is visitedby his landlord, who has come to demand thelong overdue rent. Apu is shaving. The land­lord sits down, and asks Apu to give him astraight answer to a straight question. Butthe man is gentle and reasonable, thoughfirm: thc crucial demand has to be led upto ('What date is it?' and so on). When thedemand for the rent comes, Apu says dis­armingly, 'That's three questions, it's notfair'; and there is a momentary pause whilethe two men exchange smiles. It's impossibleto do justice in print to such a moment, whichin description sounds quite negligible. Butsomething of the essential spirit of Ray's artis contained in it: there is the sense of com­munication and mutual understanding be­tween two human beings who are not, afterall; on intimate terms with each other; thereis the exactness and clarity with which thelandlord is presented, so that within this onebrief scene, we have the sense ,of knowing himas an iridividual. His smile shows appreciationof Apu's charm and youth; but the landlordis not self-sacrificing and has no intention ofwithdrawing his demand. 'Who are you totalk of what's fair?' is his response: Apu is

not only occupying his room but using hiselectricity. When the landlord leaves, Apuswitches on the entirely superfluous light be­fore choosing which of his few precious bookshe will take to sell. The obvious way to dothe scene would be 'Apu-victimised-by-nasty­landlord'. In fact, our responses are veryprecisely balanced so that we register Apu1saction as immature and unreasonable, whileit also implies a sense of values beyond thelandlord's imagination.

The greater economy and force of Ray'sstyle in The World of Apu is evident if onecompares the introductory scenes of Apu's lifein Calcutta with their equivalents in the firstparr of Aparajito. The first shots (apart fromthe brief pre-credit scene that shows Apuleaving college because he can't afford tocontinue, and being urged by his teacher notto give up his writing) establish simply andvividly the material facts: a dirty curtainmade of a rough sacking, with a large hole init; rain blowing in; Apu asleep on the bed,dirty and unshaven; train noises from therailway yard outside. Apu is awakened by atrain whistle. He gocs outside on to the roofon which his garret opens, washes in the rain,performs his morning exercises. Ray cuts tolong-shot, so that the image frames the doorto the garret (left), the open space beyond theroot parapet where the trains blow smoke andnoise, andJ/le young man exercising .in thepouring rain, an image at once comlC andtouching, 'balancing a healthy reSIlience againsta discouraging environment. The trainimagery points us back through the trilogy,to that scene early in Pather Panc1Iali whereApu first becomes aware of the alien noisein the night, allowing us to feel the com-

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plcxity of Ray's attitude to 'progress': thetrains, once magical objects of wonder, arcnow commonplace, a part of the city's squalor.

Against this material environment Ray setsApu's attempts to find work. His qualifica­tions arc too good for the only teaching postavailable (,Would you work for ten rupees amonth?\ his interviewer asks rhetorically),and he recoils from the dehumanising monot­ony of factory work. Meanwhile he hasreceived a letter from a magazine acceptingone of his stories. It is clear that, withoutconccit, Apu is instinctively aware of hisexceptional potentialities. The brief momentwithout dialogue when we see him shrinkfrom the room where workers are sortingheaps of industrial glass objects allows us acharacteristically complex response: wc feelApu's impracticality, his inability to come toterms with the tough realities of his environ­ment, but we also register the recoil asevidence of his complctcly valid sense of hisown potential which the conunirting of him­self to such work would limit and perhapsdestroy.

'Visual poetry' is a term often used vaguelyto mean 'anything the viewer likes the lookof'. Applied to Ray, its meaning becomesmore precise. Again and again in The Worldof Apu one comes on scenes, the emotionaleffect of which ariscs from the juxtapositionof components that have no precisely defin­able symbolic value but which in conjunctionproduce a resonance that verbal explanation,with its necessarily cruder emphases, risksdistorting. After his search for a job, Apureturns by bus, re-reading the letter acceptingthc story; thcn he walks home along the rail­way track where small pigs scavenge for food.

64

The sun is setting behind the bridge; childrenarc playing amidst the smoke and dirt. Thescene balances squalor and beauty, discourage­ment and hope) with Apu and his precisesituation as focal point. The little scene thatfollows) again witham dialogue, beautifullyexpresses Apu's sexual timidity and inexperi­ence. He lies on his bed; across the yard, in alighted room on the same level, a girl is stand­ing by her window. Apu gets out his flute andcloses the shuner: the girl moves away.. Sheplays no role in the film, but a subtle senseis established of their awareness of each other,Apu's sensitivity to her presence expressedthrough his very shyness. The structural taut­ness of the film (again in comparison with thefirst part of Aparajito) is exemplified in whatimmediately follows: close-up of Apu on thebed playing his flute; the camera tracks back(as so often in Ray at m.omcnts that seem anintrusion into the characters' privacy) to showhim in the wretched, dingy room; there is arattling at the door. It is his friend Pulu,through whose agency (both direct and in­direct) Apu later marries Aparna.

Apu's decision to marry Aparna is a crucialpoint in the film's narrative structurc, and atonce the best example and vindication ofRay's method in the trilogy. Provided we arewilling to make the necessary imaginativeadjusunent to a society (regarded by Apuhimself as very retrogade - 'Are we still livingin the Dark Ages?') in which marriages arearranged with bride and groom not evenintroduced, and where the bride is consideredcursed and henceforth ineligible if she isn)t

Still: APli decides which books to sell to paythe Tent.

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married at the time appointed, then we acceptApu's decision without question. Yet on thesurface, it is a very strange and abruptdecision. Ray refuses to make things simpleby .having Apu tell us why he decides tomarry Aparna: this would be to falsify notonly OUf sense of complex motivation burApu's, for it is clear that no simple explana­tion could possibly be adequate. What we feelis a density of implication, the decision evolv­ing out of a web of interacting motives andpromptings. It also makes the structure of rhefilm appear tauter than we realised whilewatching it: to answer the question, 'Whydoes Apu marry Aparna?', is to reconstructvirtually rhe whole flhn up to that point.The nearest parallel I can think of in westerncinema is Dunson's decision not to shootMatthew Garth at the end of HowardHawks's Red River, behind which lies asimilarly dense accumulation of implicitmotivation. But certain films of RobertoRossellini, as I shall suggest later, provideinteresting comparisons.

One obvious factor in the background toApu's decision is his aloneness. In the earlyscenes of the film he had even cut himself offfrom Pulu, leaving no forwarding addresswhen he changed lodging. His only contactsseem to be casual ones - the visit from thelandlord, the brief exchange with the man ofthe same surname downstairs, who receivedApu's letter by mistake. The aloneness isdeliberate, but appears to be motivated partlyby shame at being penniless and living in adilapidated garret.

Pulu - Apu's best friend and Aparna's

Still: Pulu.

cousin - exerts rhe strongest influence onApu's decision at conscious levcl. Oldcr thanApu, stable, intelligent and cultured, a pro­tective elder-brother figure, he is also a linkbetween not only the twO characters but thetwo worlds, sharing Apu's educated outlookbut tolerantly accepting the customs andsuperstitions of his rural relatives, sensitiveto the fineness of their traditional culture asApu, with his much more primitive back­ground, cannot be. It is he who persuadesApu to accompany him to Aparna's wedding,describing the delights of the country verymuch from the viewpoint of the wealthy towhom nature is a pleasing spectacle: a viewupon which our memories of Apu's childhoodconfer a certain irony. The importance toApu of Pulu's opinion of him is evident atseveral points in the film, most strikingly inthe scene on rhe boat as they travel up river

. to the wedding. Apu plays his flute anddeclaims poetry while Pulu f-inishes readinghis (unfinished) novel. Pulu closes the manu­script and silently holds out his hand toApu, then tells him the novel is wonderful.The intensity of Apu's pleasure at his friend'spraise belies his previous seeming indifference.

