The father figures in Ray's films

The arrival of Satyajit Ray films in the history of Bengali Cinema has created new narrative and cinematic expressions on different themes. However the early films of Ray, which are exclusively related to the themes of unsung, unnoticed, unemployed lives of the marginal's and the rural poor's of the Bengal. Whereas in his later films we could see that portrays of urban middle class Bengalis lives, their economic condition and their entry into the modern world. As Ray depicts in his later films, Bengal was facing a new economic pressure in post independence India and this had much affected on Bengal's middle class communities in Kolkata. The resulting of this condition, the middle and lower middle class families were struggling to lead a comfortable life in the big city. And also to fulfil their financial needs in the family, both men and women were necessary to work outside the family. This inevitable situation was accept by both the modern and orthodox families, in where ordinary house wives were also begin to work in public market place. When they enter into the public sphere, their life style and their gender roles have been changed lot and it would become a progressive sign of modernity in Bengal's middle class women's lives. In this sense, the present study try to analyses the one such film of Satyajit Ray-Mahanagar (The Big City-1964), in which Ray has insightfully projected the modernity and gender mobility through his female protagonist of Arati's life. The film has depicts the metamorphosed life of ordinary housewife in private and public sphere, once she stepping into the modern world. In the film Ray has projected this individual woman's life as progressive modern identity and also her changing gender roles in the family is a sign of new modern woman. The present study begins with the argument that, how this Arati's large move towards modernity is questioned by patriarchal norms and how they felt that this positive development in housewife's life is insecure to the conservative values. And the paper is mainly focuses on that the question of modernity in woman's life is suspected by her husband and her in laws in the family. Finally the paper concludes with how Arati's dual gender roles are not recognised by husband and in laws in familial relationship.

MediAsia Official Conference Proceedings, 2022

Indian Hindi cinema particularly, Bollywood over the past 70 years has transgressed through various themes and influenced the audience at large. During the 60s and 70s Bollywood thoroughly stereotyped men and projected toxic masculinity. Highly contrasting to this is Satyajit Ray’s films and his portrayal of men who were gentle, supportive and masculine all at the same time. Even though Satyajit Ray was a regional filmmaker his contribution towards cinema transcends all linguistic and regional boundaries. This paper tries to analyze how Ray refuted these stereotypes and misogynistic images attached to men through his films and became a window to the present day Bollywood heroes. Theories like, Social Learning Theory and Cultivation Theory will be used to understand how this aggressive male image projected by Bollywood has further led to violence and crime in real life. The research will be conducted in an exploratory manner through frame-by-frame analysis of two purposively selected films from Ray’s body of work - Nayak (1966) and Mahanagar (1963). Nayak (1966) has been narrated from the male protagonist’s point of view and Mahanagar (1963) from the female protagonists’ point of view, wherein neither of the lead’s over-shadowed the other, each enjoyed their own democratic space. Several news articles and research papers were used to analyze the recent trends of Bollywood movies of this generation. The results of this study, also provide a better insight to film critics and researchers about Ray’s men who equally stood-out like the women leads.

Media Watch, 2021

Issues of women’s emancipation dominated the social reform movements in the early nineteenth century colonial Bengal (India). Influenced by the European renaissance, elite Bengali men (Bhadralok) argued that unless the condition of women improves, society cannot attain modernity. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, reforms shifted from women’s issues to nationalism and anti-colonialism discourse. Reformers talked little about modernizing women but redefined the role of women as custodians of Indian traditions that seemed threatened under British rule. Women began to be equated with traditions, and men’s role was to ‘modernize’ and negotiate with the colonial structure. This paper examines women’s role in colonial Bengal by using a feminist approach to interpreting films from a historical perspective. This paper analyzes the portrayal of women in three films directed by Satyajit Ray (known as The Apu Trilogy) from 1955 to 1959. It examines the cinematic depiction of women within the context of anti-colonial discourse prevailing in the late 19th and 20th century Bengal. The focus is also on the auteur’s personal experience and interpretations. Critical analysis of these films reveals that Bengal’s renaissance, spearheaded by upper-class men, was patriarchal, and women lagged in this journey towards modernity.

BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 2019

This essay focuses on a fragment of the Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar’s star text, the dada figure, to analyse the contours of melodramatic enunciations and masculinity that appear in the 1970s’ popular films. This decade is identified with the radical politics associated with the Naxal movement that erupted in varied expressions of rage and anger at institutional and systemic failures. Since Uttam typified a bhadralok masculine subjectivity, his evolution in domestic melodramas especially in male weepies from the period enables me to read the specifics of regional cinema and its response to social and political contexts of the times.

2013

Freedom and family hardly go together. There is no niche for freedom in Indian families where the male dominated society hold the reins taut, and generally the women readily submit themselves to be ruled over mentally, physically, psychologically, economically and socially merely to 'keep it going'. As a bi-product of the class society, family does exhibit such domination of one individual over the other. This hidden truth hardly surfaces, and families maintain within its core the stinking and manipulative mechanism, well-hidden by the so-called bourgeoisie values and family pride in Indian societies. Adjustment usually by the womenfolk, become the only mantra for the bare survival of the Indian families. This is well depicted in the plays of Mahesh Dattani, a great playwright who has brought out the crux of gender crisis which Indian families face. This paper explains the birth of family, its inner ugliness, and how it barely manages to survive in Indian scenario, and its n...

Shodhkosh Journal , 2024

Motherhood has been an idealized stereotype in literary works and movies. The burden of the duties entitled to a mother in a patriarchal society often detriments the growth of the woman beyond the identity of motherhood. Motherhood theory puts forth the argument that motherhood is not a universal experience but is shaped by social and cultural factors. Motherhood is perceived differently across different cultures and is influenced by cultural norms, gender roles, class, race, and ethnicity. The experience of motherhood is often associated with sacrifice and selflessness, but it is also marked by guilt, ambivalence, and stress. Motherhood theory seeks to understand the multiple dimensions of motherhood and the various ways in which women navigate the challenges of raising children. The 2019 Malayalam movie "Kumbalangi Nights" was helmed by director Madhu C. Narayanan and produced by Fahadh Faasil. The mother in the movie, though absent in person, is portrayed as a strong and independent woman who has her own desires and ambitions. The movie uniquely deals with the absence of a mother yet how she is omnipresent in the lives of her children, a much more realistic motherhood, breaking away from the traditional stereotype of a self-sacrificing mother who puts her family before everything else. "Uyare" (2019), follows the story of a young woman, played by Parvathy Thiruvothu, who dreams of becoming a pilot but is attacked by her exboyfriend and left disfigured. The father in the movie, played by Siddhique is shown as a supportive and empowering figure who helps his daughter to overcome her trauma and achieve her dreams. These two movies portray how regardless of the presence of a glorified mother, self-reliant, strong individuals can be raised rather than upholding the stereotypical image of a selfless, sacrificing mother.

