Satyajit Ray

Quote:
A boy named Apu is born to a poor but proud Brahmin family. His loving older sister, Durga, is a sweet girl, but has formed the bad habit of stealing fruit from an aunt’s orchard, much to her mother’s dismay. Their father Harihar, a poet and lay priest, finds a treasury job that will bring the family steady income for the first time in a while. For a brief period afterwards, their mother Sarbajaya manages to make ends meet, and the children are left to their own devices and run freely. But when Harihar loses his position, he leaves his family with depleted resources to search elsewhere for work. In his absence, their condition deteriorates. Months later, Harihar returns to face the tragedy that forces them to leave their ancestral home. This acclaimed debut by Satyajit Ray is the first part of a trilogy of poetic, lyrical works.Read More »

Book Description
This is the best-known biography of the film giant, based on extensive interviews with Ray himself, his actors, collaborators, and a deep knowledge of Bengali culture. This second edition contains extensive new material covering Ray’s final three films made in 1989-1991, a discussion of his artistic legacy, and the most comprehensive bibliography of Ray’s own writings.

Andrew Robinson, who had been a friend of Ray’s, spent a number of years working on this, and his account of Ray’s family and childhood draws upon interviews and conversations, supplemented with material from Ray’s own CHILDHOOD DAYS, MY YEARS WITH APU, and other sources. Robinson paints a portrait of a Calcutta overflowing with creative potential – Ray’s family connections to Tagore are also detailed, as are the accomplishments of his father and grandfather, and the intellectual independence of his mother, who seemed to strongly influence at least a few of his cinematic characters.Read More »

The documentary details the life and work of the celebrated Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 “because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.” Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, born in Calcutta. He was educated at home. At seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, which he did not complete. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honor as a protest against British policies in India.Read More »