Earlier, as Apu and Pulu walk home atnight along the railway lines, in the darknessunder the bridge, Apu describes the novel andPulu teases him: 'It's not a novel, it's anautobiography.' Apu admits the autobiograph­ical elements but insists the book is more thanthat: it's written as fiction, it has a loveinterest . Again Pulu laughs: what doesApu know about love? - he's never got neara woman in his life. We recall the little scenewhen Apu closed his shutter to exclude thesight of the girl opposite; and the scene even

<7

earlicr whcn his downstairs neighbour, theothcr Mr. Roy, said how nice it would be toopen a love-letter by mistake, and Apuretorted, 'No hope of that'. I n fact, Apu'sdiffidence with women is implicit in the child­hood and adolescence shown in the twOprevious films. His fathcr was away fromhome during much of Apu's childhood, an

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ineffectual dreamer from whom Apu inheritedhis sensitivity and intellectual aspirations butalso his inability to cope effectively with theworld; and Hari dicd when Apu was stillyoung. The dominant influences on his lifewere Durga and Sarbojaya. Women to Apu

Still: Pulu takes Apu Olit to dinner.

are his mother and sister: he doesn't knowhow to approach a girl on other tcrms. Thepresencc of a 'love interest' in an otherwiseautobiographical novel suggests, howcver, hissensc of unfulfilled needs, and Pulu's gentleteasing clearly disturbs him. The offer ofAparna - whom he has never mct, and doesn'thave to court - is from this point of view amiraculous solution to the problcm and hisacceptance of her is rooted deeply in his·personal psychology.

In the scene with Pulu under the railwaybridge, Apu reveals his touchingly naiveyoothful pride in himself: he talks of thegreat novelists, Dostoievsky, Lawrence'And Apu Roy', Pulu cuts in with kindlyirony. We realise that Apu, with a vanityaltogether charming in its obvious vulner­ability, does indeed see himself in that light.Just befote this, elated by Pulu's companyand rhe dinner he has been treated to, Apudeclaimed poetry up on the bridge untilinterrupted by a policeman who wanted toknow his name. 'I am N1.ainack, son of I-lima­laya, mourning the loss of his wings', Apudeclaimed in answer. And Aparna's mothersees him as the God Krishna. Apu is exactlyat the stage in his developmcnt to acccpt sucha rolc. Oilc of the functions of a god is tosave: in agreeing to marry Aparna, Apu isperforming a god-likc action. 'I felt I wouldbe doing somcthing noble to agree to it', heconfesses to Aparna afterwards.

All these factors can be felt to contribute to

Apu's submission. They arc unlikely all to beconsciously present in our minds any morethan in Apu's, bur their background presencc,interacting to predispose Apu to acceptance,subconsciously helps us to accept what might

otherwise appear arbitrary. The mise-en-sceneof the sequences leading to Apu's decision iscarefully organised both to make the decisionconvincing and to suggest, mysteriously, thatApu is in some way to be involved in thewedding, before there is any question of hisbeing the groom. From the scene where Apuis welcomed by Aparna's mother, Ray movesus at once to the wedding preparations,Aparna, diffidcnt and fragile, looking littlemore than a child, is being adorned andpainted with the traditional bridal markings,while traditional Indian music is played.Then we sec the procession of the groom(carricd in a curtained and ornamentedpalanquin) approaching beside the river,accompanied by a band playing 'For he's ajolly good fellow', reiteratively and somewhatout of rune. The camera, keeping them inlong-shot moves with them in a long tracking­shot from the top of the bank. The river isin the background, trees intervene in the fore­ground, the procession passes between, attimes almost disappearing from sight. Then,without a cut, the camera takes in Apu, lyingasleep in thc shade of the trees in the fore­ground of the screen, clutching his ft.ute. Theeffect here is again achicved through pocticjuxtaposition and suggestion rather than byanything one could call symbolism. The se­quence juxtaposes three kinds of music - thetraditional music associated with Apama, thediscordant bastard-Westernised music of thegroom's band, and Apu's (silent) flute; and itjuxtaposes the preparation of Aparna with along take linking the gtoom and Apu andcoming to rest decisively on the latter, soundasleep and quite unconscious of the possibleinvolvement the editing and mise-en-scene

subtly imply.When we next see Apu, he is lying in the

same place, still asleep, still holding the flute,but dusk is falling. Meanwhile, Aparna's littlepotential tragedy has been succinctly expres­sed, the extreme economy intensifying thepoignancc. The groom's condition is shown ina single static take, the camera inside the

Still: preparation of the bride - Aparna andher mother.

palanquin so that the foreground of the screen,in which the groom plucks insanely at thefloral head-dress, traditional in Indian wed­dings (and which is to become a recurringmotif in the film from here on), is enclosed in

.,

darkness. In the centre of the screen, in thesunlight outside the palanquin, framed by itslooped curtains, concerned figures come andge,.including Aparna's father. Then, in a bed­room of the house, we sec the mother holdingthe sobbing girl in her arms, shown at first inlong-shot but with an immediate rapid rrack­in that confers great intensity upon themoment. The father stands in the doorwayarguing helplessly that the wedding should·continue; Pulu hovers in the background. Themother, furious, turns her husband out. Atthe top of the stairs, outside the room, hesadly consults with Pulu: if the ceremonydoesn't take place, Aparna will never marry.

It is at this point that Ray moves us backto Apu, asleep in the gathering dusk. Pulu'svoice calls, Apu wakes up, the situation isexplained to him, the two men argue. As theytalk, we see some of the groom's followersstraggling back along rhe shore in rhe back­ground of the image, the emotional effect ofrhe sCene partly defined by th~ reminder ofthe earlier tracking-shot, partly by Ray'skeeping the various components of the situ­ation present for us. Then, at the momentApu becomes aware of them, we are shownthe little delegation that has accompaniedPulu, a group of men standing half-helpless,half-expectant in the shadows, like a silentpressure being exerted on Apu. He standsapart, shocked but awkward, aware of failingto meet the demands of people to whom he isindebted - the demands, especially, of Pulu.'Are we still living in the Dark Ages?' heasks defiantly. The camera tracks back fromhim to take in the whole group: Apu keepshimself separate, but the camera-movementlinks him with the others. Pulu makes him

feel guilty: like Dewey Martin at the endof Howard Hawks's The Big Sky, he acceptsthe marriage partly to regain the respect ofhis best friend. The group moves off; Apu isleft alone by the tree, picking up his bookand his flute, emblems of his elected solitude.

