A marked shift in realising this moral decay on screen is apparent from
Aranyer Din Ratri to his Calcutta trilogy
Pratidwandi,
Jana Aranya. In
Pratidwandi, Dhritiman Chatterjee’s Siddhartha declares that he doesn’t want to leave Kolkata, no matter that he is unemployed, with his mind unable to find an ideological footing. The film coincided with the Naxalite movement that began in Bengal, with the caste system and land rights at its root.
Still from ‘Pratidwandi’.
It’s no coincidence that the trilogy charted the course of Indira Gandhi’s India as it inched towards Emergency, creating a swelling anger at the state. Ray’s films still focused on capturing the Bengali Brahmin’s, or more importantly, India’s ruling class’s frustration with itself and the country. The trilogy’s protagonists Siddhartha in
Artist recreates Satyajit Ray s film posters on 100th birth anniversary to depict Covid crisis
Artist recreates Satyajit Ray s film posters on 100th birth anniversary to depict Covid crisis
An artist marked 100 years of legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray by recreating his iconic film posters to depict the Covid-19 crisis in India.
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UPDATED: May 3, 2021 12:08 IST
Aniket Mitra used posters from Satyajit Ray s iconic films to depict the Covid-19 crisis going on in India Photo: Facebook/Aniket Mitra
Satyajit Ray had an inedible mark on the Indian cinema. His films are admired by cinephiles all over the world.
May 2 marks 100 years since Satyajit Ray was born, and to celebrate his 100th birth anniversary, an artist paid the legendary filmmaker a poignant and relevant tribute. A Mumbai-based artist named Aniket Mitra celebrated the historic day by reimagining Satyajit Ray s iconic film posters amid the Covid times.
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Satyajit Ray s centenary celebrations stalled by pandemic, informs son Sandip Ray
On the 100th birth anniversary of his legendary father, director Sandip Ray is reconciled to the fact that his 1/1 Bishop Lefroy Road residence, a place for pilgrimage for fans of arguably India s best-known moviemaker Satyajit Ray, will remain deserted. Sandip, who along with other family members had
earlier planned a year-long birth centenary which is now being postponed, told PTI he was not in favour of any zoom meet which doesn t befit such an occasion involving an icon like Ray. The ongoing pandemic and the health emergency which it has created hitting hundreds of thousands of people has forced the family to rethink plans for the celebrations as it thinks such events would be inappropriate at this time.
- Martin Scorsese
‘‘Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.’’
-
Akira Kurosawa
One is an American master and the maker of timeless Hollywood classics like ‘Taxi Driver’ or ‘Goodfellas,’ the other the Japanese auteur who is regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century. The sense of respect and admiration for Ray, the man who was responsible for taking Indian cinema to the global audience, was one of the few factors they would have had in common.
It’s a pity that the Covid-19 pandemic, like so many other things in our lives, have deprived his family and Kolkata - his own city - from celebrating his 100th birth anniversary on Sunday (May 2). The fact that it’s also the day for counting of votes after a volatile, protracted assembly elections in West Bengal over March-April, means the opportunities for his retrospectives, appraisals in TV talk shows and what have you - will have
Irrespective of the election results, Bengal, which once prided itself in intellectual heritage and broadmindedness, has got mired in a vortex of narrow identity politics.