Media Watch, 2020

The visionary Satyajit Ray (1921Ray ( -1992) is India's most famous director. His visual style fused the aesthetics of European realism with evocative symbolic realism, which was based on classic Indian iconography, the aesthetic and narrative principles of rasa, the energies of shakti and shakta, the principles of dharma, and the practice of darsha dena/ darsha lena, all of which he incorporated in a self-reflective way as the means of observing and recording the human condition in a rapidly changing world. This unique amalgam of self-expression expanded over four decades that cover three periods of Bengali history, offering a fictional ethnography of a nation in transition from agricultural, feudal societies to a capitalist economy. His films show the emotional impact of the social, economic, and political changes, on the personal lives of his characters. They expand from the Indian declaration of Independence (1947) and the period of industrialization and secularization of the 1950s and 1960s, to the rise of nationalism and Marxism in the 1970s, followed by the rapid transformation of India in the 1980s. Ray's films reflect upon the changes in the conscious collective of the society and the time they were produced, while offering a historical record of this transformation of his imagined India, the 'India' that I got to know while watching his films; an 'India' that I can relate to. The paper highlights an affinity between Ray's method of film-making with ethnography and amateur anthropology. For this, it returns to the notion of the charismatic auteur as a narrator of his time, working within the liminal space in-between fiction and reality, subjectivity and objectivity, culture and history respectively, in order to reflect upon the complementary relationship between the charismatic auteur and the role of the amateur anthropologist in an everchanging world. As part of the centennial celebration for the 100 years of Indian cinema, this paper returns to the life and work of the visionary Satyajit Ray . It highlights Ray's realist cinema and world vision, in order to reflect upon the complementary relationship between the charismatic auteur and the role of the amateur anthropologist in an ever-changing world. This essay focuses on the authorship of the visionary Satyajit Ray reflecting upon the complementary relationship between the charismatic auteur and the role of the amateur anthropology in an ever-changing world. Ray's unique amalgam of film-making fused the aesthetics of European realism with evocative symbolic realism, which he based on classic Indian iconography, the aesthetic and narrative principles of rasa, the energies of shakti and shakta, the principles of dharma, and the practice of darsha dena/ darsha lena, all of which he incorporated in a self-reflective way as the means of observing and recording the human condition in a rapidly changing world. Ray's humanism offers a direct critique of a 'western' concept of 'modernity', associated exclusively with the European Enlightenment. By 'a 'western' concept of 'modernity', I will be generally referring to the historical process of the transition from agricultural and feudal economies which were based on collective types of 'mechanical solidarity', to nation states which were based on types of capitalist economies on the basis of 'organic solidarity' (Durkheim [1893]). The transition from agricultural to industrialized societies was parallel to the processes of ocular-centrism (Levin 1993: 1-29), 'disenchantment' (Weber [1904(Weber [ , 1920]]), nationalization, industrialization and urbanization, and 're-enchantment' towards a new kind of 'dream world of mass culture' (Walter Benjamin in Buck-Morss 1991: 253-4, and Comaroffs 1993). Arendt (1958) defined this transition as a way of thinking, on the basis of three events: the discovery of America (the collective vision to satisfy the wanderlust); the Reformation as the means of morally understanding and categorizing the 'self'; and 'the invention of the telescope and development of a new science that considers [...] the universe' (1998: 248) as the means of morally understanding and categorizing the 'world'. Amartya Sen (1996/1998: 121-138) argued that Ray's sense of humanitarianism challenges such pre-conceived ideals of a European humanitarianism in the form of a 'progressive' modernity. He pointed out that Ray's films: '[...] share, to varying extends, a well-articulated "anti-modernism", rejecting, in particular, "Western" forms of modernization... [i.e.] "our modernism"'. Ray's film-making, set on the margins in-between his Bengali identity, European education, and Indian culture, opens the channels of communication between presumably 'opposite' cultures, questioning the Orientalist distinction between 'East' and 'West'. For Sen: '[…] the issue can be discussed only in dialectical terms. The characterization of an idea as "purely Western" or "purely Indian" can be very illusory. The origin of ideas is not the kind of thing which "purity" happens easily' (Ibid). The rigid opposition between 'East' and 'West' in terms of the European Enlightenment echoes anthropology's legacy as its by-product, with morally ethnocentric dichotomies such as 'primitive ' and 'civilized', 'authentic' and 'hybrid', 'modernity' and 'tradition', 'history' and 'myth', and so on 1 . In this polarised context, modernity, with its humanistic ideals, professional practice, and political correctness, is misconceived as exclusively European (i.e. 'western'), i.e. defined in terms of '"civilization", "social progress", "economic development", "conversion", and the like' (Comaroffs 1993: xxx). Yet, as early as 1919, Weber's discussion of post-war European society questioned 'progress': '[…] because death is meaningless, civilized life as such in meaningless […] "progressiveness"' (1968: 299). In Ray's films 'modernity' is not visualized as a static condition that separates 'Us' from 'Them' in terms of 'progress'; 'progress', scientific or otherwise, without a collective appropriation of humanist values, is simply not progress. This essay pays a tribute to Ray's film-making by critically examining modernity as an impersonal, alienating, fast-moving, process of rapid change. It examines particular aspects of modernity in relation to Ray's films: ocular-centrism (Pather Panchali 1955), disenchantment , private alienation (Charulata 1964) and social alienation (Pratiwandi 1970-1), through his symbolic use of objects of modernity: the train, the binoculars, the book, the mirror, the forbidden love prem, tourism, imported cigarettes and Mercedes cars, among other objects of science and desire. In this way, the essay will be reflecting on the historical predicament of anthropology as a colonial by-product of European modernity, focusing on Ray's caricature of the 'anthropologist' in Agantuk (1992): the lost, long-forgotten uncle returning to a 'home' that does not belong to him anymore. Agantuk (translated as 'The Stranger' or 'The Visitor') was Satyajit Ray's last feature, produced in 1991 and 1992, the year of the director's death. The film was based on Ray's short story entitled Atithi ('The Guest'). It completes his life and working cycle, stretching over four decades: from the declaration of Independence (1947) and the period of industrialization and secularization of India in the 1950s and 1960s, to the rise of nationalism and Marxism in the 1970s, followed by the rapid transformation of India in the 1980s. Agantuk's opening sequence depicts the arrival of the protagonist of the film, Manomohan Mitra (played by Utpal Dutt), a lost uncle, returning to Kolkata on a train after thirty-five years of absence. He is an experienced, clean-shaved gentleman, who confidently places his feet on the wagon seat. He is wearing polished shoes, but has no etiquette manners. At 'home' nobody remembers or recognizes him, and he is treated suspiciously even by his own family. Following the constant interrogation by his niece Anila (played by Mamata Shankar), and her suspicious husband Sudhindra (Deepankar Dey), the uncle explains his long absence by portraying his outcast condition as that of an 'anthropologist'. He disappeared for four decades because he wanted to satisfy his curiosity about the world: first, in terms of understanding what is thought to be 'primitive' and 'civilized'; and second, to satisfy his 'wanderlust', the urge to travel, to learn, and to question. He is the caricature of the lost 'anthropologist', a modern Odysseus returning to his long-forgotten and unrecognizable Ithaca. This caricature is never confirmed or renounced, but throughout the film the Stranger remains an ambiguous, liminoid persona, in-between the unrecognizable 'home' and the 'world'. Only in the end of the film, he finally rests in the back garden, the only space that survived the rapid changes that took place during his absence. Just like a Buddha, the Stranger finally finds rest under the tree of knowledge and wisdom. This anthropological calling in many ways also refers to the auteur himself. The four decades of the uncle's absence echo the four decades of the director's work. For those familiar with Ray's films, the opening sequence of Agantuk feels as if the boy-trickster Apu, from the director's world-famous debut Pather Panchali ('Song of the Little Road' 1955), grew up into an 'anthropologist'. Ray's unique authority is aesthetically expressed with the observant realist style of his camera, the Apu's Eye (as I will call it), which he first introduced in his debut Pather Panchali in 1955. The Apu's Eye refers to a particular way of positioning the camera from the point of view of a child (famously adopted in Steven Spielberg's ET). exclaimed that the use of the Apu's Eye illustrates the aesthetic value of the epiphany of wonderment (camatkara) according to the classical Hindu aesthetical form of rasa ('flavours/ moods/ modes of affect'). These...