Darkness falls. We sec Apu, in the fore­ground of the image, moving towards thehouse, dark and slightly ominous in long-shot,blocking the sky-line. His movements andexpression are hesitant: his resolution hasweakened but he still appears undecided. Onthe sound-track we hear a baby's cries, fromsomewhere in the night; and the insanegroom is being led home by his friends - Apl1watches as they pass him. Then he goes on tothe house, and asks Pulu, 'Can you rcally getme that job?', adding, 'I'll need a shave.' Wenever know the exact moment when Apudecides, or what tips the balance. The baby'scries are felt as part of the scene's atmosphere,together with the deepening darkness, theriver, the house; Apu makes no sign that heeven hears them, Consciollsly. Yet it is legiti­mate - giv~n the habitual economy, care andexactness of Ray's use of sound - to feel thecries as contributing to Apu's decision: theyare an emblem of vulnerability, relating atance ta the helpless young girl Apu has nevereven met and the child they may one dayhave together. Later in the film, when Aparnais dead and Apu lies on his bed in a state ofemotional desolation verging on atrophy, theclock in the roam stops and he gets up, goesto the railway and tries to kill himself. I men­tioned earlier a possible comparison withRossellini. There is a scene in Europa 51where Irene (Ingrid Bergman), after her childhas killed himself, talks with her cousin in

his car. She says that perhaps her child's lifehad depended on a single gesture, a wordspoken or left unspoken; the cousin tells herthat the child's death resulted from a greatcomplex of causes, the state of the world, thefact that he had been born into, and grown upamidst, the war and its aftermath. Rosselliniallows both POilUS equal weight, hence byimplication equal truth: the boy's suicide wasthe outcome of a whole life and background,of an only partially decipherable network ofinteracting factors, but if Irene had laid herhand' for a moment on his, perhaps it wouldhave been averted. Sim.ilarly, Apu marriesApama because a baby cries and attemptssuicide because a clock stops ticking.

The cumulative effect of Ray's films issomewhat like that of Rossellini's - feltespecially at momems when a decision isreached and the whole weight of the filmsensed to be behind it. To ask, for example,why the couple arc reconciled at the end ofViaggio in Italia is to reconstruct the wholefjJm, very much as we have reconstructed TheWorld of Apu up to Apu's decision to acceptAparna. (It can hardly be simple coincidencethat the two weStern directors with whomRay has the closest affinities should both havcbeen attracted to India, each making onc ofhis greatest tilms there.) There is an impor­tam, though somcwhat intangible, difference:in Rosscliini's films, there is customarily asense of ultimatc mystery - a sense one has tocall religious - which is lacking in Ray. InRay's films one feels that everything couldbe cxplained if we were able to collect all theevidence from the characters' backgroundsand personal psychology; in Rossellini thereremains always a sense of the unknowable,

of something almost certainly inaccessible tohwnan beings so mat however fully one ex­plains an event the account is never complete.Hence the reconciliation at the end of Viaggioin ltalia has something of the miraculous,despite the fact that the accumulated eventsof the whole film are behind it.

The cemral section of The World of ApltoITers onc of the cinema's classic affirmativedepictions of married life. It could s1Jstaincomparison with Sunrise: the range of emo­tions through which the characters pass ismore limited, bur me sense of inner develop­ment from the l110mem when Apu and Aparnamarry to the moment when he reccives thenews of her death provides as convincing ademonstration of the meaning and positivevalue of marriage as A1urnau's film. Thewedding itself, where the couple first confronteach other (though thc'y can't meet eachother's eyes), is a touching starting-point. Rayshows it, essentially, in a single shot. Thecamcra is at first on Aparna, at this point stillan enigma, but docile and amazingly delicatc.Then it moves left to show Apu, now wearingthe floral head-dress, his face strained andfrightened, his elation at pleasing his friendPulu evaporated. The two are at once separ­ate, becausc never in the frame together, yetlinked because of the continuity of the shot.

This sense of two people separate yet insome still undefined way linked is maintainedthroughout the next scene. It is introducedby a shot of the river at night; we then seeApu looking out from the window of thebridal chamber. The physical realities of timeand place are always important in Ray's work,and treated with consistent exactness andsensitivity. Here) the steady progress from the

sunlight and dappled shade when the groomarrived and Apu slept under the tree, throughthe dusk and falling night when he reachedhios decision, to the dense darkness of theworld outside the garlanded and lamplitchamber, both emphasises the swiftness with

Still: the wedding night.

which events have taken place and intensifiesthe emotional effect of each scene with itschanges of physical atmosphere. Here, thesense of surrounding darkness contributessignificantly though unobtrusively to the moodas the two young people, still afraid to lookat each other, shyly sound each other out anddecide the future. Apu paces the room,

Apama stands motionless by the bed-post.Her back is to him and they are separatedby the bcd, but Ray keeps them both withinthe frame throughout most of the sequence.Although we see Apama's face, she remainsat first as enigmatic to us as to Apu. He ques­tions her to tind out what she expects of him,painfully aware of the kind of existence hewould be taking her back to. 'What did Pulutell you about me?' - she knows he is anorphan. Apu talks of his father, his mother,his sister. Does she know he is a writer? She

Stiffs. Above: the bride arrives at her newhome. Right: the dO'lvnstairs neighbour sewswhile the newly-weds creep upstain.

tells him she can only rcad Bengali, and heanswers that that is what he is writing hisnovel in. She is smiling shyly, looking down.With a sudden recoil, he tells her he wasforced into this marriage. Does she want to bemarried to a poor man? 'Yes', she answers.It is our key to Apama: the certainty andsimplicity of the one word imply the clarity,

intelligence and strength that later sequenceswill confirm; it comes across as not meeksubmission but a genuine decision reachedthrough intuition and insight. It evokes animmediate response in Apu: he will take herback to Calcutta, even if her father objects.

We see them arrive at Apu's tenementblock. As they descend from the carriage,

Apama is carrying the groom's head-dress:from here on it will rest in the corner of thecouple's room, a reminder of the very differentworld from which Aparna has been brought,a world of wealth, stability and tradition thatcontrasts not only with the squalor but thesense of impermanence of Apu's tenement bythe railway, with its constant background of

train noises. In the room, Apama looks outthrough the hole in the rag-like curtain, whichwas the film's first image after the credits, atthe yard below where a woman places a babyon a makeshift bed and small pigs scumeabout. Apu has gone to tell the neighboursthat they have arrived. Aparna sits on thesill and weeps; the camera, with a movementof characteristic reticence, tracks back as if torespect her privacy. Apu returns and findsher weeping. She smiles, denying that she'sunhappy. The poignance of the scene derivesfrom the emotional truth of both the tearsand the happiness, the young girl's misgivingsabout the life before her and the resiliencethat is partly innate strength and partly bornout of her developing feeling for her husband.Apu takes Aparna to present her to theneighbours on the stairs, a group of admiringwomen and children who look up at her as ifshe were a visiting princess, the woman fromthe floor below putting out her hand to touchher; again we are aware of the gulf separatingAparna's world from the one in which she isnow to live.

The whole span of the couple's married lifetogether is covered in the ensuing six se­quences, some of them very brief. The firstopens on the new curtain that has replacedthe torn one over the window by the bed. Wesee during the scene other small items oftangible evidence of the change Aparna hasmade in Apu's life. Near the beginning of thefilm Pulu rebuked Apu for having a stovein his bedroom; now the cooking is done out­side, over a. small coal brazier on the roof.Near it is a pot of flowers. The room is neat,and there is another potted plant on thewindow-sill. Indian conventions and censor-

ship demand extreme reticence in the depic­tion of sexual relationships, even withinmarriage. Ray finds indirect ways of suggest­ing physical intimacy that are perhaps moreeloquent in their restraint, delicacy and ten­derness than scenes of overt love-making.The alarm rings, Aparna gets up: Apu hasknotted the end of her sari to the garmentwrapped around him, and she has to pause toundo it. It is at once a lover's joke and asuggestion of physical union. Apu opens hiseyes. His hand is by Aparna's pillow, andbetween his fingers he discovers a hair-pin.He looks at her outside the door preparingthe fire; there is a corresponding shot of himfrom her point of view. She rebukes him forstaring. The editing makes vivid the intimacyof their exchanged glance in contrast withthe shots in the wedding scenes that kept bothcharacters within the frame but stressed theiremotional separateness, their inability to con­front one another. Apu pulls out a packet ofcigarettes from under his pillow; his wifehas written a note on the inner flap, 'Remem­ber - one after each meal'. He looks across ­she is smiling at him. The simple details arcused by Ray to suggest the couple's delightin one another, the sense of wonder each feelsexpressed in the interplay of tenderness andgentle hwnour. Aparna swats a black beetle,smashes coal with her bare hands; Apu bringshis flute out on to the roof, plays it inter­mittently, stands watching her. Again theoverall effect of the scene arises from poeticjuxtapositions: the sound of the flute, thenoise of the train whistles (continued on thesound-tra,k while Apu still has the flute to

Still: Aparna. 77

his mouth); smoke from the trains, smokefrom Aparna's cooking fire; the intimacy,quiet happiness, sense of permanence of thecouple balanced against the sense of insta­bility in the environment.

