The Apu Trilogy - Revision history

Pdewan: /* Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ in Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time list again */

2015-10-07T14:24:07Z

‎Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ in Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time list again

Pdewan at 23:16, 13 November 2014

2014-11-13T23:16:31Z

Pdewan at 19:19, 1 June 2014

2014-06-01T19:19:21Z

Pdewan at 17:14, 29 June 2013

2013-06-29T17:14:12Z

Pdewan at 14:57, 29 June 2013

2013-06-29T14:57:20Z

Pdewan: /* Ray’s artistic legacy under attack */

2013-06-29T14:19:21Z

‎Ray’s artistic legacy under attack

Pdewan at 14:17, 29 June 2013

2013-06-29T14:17:39Z

Pdewan: /* Rob Mackie: The Apu Trilogy */

2013-06-29T14:15:13Z

‎Rob Mackie: The Apu Trilogy

Pdewan: /* Roger Ebert: The Apu Trilogy */

2013-06-29T14:14:16Z

‎Roger Ebert: The Apu Trilogy

Pdewan at 14:12, 29 June 2013

2013-06-29T14:12:37Z

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 Apur Sansar won the President’s Gold Medal in 1959. In 1960, it got the National Film Award for Best Film and the Sutherland Award for Best Original And Imaginative Film at the BFI London Film Festival apart from several other honours and nominations.
 =See also=
 [[The Apu Trilogy]]

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 [[Category:India|A]]
 [[Category: Cinema-TV-Pop|A]]
 ==Iconic Indian film trilogy in Bengali/ 1955-59/ dir: Satyajit Ray==
 =Richard Phillips: "Art wedded to truth must, in the end, have its rewards"=
 The Apu Trilogy, written and directed by Satyajit Ray
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 Apur Sansar won the President’s Gold Medal in 1959. In 1960, it got the National Film Award for Best Film and the Sutherland Award for Best Original And Imaginative Film at the BFI London Film Festival apart from several other honours and nominations.
 =See also=
 [[The Apu Trilogy]]
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 [[Apur Sansar (1959) ]]

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+[[Category:India|A]]
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+[[Category: Cinema-TV-Pop|A]]
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 |colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%">
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 |colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%">
 This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.<br/>They cannpt be tampered with or edited because they contain the views of leading film critics and historians.<br/>
 See [[examples]] and a tutorial.</div>
 |}

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 The greatness of these films, however, lie not just in the lyrical cinematography, honesty of the actors’ performances and the intense music of Ravi Shankar, but in the universal themes Ray deals with and his underlying optimism. Despite the extraordinarily tragic moments in the trilogy, and there are many, Ray always provides a sense of hope that no matter how great the difficulties confronting his characters the struggle for genuinely caring human relations can overcome all adversity. Commenting on the initial success of Pather Panchali and Aparajito, Ray declared in 1958: “Personally I have been lucky with my first two films, but what is really important and exciting is not the immediate gain, but the ultimate vindication of the belief that I hold dearest as an artist: art wedded to truth must, in the end, have its rewards.”
 ===Ray’s artistic legacy under attack===
 It is not possible here to provide a detailed overview of this director’s cinematic work—the Apu Trilogy was, in fact, the first of a number of truly great films by Ray on a diverse range of subjects. Suffice to say, this thoroughly independent director, who refused to be swayed by commercial considerations, was a multi-talented artist. He wrote his own scripts, composed most of the musical soundtracks and was the cinematographer in a number of his films. He also wrote and illustrated scores of children’s books, novels, detective stories and science fiction works and was writing up until his death.
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 Such “critics” did not sway Satyajit Ray in the slightest. Educated by a family who were leading figures in what has been described as the Bengali renaissance and who campaigned for an end to the caste system, child marriages, Sati (widow burning) and other backward practices, Ray had no time for those calling for a Hindu or nationalist approach to artistic creation.
 Ray drew on the highest achievements in human science and culture for artistic inspiration—from the European enlightenment, Asian calligraphy, western classical music and the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. This progressive and thoroughly inclusive outlook infused all his work and gave it an unmatched honesty and integrity. He once commented that great cinema had the ability to “leave its regional moorings and rise to a plane of universal gestures and universal emotions”. This is the essential achievement of the Apu Trilogy and indicates why it is anathema to the Hindu fundamentalists today.
-[[File: Apur Sansar5.jpg| Apur Sansar (1956)|frame|500px]]
+[http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/mar/21/dvdreviews.satyajitray The Guardian]
 =Rob Mackie: The Apu Trilogy=

