Strikethrough Calcutta: Poetics and Politics of Interruption in Satyajit Ray's and Mrinal Sen's Calcutta Trilogies

Abstract

While Satyajit Ray's Calcutta trilogy is often studied for the manner in which he uses the cinematic media to depict urbanization and its discontents, Mrinal Sen's trilogy is contextualized within the filmmaker's leftist politics. In discussing the cinematic idiom of the Calcutta trilogies, Ray's and Sen's use of formal strategies, identified as integral to international cinematic movements like the French New Wave, emerge as a point of departure. However, this article argues that Ray's and Sen's adaptation, rejection, and modification of such strategies remain intertwined with their attempts to historically trace the world in which they and their characters lived.