The second sequence begins with Aparnadoing her hair, her husband dissatisfied, guiltyat the hardship he has forced on her. 'Don'tyou ever repine against your lot?' he asks(according ~o the English subtitles). Shedoesn't understand the word 'repine'. 'Aren'tyou sorry you didn't marry a rich husband?'78

She laughs, and continues brushing her hair.'You're laughing!' - 'No, I'm crying', sheretorts, playfully contemptuous. He says he'llgo Ollt and hire a servant. And who will pay?He'll get more private pupils. She tells himto get rid of the one he has already. And thenwhat? 'Then my poor husband will comehome early and I shan't repine any more.'The latter part of the scene is done in a longtwo-shot with both faces visible in profile;there is a beautiful sense of intimacy in theway Apama looks at Apu, of thoughts and

Still. Left: Aparna repining. Above: Apllteaches Aparna English.

feelings arising within her and finding ex­pression in the words.

The third sequence has Aparna alone in theapartment. The alarm rings - it is time forApu to come home. She looks down from theparapet, then hides behind the entrance andblows up a paper-bag which she bursts in hisface as he appears: she isn't 'repining'! Thesmall frivolous detail conveys an essential

aspect of the relationship: Aparna's veryexact sense of her husband's tendencies (Q

melancholia and self-recrimination, fromwhich she startles him with tender-ironicridicule. Then we see them eating: he eatswhile she fans him, and then the roles andpositions arc exactly reversed. This sense ofperfect balance in the relationship isstrengthened in the next brief scene, whereApu tcaches Apama English. Previously thegain, at least in concrete terms, has appearedto be mostly his; now we glimpse the possible

79

developments the marriage offers Aparna.The next sequence opens with a scene from

the sort of Indian movie Satyajit Ray doem'tmake: artificial setsJ crude trick-cffectsJ wildmelodramaJ magicians and monsters. Apu andAparna arc in the audience watching it. Themovie sequence ends with a child surroundedby a protective ring of magic fire; the imagedissolves to the back window of a cab thesame shape as the scrcen, the cinematic flamesmerging into real street-lights. Ray's briefartistic testament, perhaps, succinctly defininghis own position in relation ro the commercialIndian cinema. Aparna rebukes Apu for theextravagance of taking a cab; he does it sothat they can be alone. Aparna, we learn, isgoing to her famiJy home to have their baby.Apu will have time to work on his novelagain: he hasn't touched it since his marriage.(Do you blame me for that?' Aparna asks.'No, I bless you for it.' He tells her he'lldedicate it to her; again she doesn't under­stand what the word means. (To my wife',he murmurs dreamily, in English. Sheexclaims proudly that she knows. what \vife'means. He tells her gravely that she doesn't ­he does. She lights his cigarette and watchesthe match burn down,- suddenly quiet andserious. The content of the scene is simple,and matched by thc simplicity of the staging,but the ovenoncs arc complex. First, thescreen in the cinema, which the couple arewatching, becomes the window looking out onthe world, from which they are turned away.The enclosed space of the cab they can'~ affordsuggests the enclosed world in which theylive, absorbed in their mutual fascination. Tothese unobtrusive hints is added the fact thatApu has suspended work on his novel.

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Suddenly the sense of the couple's relationshipembodying an ideal is challenged, and we arereturned to the recurrent assumption behindthe trilogy that every gain is accompanied byloss (and vice versa). The value of themarriage is not in doubr, but it is now felt tohave limitations" a tendency to shut out thewider reality beyond the couple's domesticlife. The shortest and bleakest of Words­worth's (Lucy' poems comes to mind -

( A slumber did my spirit seal,I had no human fears.She seemed a rhing that could nor feelThe touch of earthly years ... '

- and Apu's awakening is to be as abrupt, andas desolating in its effects, as that of Lucy'sadmirer. The match whose burning Aparnawatches S intently subtly communicates theidea of tran ience. The delicacy of the scene'sbalance betw cn poignance and gentle humouris beautifully maintained in its close. Apu,gazing at Ap rna, her face lit by the matchflame, asks ro nantically, 'What is that in youreyes?' 'Mascara', she answers, and blows thematch our.

The last of the six sequences showsAparna's departure on the train. Close-ups ofthe two characters, faces strained with thegrief of parting, are followed by an ominouslow-angle shot of the engine, huge and black.The difllculty for Apu of facing even twomonths without his wife is vividly suggested,and prepares us for the extremeness of hisreaction to her death. The train, emblem ofprogress, link between primitive past andurban future, constant as a motif but re­peatedly shifting in emotional significance,

now bears Aparna away, and Apu never seesher again.

The sequence culminating in Apu's recep­tion of the news of his wife's death in child­bi~th generates the most intense emotion ofany scene in the trilogy; for the expressionof a sense of irreparable loss it seems to meunsurpassed in the cinema. The intensityarises mainly from the abruptness, expressedwith shattering force in the mise-en-scene:the contrast between Apu's life with Aparnaand life without her, compressed into a fewseconds of screen time and communicated withan intimacy of feeling that is partly due tothe directness with which the moment ispresented, partly to the context of "the wholefilm.

The scenes preceding the breaking of thenews serve at once to intensify this sense ofwhat the marriage means to Apu and to keeppresent for us the isolation of his life before it.We see him in the office where he now works,sitting dreaming beside his typewriter CAslumber did my spirit seal ... '). His coarserbur amiable colleague says he wishes he knewhis secret: how to be married and happy onten rupees a week. 'How do you know I'mhappy?' Apu asks, genuinely surprised. Hiscolleague laughs kindly, and feels no need totell him. The motif that gives these scenescontinuity is Apu's reading of a letter fromAparna. He takes it out in the office, as soonas he can feel private: 'You owed me eightletters last month. I only received seven. Ishould never trust you, really.' He is 'readingit again standing in the crowded train as hegoes horne: (. . jealous of the girl next­door. Do keep the window shut.' The linecalls to mind the little scene where Apu closed

the shutter to exclude the girl opposite, andmakes suddenly vivid the difference in his life.He grins with pleasure and becomes abruptlyaware of the presence of a fellow-commuterstaring at him in amazement CHow do youknow I'm happy?'). We see him walking bythe bridge (where he declaimed poetry afterdinner with Pulu) and along the tracks (wherehe and Pulu discussed his novel, and Puluasked him what he thought he knew aboutlove), where he has the letter out again: (Iam well but my heart is sick. It will heal ifyou come. If you don't, I shall never love youagain, never, never. .'. They are Aparna'slast words co him. He picks up a baby thathas strayed too near the tracks, moving itback ro a place of safety.