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 ==Iconic Indian film trilogy in Bengali/ 1955-59/ dir: Satyajit Ray==
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 Pather Panchali follows the trials and tribulations of this poor family: the first conscious experiences of Apu (Subir Banerji), his early school years and close bond with his sister Durga, and their adventures in the nearby forest and fields. The underlying strength of the film is Ray’s unsentimental but intensely artistic exploration of many universal themes. He carefully examines the interaction of life and death, the aged and the young, and makes subtle references to the tensions between rural and city life and how it is being changed by new technology—in this case electricity and the railway.
 In one memorable sequence, which also cuts to the last difficult moments of Indir’s life, the children, who have been quarrelling, are playing in fields far from home and come across some high tension electricity pylons. Fascinated by the humming sound of the wires they walk on through long grass, see the smoke of a distant train and then run to the railway tracks. The train, which has previously been an occasional background sound in their lives, is seen in all its power, the hope of a better life beyond their immediate environment. Their quarrels are forgotten in their fascination with the train but on the way back home they stumble across Indir who has collapsed and is dying in the woods.
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 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/mar/21/dvdreviews.satyajitray]
 =Rob Mackie: The Apu Trilogy=

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 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/mar/21/dvdreviews.satyajitray The Guardian]
+[[File: Aparajito2.jpg|Aparajito (1959)|frame|500px]]
 Satyajit Ray's trilogy, made in the late 50s, is one of the holy cows of world cinema but rarely seen these days. The three films - Pather Panchali, Aparajito and The World of Apu - are available separately and as a three-disc box set together with an Omnibus film on Ray, who explains that none of his team had ever made a film before. "We learned by our mistakes," he explains, though there's little sign of error. Watch ing his debut, Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) again, it still has tremendous freshness and vitality, combining a very simple style with moments of poetry in its depiction of three generations of a poor Bengali family struggling to get by.

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 He is his father's child, and in the first two films we see how his father is eternally hopeful that something will turn up--that new plans and ideas will bear fruit. It is the mother who frets about money owed the relatives, about food for the children, about the future. In her eyes, throughout all three films, we see realism and loneliness, as her husband and then her son cheerfully go away to the big city and leave her waiting and wondering.
-[[File: Aparajito2.jpg|Aparajito (1959)|frame|500px]]
 The most extraordinary passage in the three films comes in the third, when Apu, now a college student, goes with his best friend, Pulu, to attend the wedding of Pulu's cousin. The day has been picked because it is astrologically perfect--but the groom, when he arrives, turns out to be stark mad. The bride's mother sends him away, but then there is an emergency, because Aparna, the bride, will be forever cursed if she does not marry on this day, and so Pulu, in desperation, turns to Apu--and Apu, having left Calcutta to attend a marriage, returns to the city as the husband of the bride.
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 I watched "The Apu Trilogy" recently over a period of three nights, and found my thoughts returning to it during the days. It is about a time, place and culture far removed from our own, and yet it connects directly and deeply with our human feelings. It is like a prayer, affirming that this is what the cinema can be, no matter how far in our cynicism we may stray.
 =Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ in Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time list again=