This article attempts to map out the changing image of biological family as the central axis of collective moral imagination in Bombay Cinema. Tracing the journey of the nation through three iconic films that were massively successful and helped the nation construct its self-projection, Awara (1951), Deewar (1975), and Satya (1998), mark the birth of an individual who disengages from the epic imagination of Ramayana and Mahabharata and arrives in the dark modern metropolis of post-liberalization India, not as a star figure but in a forever exile confronting, heroically indeed, a pathological condition of his exiled larger collective.

2009

Scholars have discussed Indian film director, Satyajit Ray's films in a myriad of ways. However, there is paucity of literature that examines Ray's two films, Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen (Adventures of Goopy and Bagha 1968) and its sequel Hirak Rajar Deshe (The Diamond King 1980). Even when discussed by Indian or western scholars, these two films have been considered as children's film or fantasy films with very little discourse on the social or political elements. In both these films, the economically and socially disadvantaged groups are depicted as particularly vulnerable to cultural, political and economic imperialism, violence, exploitation and powerlessness. This thesis demonstrates the relationship between the powerful and the powerless. The films are examined within the framework of Foucault's conception of power. Different roles and interpretations of power relationships between humans through kingship, class, caste, religion, gender, technology and knowledge are analyzed in the thesis in order to investigate the historical, social, and political background that inspired Ray to make these films.