Aparna's brother is on the roof, standingwhere Apu stood with his flute as Aparnaprepared the fire. He has difllculty in speak­ing. Apu moves towards him, with growinganxiety. The brother tells him that the babycame too soon ... The camera tracks in onApu's anguished face. We are used to Ray'scamera wit~drawing from his characters'moments of private emotion, moving back toframe them more. (objectively' within thedecor and as if to express a natural reticenceand delicacy. The effect of the track-in is bycontrast the more shocking. Apu's abrupt andunbelieving anguish is a difficult thing to askan actor to convey; many directors would havefound ways of covering up the precise momentof shock. Ray, with the always extraordinarySoumitra Chatterjee, gives it uS with uncom­promising bareness and immediacy. Somepeople avert their eyes from details of violenceor horror on the screen. The naked and hope­less suffering in this shot seems to me much

81

harder to confront: it is among the cinema'smost deeply shocking moments. The realityof death and irreparable loss has never beenmore sharply and painfully communicated.Apu turns briefly away, and then abruptlystrikes Apama's brother, the futility andinjustice of the gesture bringing home to ushis impotence - Oll/' impotence - in the faceof death.

This sense of powerlessness is intensifiedby the fact of the couple's separation. Thescene on the roof is the culminating instanceof the death-in-absence motif that runsthrough the trilogy. Hari's discovery ofDurga's death was a moment of terribledesolation, yet a wife and son remained tohim. The pain of Sarbojaya's death wascounterbalanced by our sense of Apu's release.For Apama's death there is no immediateconsolation or compensation - Apu being un­able even to contemplate the existence of hischild at this point - only an anguish madekeener by the distance in space and time thatplaces the girl beyond even an illusion ofreach or help.

Th sequences of Apu's marriage andAparna death are not only the core of thisfilm but central significance to Ray's work.They fuse, laracteristically, the particularisedand the uni rsal. There is nothing vague orgeneralised a flut the characters and situationsof The Worm of Apu. Ray realises everystage in the c~uple's relationship in terms ofprecise and vivid detail which we respond toas neither 'typical' nor 'symbolic', but asfresh, interesting, touching, amusing in itselfand for its own sake. The characters arepresented with obvious affection which neverdegenerates into sentimentality because it is

82

consistently balanced by a sharply focusedobjectivity. This particularity, however, isscarcely separable from issues that are uni­versal: the intensity with which the particularmarriage relationship and the individual deathare felt and depicted point the spectatorinevitably to Marriage and Death as facts ofexistence. More precisely, in terms of Ray'svision of life: the high value placed on thepotentialities of marriage is challenged by theterrible unpredictability, hence pot~ntial

absurdity, of an existence whose supremevalue can be negated within a moment. TheHIm's structure, in retrospect at least, high­lights this sense of universality by framing thesequences of married life as the central panelof a ncar-symmetrical triptych, Apu's wed­ding and the news of Aparna's death dividingthe film into three roughly equal parts, theformal organisation giving the two eventsgreat prominence. .

If Aparna's death, in its very arbitrariness,seems at first, both to Apu and to us, torender existence absurd, two factors on re­flection qualify such a reaction and makepossible the film's last third. One is the hintalready implicit in the cab scene (after thecinema visit) that the perfection of the marri­age in fact depended on attendant limitations- the exclusion of an outside reality, thesuspension of Apu's creative work, emblematicof human aspirations whose continuance de­pends on the sense of incompleteness. Theother is the fact scarcely acknowledged at thisstage by Apu but present for the spectator inthe words, at once cruelly tactless and realistic,of the neighbour who brings Apu food: 'It'sa good thing the child was saved' - Ray'ssense of a universe of flux, of continual loss-

and-gain, of a continuity in transience, auniverse of which the 'perfect' private worldof Apu and Aparna was a living contradiction,is the basis on which will be built Apu'sreconciliation with life and his acceptance ofthe child whose birth was Aparna's death.

It is striking that, while death plays solarge a part in the trilogy, the spirit of the filmsseems quite free of morbidity. If one seeksa western director in whose films death hasa comparable importance - taking on a central .thematic significance - one turns again toRossellini (the comparison was suggested to meby Michael Walker). Again, both the simil­arity and the difference are illuminating. ForRossellini's characters death - mysterious yetin human terms terribly final- is the ultimatetest. There is no natural consolation - nocompensatory gain in nature for the loss. Theonly gain arises from the way in which theirawareness of death forces th~ characters tostrive to create a meaning in their lives. Thefact of death suddenly puts the individual lifein a new perspective. Other concepts - thesense of the vastness and terrible splendourof the universe, the awareness of time andthe brevity of the individual life in relationto eternity, perhaps the idea of God - areoften inseparably bound up with the aware­ness of death. I am thinking of IngridBergman's experience of the volcano in thelast sequences of Stromboli; her reactions tothe lovers immortalised in death in the Pom­peii lava in Viaggio in I talia ('Life is soshort'); the death of her child in Europa 51,from which all the developments of the filmspring. Or there is the last shot of La Prisede pouvoir par Louis XIV - the only shotwhere we sec Louis alone, and which creates

in a moment the essential significance of thewhole film - where Le Roi Soleil after divest­ing himself of the clothes which symbolisethe public role in which he has deliberatelysubmerged his private identity, repeats themaxim of La Rochefoucauld, 'Neither thesun nor death can be looked at unflinchingly'.Every Rossellini film leads one, sooner orlater, to his religious sense of mystery - notnecessarily Catholic or even Christian, as onesees clearly if one compares ~is films' withBresson's, which can only be understood inrelation to Christian dogma.

For Ray, death is not so much a mystery asa terrible fact, something one has to learn tolive with rather than a final judgment andchallenge that abruptly and mysticallychanges one's whole perspective. Apu's de­velopment in the last third of The World ofApu is determined not so much by the factof death (as would be the case in Rossellini)as by Aparna'5 death - by his sense of irreme­diable loss. And {n the trilogy, although deathremains terrible in its arbitrariness, there isalways compensation in natural-human termsof development or continuity: Auntie dies,the children grow; Durga dies, the familymove to Benaresj Sarbojaya dies, Apu is setfree to seek self-fulfilment; Aparna dies, thebaby is born.

The inescapable comparison evoked by thelast part of The World of Apu, it seems tome, is with the late plays of Shakespeare.The ultinlate value-comparison would have tobe between Ray's mise-en-scene and Shake­speare's poetry, and the judgment would bepredictable and not particularly interesting:when he made The World of Apu, Ray hadnot evolved anything equivalent to the extra-

83

ordinary expressive flexibility and complexityof 'The Winter's Tale'. Nonetheless, tht:comparison is very far from making him lookridiculous, and it suggests, 1 think, the levelall which the film must be interpreted andvalued: not as a sentimental tale of little­boy-finds-his-daddy, bur as a poem aboutrebirth and reconciliation. The parallels arestriking, 'Pericles' offering rhe closest. Thereis the progress through catastrophe and loss(the death of Thaisa, [he death of Apatna)to final acceptance. There is the usc of thechild - renounced by the father, like JV1arina,but for more comprehensible motives - asboth the agent of the protagonist's reconci­liation with life and the symbol of rebirththrough natural continuity. Shakespeare, inboth 'Pericles' and 'The Winter's Tale' resur­nxts the mother, too. Ray in a sense resurrectsApama, with the aid of what looks like mir­aculous good fortune in the casting: the childwho plays Kajal, the son, immediately evokesmemories of the c;:hild Apu in his alivenessand sensitivity, but his physical resemblanceto Apama is perhaps even more striking - hehas the same delicacy of features, the samelarge, vulnerable eyes. I find his appearanceinstantly moving in itself.