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 |}
-[[File: Pather Panchali9.jpg| Pather Panchali (1955)|frame|500px]]
-[[File: Apur Sansar5.jpg| Apur Sansar (1956)|frame|500px]]
-[[File: Aparajito2.jpg|Aparajito (1959)|frame|500px]]
-[[File: Aparajito5.jpg| Aparajito (1959)|frame|500px]]
 [[Category:India|R]]
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 ==Iconic Indian film trilogy in Bengali/ 1955-59/ dir: Satyajit Ray==
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 Pather Panchali has some extraordinarily joyous moments combined with periods of deep sadness, including the death of Indir, and then the tragic loss of Durga, who catches a fever after a dancing in the monsoon rains and dies just before her father’s long-awaited return.
-The success of Pather Panchali allowed Ray to begin work immediately on Aparajito (The Unvanquished), also based on a Bandhipadhyaya novel, which was completed in 1956 and won the Golden Lion award at the 1957 Venice Film Festival. This film is more complex in terms of plot and characterisation compared to Pather Panchali and set new standards for Indian cinema actors.
+The success of Pather Panchali allowed Ray to begin work immediately on Aparajito (The Unvanquished), also based on a Bandhipadhyaya novel, which was completed in 1956 and won the Golden Lion award at the 1957 Venice Film Festival.
 Set in the 1920s, Aparajito begins in the holy city of Benares on the Ganges where the family, still in shock over Durga’s death, had moved. Harihar is attempting to maintain Sarbajaya, his wife, and the 10-year-old Apu (Smaran Ghosal) by reciting Hindu scriptures and selling religious trinkets to pilgrims visiting the holy river. While the family is still poor and Harihar’s health is declining, he is happy to be reunited with his wife and son, who is animated and excited about city life. Tragedy strikes, however, when Harihar catches a fever and collapses one day after climbing the steps from the river and dies soon after.
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 He is his father's child, and in the first two films we see how his father is eternally hopeful that something will turn up--that new plans and ideas will bear fruit. It is the mother who frets about money owed the relatives, about food for the children, about the future. In her eyes, throughout all three films, we see realism and loneliness, as her husband and then her son cheerfully go away to the big city and leave her waiting and wondering.
+[[File: Aparajito2.jpg|Aparajito (1959)|frame|500px]]
 The most extraordinary passage in the three films comes in the third, when Apu, now a college student, goes with his best friend, Pulu, to attend the wedding of Pulu's cousin. The day has been picked because it is astrologically perfect--but the groom, when he arrives, turns out to be stark mad. The bride's mother sends him away, but then there is an emergency, because Aparna, the bride, will be forever cursed if she does not marry on this day, and so Pulu, in desperation, turns to Apu--and Apu, having left Calcutta to attend a marriage, returns to the city as the husband of the bride.
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 The three films were photographed by Subrata Mitra, a still photographer who Ray was convinced could do the job. Starting from scratch, at first with a borrowed 16mm camera, Mitra achieves effects of extraordinary beauty: Forest paths, river vistas, the gathering clouds of the monsoon, water bugs skimming lightly over the surface of a pond. There is a fearsome scene as the mother watches over her feverish daughter while the rain and winds buffet the house, and we feel her fear and urgency as the camera dollies again and again across the small, threatened space. And a moment after a death, when the film cuts shockingly to the sudden flight of birds.
 I heard a distant echo of the earliest days of the filming, perhaps, when Subrata Mitra was honored at the Hawaii Film Festival in the early 1990s, and in accepting a career award he thanked, not Satyajit Ray, but--his camera, and his film. On those first days of shooting it must have been just that simple, the hope of these beginners that their work would bear fruit.
 What we sense all through "The Apu Trilogy" is a different kind of life than we are used to. The film is set in Bengal in the 1920s, when in the rural areas life was traditional and hard. Relationships were formed with those who lived close by; there is much drama over the theft of some apples from an orchard. The sight of a train, roaring at the far end of a field, represents the promise of the city and the future, and trains connect or separate the characters throughout the film, even offering at one low point a means of possible suicide.