The turning-point in Apu's progress fromdespair to acceptance is the attempted SUici~de

on the railway tracks. The moment when Apdecides to kill himself is rendered with chara ­teristic exactness of effect. Since Apar 'sdeath Apu has lain prostrate and virt allymotionless on the bed. The well-m ningneighbour, Mrs Ganguly, brings h~, food,talks about other possible wives for him, tellshim it's a good thing the child was saved.When she leaves, Apu rises painfully.84

Ray cuts to a close-up of his face; theclock stops ticking; Apu turns to the mir­ror and the camera turns to frame hisreflection; we hear the sound of a trainwhistle. Each detail is presented simply, with­out overt comment: we arc left to feel theirpower of suggestion, Ray moving immediatclyto the suicide attempt. For Apu, the sugges­tions are supported and given forte by thememory of the past, and Ray makes the pastpresent for us as well by subtle means ofwhich thc accumulated resonances of the tr~in

imagery constitute only the most obvious.The moment when APll at last rises from hisbed is shown in a shot in which the cameramoves from left to right across the roomplacing the action within the decor that in­cludes the new flowery curtain Aparna made(at lefr centre of image when the camera stopsmoving) and the glOom's wedding head-dressin the corner at the right. When Apu looksat his reflection Ray moves the camera inso thar the mirror becomes a frame withinthe frame recalling the earlier 'frames' of thecinema screen and the cab window, thecouple's last evening out together. The imagewithin the frame is neither the crude fantasymelodrama nor the outside world, bur Apu'sown haggard and unshaven face, his eyesrevealing his despair as he looks within him­self.

The emorional effect of the suicide scene issimilarly deepened 'by Ray's use of motifswhich have accumulated resonances fromprevious appearances in the film. What hap­pens is simple: Apu stands beside the tracks,waiting to fall in from of an oncoming train;

Still: 1pu as wanderer.

the train runs ovcr a pig, whose death-screamarrests Apu, so that he is still standing in thesame placL: as the train passes. Ray shoots thescene in a manner that gives particular em­phasis to two elements: smoke, and thevarious sounds involvcd. The sequence startswith the camera tilted up to the sky. Theimage remains quite empty as we hear thewhistle of the approaching train; then darksmoke appears from the bottom left of thescreen, and the camera moves to take in Apu,in the right foreground of the frame. Theeffect is to deprive the image of all environ­mental context, the elimination of all but thebarest essentials reflecting Apu's single-mind­ed concentration on his death. In the sceneof domestic life earlier Ray juxtaposed thesmoke from trains with the smoke of Aparna'stire, the noise of the rrain-whistles with thesound of Apu's lhae; here the train whistle isjuxtaposed with the scream of the pig. Thestraying pigs were earlier in the lilm associ­ated visually with children. Before he learntof Apama's death, Apu removed a strayingchild from the railway tracks. The suicidescene draws together, by association, all thesemotifs, linking them by implication also withAparna's death and Apu's child. There isnothing schem~tic or overtly symbolic, rarheran e0'ect of poet~c density. dependent 01: the/keep111g present !11 our Il1ll1ds the emotion,resonances of past incidents.

The brief sequences showing A "wan­derings and his immersion in nature seem tome the weakest in the lilm, substitutinggeneralised, picturesque, rather obvious im­ages - Apu gazing out to sea, Apu wanderingthrough sunlit forests - for the closely ob­served particularities we are used to in Ray.

In place of the precise and complex moti­vation, part-expressed, part-implied, behindthe earlier stages in Apu's development, theyoffer little more than a romantic gesture.They culminate in what seems to me thefilm's most problematic moment - Apu's des­truction of his novel on a mountain-top asthe sun rises. The problem lies in assessingthe precise tone of the scene. Apu, clearlyenough, is casting off a past he has outgr...own,the novel representing a level of experienceand of achievement that he has left behindwith Apama's death and can now reject asimmature. At the same time, there is some­thing grandiose and rhetorical in the gesture,an act of self-dramatisation that suggests acontinuing immaturity: if one wishes simplyto cast off one's outgrown past in the formof a novel, one needn't climb a mountainpeak and cast the leaves' into the sunrise. Ifone could be confident this were the point,the scene would be perfectly acceptable, estab­lishing a transition stage in Apu's life: he is,after all, not yet ready fully to accept life andits conditions, in the form of the child forwhose birth Apama died. But Ray's filmingof the scene '- camera looking up at Apu froma low angle, giving him an almost saint- orprophet-like stature - seems to indulge thecharacter's emotion unquestioningly. Ray him~

self sees the incident simply as an act of'renunciation', and suggests that 'the Indianaudience is familiar with a siruation like that;it might seem strange to a Western audience':a justification that perhaps merely evades thereal issue, though there may be a conflict herebetween fhe values accorded to certain emo­tional states and attitudes in Eastern andWestern cultures.

Certainly, Apu's 'renunciation' is not to betaken as a desirable absolute. When we nextsee him we realise that he was renouncingmore than the immature novel: he has re­jected the whole creative and aspiring side ofhis nature and is working at a coal-mine inCentral India. At the beginning of the filmhe shrank from factory work as a means ofearning a living, a reaction at once immatureyet suggestive of a genuine fineness of sensi- .bility, a reluctance to get trapped in uncreativeroutine. Accordingiy, the revelation of hismining work also evokes a mixed reaction.We see he has found through it a certainstability and peace of mind, but at theexpense of much of what was finest in him.His job isn't really a return to humanity: likehis previous absorption in nature, it appearsrather a rejection of his human sensitivity, hissensitive awareness of individual lives, afterthe pain of Apama's loss. The destruction ofthe novel is clearly bound up with this. Weknow the novel was immature, a 'young man'sbook'; we also know it was the expression ofa very real and promising talent, for the in­telligence and steadiness with which Rayinvests Pulu give his opinion of it considerableweight. It is this side of Apu - the side ofwhich the impulse to write was an expression- which must be restored to life.

i\rleanwhile, we have been introduced to thechild, Kajal; with him the delicacy and sure­ness of touch returns. The method of hisintroduction is as striking and instantly mean­ingful as the close-up of the opening eye thatintroduced Apu in Pather Panchali. We seefirst his feet; the camera moves up to showhis hands, holding a catapult, then continuesupward to show, not the face, but a grotesque

devil-mask, which he tips back over his headto reveal the face beneath, sensitive, vulner­able, intensely alive. In each case Ray findsa way of communicating the essentialcharacteristic immediately: with Apu, theenquiring eye looking out on to the world;with Kajal, the aggression that is really adefence against hurt in a world where, father­less, he must protect himself. The images arelinked by the fact that both children arehiding - Apt! under a blanket, Kajal behindthe mask; and they connect, too, with the in­troduction of Apu in Aparajito, suddenly peer­ing out from his place of concealment rounda corner. If Kajal's face recalls Apama's, heis also his father's son, with the same balanceof vulnerability and resilience, timidity andcuriosity.

The implications of this first image ofKajal are developed in the incident of thedead bird. Kajal picks up the bird - which heseems to associate with his catapult, thoughthere is no suggestion that he has killed it ­examines it, and makes a face at it: his wayof coping with the disturbing fact of death)and his own possible guilt. Then he frightensan old woman by dangling the bird over heras she cooks, grabbing the food and runningbefore she can pull herself together. He iscaught by an old man, whom he promptlybites. The old man threatens to tell Kajal'sgrandfather; the child immediately retaliateswith a counter-threat - 'My father will hityou'. The psychology isn't over-tidy orexplicit. We are left to make connectionsbetween the various bits of evidence - devil­mask and catapult, the face-pulling at thebird, the childish delinquency, the apparentalmost reckless self-reliance, the sudden fall-

Stills. Left: Kajal and the mask. Above: Pulucomes to find Apu.

ing back on the myth of a father he has neverseen and who has for him the reality of acharacter in a fairy-story - and find a co­herent pattern. However, beyond the psycho­logical sketch of the child's response to hisabandonment (we gather subsequently thatthe grandfather often speaks of Apu dis­approvingly), Ray suggests the existence inKajal of qualities that make him a fitting

medium and symbol of the idea of rebitthand of natural continuity, the idea thatnothing is ever simply lost. If the vulner­ability comes from Apu, the practicalresourcefulness and self-reliance are clearly alegacy of the mother: Kajal is, potentially atleast, the fusion of what was finest in both hisparents.

As Pulu led Apu to Apama, so he leadshim to his child. His function in the film,though less active and less developed, is notunlike that of Camillo or Paulina in 'The

I

Wimer's Talc': lacking Apu's fineness, he haswhat Apu lacks, a sturdy common sense anddependability. Having visited the grandfatber(his uncle) and seen Kajal, he then seeks outApu at the mine. In their interview on a hill­side track, the qualities the two men embodyare very nicely balanced: on the one handPulu's sense of decency and responsibility, onthe other Apu's capacity for deep hurt and itsattendant egoism. At first Apu shrinks evenfrom contact with his friend - contact thatinevitably brings with it reminders of all hehas sought to forget, deadening the sensitiveside of his nature in the process. Warily, thetwo men draw near each other. Apu says hethinks of going abroad - a furtber fligbt, per­haps, from those aspects of himself that tcndto human commitment. Pulu mentions Kajal.'Oh, so that's what they called him', Apu

says: he has deadencd in himself all responseto the child's existence. Ray films the lattcrpart of the conversation with Apu at the outeredge of the track, the sky and valley bebindhim. As the two men discuss Kajal, Apu isbetween two small trees growing out of theside of the hill, one alive and one dead; whenApu says, 'She died because he was born', hesits, the dead tree behind him. Verbalised, thesymbolism sounds much cruder than it is - infact, it is never visually stressed by 'sigriifi­cant' cut-ins or camera-movements.

And so to the closing sequence of the film,and of the trilogy: Apu's visit to his father­in-law's house, where through a process oftentative but reciprocal communication, hemoves from rejection of the child to joyfulacceptance. I-Ie comes with the intention ofcoldly executing a parental duty: he is goingabroad, and will first leave Kajal in his ownvillage to take him off the grandfather'shands. Apu goes upstairs to sec his child forthe first time. The scene is rich in unobtrusivebut subtly suggestive poetic detail. Kajal isasleep on the bcd, the devil-mask lying besidehim. Apu sits on a chair by the window,through which we see, in long-shot, the river,with a solitary boat moving. From somewhereoutside comes the sound of a voice singing,the only thing that breaks the silence. Theriver, besides its traditional overtones of'river-of-life', has somcthing of the functionof the railway in Pather Panchali: it is theway to Calcutta and the future. The voice,with its distant yearning quality, stands in forApu's awakening feelings for the child, whichit perhaps also helps to provoke, rather as thecry of a baby in tbe gathering darkness playedits role in his decision to marry Apama.

Apu awakens Kajal, who runs out. Apufollows him out of the house, through thegate, the grandfather hovering anxiouslyb~hind. 'Kajal, I'm your father.' The child's

Stills. Opposite: Apu sees his son for the firsttime. Below: the stone-throwing incident ­grandfather about to strihe.

response is to hurl a stone, an action capableof several interpretations: anger at thefather's previous rejection of him; reluctanceto have a fantasy-figure, a hero from a fairy­tale, reduced to mere flesh-and-bJood; thefigbting-off of the powerful and disturbingemotions Apu's sudden presence arouses.Ray's inexplicitncss allows us to sense com-

plex interacting impulses behind the child'saction. The grandfather makes to strike Kajalwith a stick and Apu physically intervenes.The moment is moving not only because itsuggests the strength of the feeling for hisson awakened in Apu,. but because it is thefulfilment of Kajal's fantasy about his father,an effective defence against the grandfather'spunishments. (The staging of the scene issomewhat clwnsy: Kajal seems too far awayfor the stone to reach Apu, a fact Ray triesto disguise in the editing; and the grand­father's and Apu's movements look too posedand unspontaneous. One could argue that Raywas trying to heighten the action by makingit almost ritualistic, but such an effect seems

Still: Apu leaves; Kajal in long-shot.

at once superfluous and uncharacteristic. Henever seems at case in the treatment ofphysical violence: there is a similar weaknessin Days and Nights in the Forest.)

The next two brief scenes both show Apu'sadvances rejected by Kajal; Ray's mise-en­scene, however, suggests the reciprocal natureof the contact. In the first, we see Apu butnot Kajal; in the second, a single static take,Kajal but not Apu (except his hand): theformal balancing suggests the connectionwhich the child's actions deny. The first scenehas Apu directing a clockwork train acrossthe floor towards Kajal; it is immediatelyflung back at him. The second has Kajal inbed. We hear Apu's voice: 'Will you makefriends?' He offers to tell Kajal stories. Kajalsays nothing: a sign perhaps that he is nowready at least to listen to his father's advancesand consider them. But tlien Apu lays hishand on the boy's shoulder. Kajal is not readyfor physical contact: the hand is firmlypushed away.

Apu prepares to leave. He won't compelthe child to accompany him, althoughAparna's fathcr tclls him he has the right('I knew you'd turn out to be a failure', theold man grumbles). We see Apu walkingaway along the river-bank where, earlier inthe film, he moved hesitantly towards themarriage with Aparna. He pauses suddenlyand turns as if arrested by some sixth sense.The shot is a marvellous example of the ex­pressive possibilities of depth-ol-focus: Apuin the foreground, left, in close-up, the tinyfigure 01 the child in distant long-shot, follow­ing, the two separated by a great space yetlinked within a single composition. In thebackground is the river; we hear the sound

01 the wind and a repeated bird-call. Apu atfirst pretends not to notice Kajal, letting thechild get nearer. Then, over the space thatstill separates them, Apu and Kajal discussthe child's father in the third person. It isclear that Kajal 'knows' that Apu is his fatherbut still can't quite accept the fact. He asksApu if he knows his father. Apu says he does,and offers to take Kajal to him. In the baek-

Still: Apu carrying Kajal - an end and a newbeginning.

ground behind Kajal the grandfather appearsto take the boy in, carrying in his hand thespurned clockwork train. He pauses, seeingwhat is happening. Apu urges the child on.Suddenly the boy relaxes, and rushes forwardinto his fa"ther's arms. The film ends with himseated on Apu's shoulders as Apu walks awaytowards the future. In accepting the child, hehas accepted life, has accepted the death ofAparna. Whether or not he is going back tobecome a great novelist is immaterial: he isgoing back to live.

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CREDITSTIlE APU TRILOGYPATHER PANCIiALI - Song of the RoadDirected, producl;d and written by Salyajit Ray from anovel by Bibhul! Dhushan Dandapaddhay. For Governmentof \'('est Bengal. Photogr31)hcd by Subrala Mitr:l. Arldirector: Bamhi Gupta. Edited by Dulal Dutta. Music byRavi Shankar. lIS minutes.With; K:mu lJannerjec (Marihar. the father), KamilaBannerjee (Sarbojaya, the mother), Uma Das Gupta(Durga, the daughter), Subir Dannerjee (Apu, the sun),Chunibala (Ihe aunt).

APARAJITO - The UnvanquishedDiret,:ted, produced and wrilten b)' Satyajit Ray from anovel by Dibhuti Bhush:m llandapaddhay. For Epic FilmsPrivate. PholOgraphcd by Subral:! Mitra. Art director:Bansi ChanJragupt3. Edited by Dulal Duna. Music byRavi Shankar. II) minutes.With: Piald Sen Gupta (Apu, the boy), Kanu Bannerjee(Harihar), Subodh Ganguly (headmaster), K. S. Pandey(Pandey), Karuna B:ulncrjee (Sarbojaya), Ramani SenGupta (unde), Kali Charan Ray (press proprietor), Sudip13Ray (Niru!Jama), Sma ran Ghosal (Apll, the adolesccnt),Charu Ghosh (Nanda Babi), Santi Gupta (landlord's wife),Ajay Mitra (Ani!).

APUR SANSAR - The World of ApuDirected, produl:cd and wrillen by Satyaiit Ray from anovel by lJibhllti Bhushan n:mdapaddha~'. For SatyajitRay Productions. Photo~raphcd by Subrata Mitra. Artdirector: Uansi Chandragllpta. Edited by Dubl DUlla.Music by Ravi Shankar. 106 minutes.With: Soumitfa Ch:lIterji (Apu), Sharmila Tagore(Aparna), Shap:m Mukcrji (Pulu), S. Alokc Chakravarty(Kajole).

RAY'S FILMS1955 PATHER PANCH ALl - Song of the Road1957 APARAjlTO - The Un vanquishedt958 PARAS PATHAR - The Philosopher's Stone

jALSAGHAR - The Music Room1959 APUR SANSAR - The World of Apu1960 nEVI - The Goddess

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1961 RABIl':DRANATH TAGOR£!TEEN KANYA - Three Daughters - Two

DauJ:hters1962 KANCHENjUNGt\

ABHljAN - Expedition196) MAHANAGAR - The Dig City1964 CHARULATA - The Lonely Wife1965 KAPURUSH-O-MAHAPURUSH - The Coward

and the Holy Man1966 NAYAK - The Hero1967 CHIRIAKHANA - The Zoo - The Menagerie1969 COUPI GYNE AND BAGHA DYNE1970 ARANYER DIN RATRI _ Days and Nights in

Ihe ForestPRATIDWANDI - Siddhartha and the City - The

Adversary

SELECTED BffiLiOGRAPHYBOOKS AND PERIODICALS WITH ARTICLES BY

RAYCallicrs du Cilllhna no. 208, jan. 1969.Calliers du Cinema no. 175, Feb. 1966. (Translated in

Callien du eim!ma in English no. ), 1966.)Film (FederatiQIl of Film Societies) no. 57, Winter 1970.Fil", World july-Sept. 1968.Fi/m Wodd April-june 1969.Film World Feb. 1970.Indicm Film Clllwra no. 4, 1964·[Ildilm Film Cullw'e no. 7, 1966 (book review).!mUall Film Qllur/cr/y no, I, jan.-March 1957.Indian Film Cullllrl? no. 2, 196).Indian Amarcur i\1lJvie l'l'1aRazil1<: Nov. 1965.Ki/lo (India) lIO. I, Jail. 1964.Seminar May 1960.Sequence no. 10, New Year 1950.So:qUCtICe (l'akis\::IIl) no.), 1970.SiKhl and Souml vol. 26, no. 4, Spring 1957.

DOOKS WITH SECTIONS ON RAYnARNouw, Erik, and KRISHNA<;WAMV, S.· bzdian Film.

New York and London, Columbia University Press.196].

COWllO, Peter: 'Sntyaiit Ray' [In I,llcrnalianal FilmGilide 1965. London, Tantivy Press, 1965.]

KAUFFMAN, Stanley: 'Satyaiit Ray'. [In A World on Film.New York, Harper & Row, 1966.)

RHOIJE, Eric: 'Satyajit Ray'. [In Tower of Babel. London,Seeker & Warburg, 1966.]

SETON, Marie: Por/rail of a Direc/or: Satyaji1 nay.. London, Denis Dobson, 1971.

INTERVIEWS WITH RAYCahiu1 dll Cinema no. 216, Oct. 1969.Cinema NllOVO no. 114/115, 15 Sept. 1957.Common /'unlli, Sept. 196).Film Commem, Summer 1968.Pil", Qllarterly vol. 12, no. 2, Winter 1958.Film World OCI.~Dec. 196<)./ma.f!c et Son no. 178, Nov. 1964./'01i1il no. I I Z, jan. 1970.Rivista del Cinema/ogra{ica no. la, Oct. 1965.Sight and Sound vol. )9, no. 3, Summer 1970.

PERIODiCALS WITH ARTICLES ON RAYMOil/age no. 5/6 july 1966 devoled to Ray.Bannerjee, Subrata: Film World vol. 7, no. 2, April-May

1971. .Ciment, Michel: Posi/i' no. 59, March 1964.Dasgupta, Chidanandas: film Frame (Ceylon) vol. I, nO.I,

Dec. 196;1.DasRUpla, Chldanandas: Sighl and Sound vol. )6, no. I,

Winter 1966/67.Houston, Penelope: Sighl and Sound vol. )5, no. I,

Winter 1965/66.Montalban, j. L. Martinez: CineHudio no. 98, June 1971.Mukerjee, Prabat: Bianco e Nero jan.-April 1970.I>eries, Lester J.: Film World \'01. 6, no. 5, Oct.-Nov.

1970.JJeries, Lester j.' Film Frame (Ceylon) vol. I, no. I,

Dec. 1969.Sen Gupta, Soroj K.: Fil", World vol. 5, no. 4, Oct.­

Dec. 196<).Seton, Maric: Sigh1 and Sound vol. )1, no. :t, Spring

1962.

Slnnbrook. Nlln: Fi/ms and Filming Nov. 1965.Svensson, Arne: Film-ruUin no. Z, 1964.

PERIOOICAL ARTICLES ON INDIVIDUAL FILMS

PATHER PANCHALICalliers till Cinbna no. 107, May 1960.CinimGl 56 no. z, May 1956.Cim1ma 60 no. 46, May 1960.Film CII//ure no. 19. 1959.Jiilmi1ldia April 1956.Image et SOli no. 14), 1961 (fiche).II/dian DOCllmenlary April-June 1956.",dia'i Film Quarterly no. I, jall.-March 1957.Siglu atld Sound vol. 26, no. I, Summer 1956.1·';Ucitlc no. 97, 1961 (fiche).

;\P;\RAjITOBianco e Nero Nov. 1957.Cahiers du Cinima no. 79, jan. 1958.Cinema Europeo 7 Aug. 1957.Cinematograpbie Franfaise 21 Dec. 1957.Cimlma 58 no. Z4, Feb. 1958.Cinema NuQtJo no. 112, 15 Aug. 1957.Ci'll'ma Num'o no. 114/115, 15 Sep!. 1957.Filmcritica no. 70, Sept. 1957.Film Quarterly vol. 12, no. 4, Summer 1959.Films and FUming Feb. 1958.Imalle et SOil no. 108, jan. 1958.India1l Film Quarterly vol. I, no. I, Jan.·Mareh 1957.TiUcinc no. 69, Oct. 1957.

APUR SANSARCahien du Cinbna no. 152, Feb. 1964.Cinbna 64 no. 87.Fi/ms and Filming Del. 1959.Film$ and Fi/millg May 1961.Film Cul/ltre no. 21, Summer 1960.Fil", Quarlcrly Spring 1960.Film 70urnal no. 16, I960.IlIIage Cl SOil April 1964.Sighl attd Soulld vol. )0, no. I, Winter 1960-6t.

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