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ABSTRACT
Widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of the twentieth century, the Indian Satyajit Ray (1921–92) was also a screenwriter, graphic artist, and music composer. He was additionally a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, and movie critic. Ray directed thirty-six films, including features, documentaries, and shorts. His first motion picture, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Festival. This film, along with Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959), forms The Apu Trilogy. Ray received many major awards during his career, including thirty-two Indian National Film Awards, a Golden Lion (Venice Film Festival), a Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival), two Silver Bears (Berlin Film Festival), and an Honorary Academy Award in 1992. This essay reconsiders not only Pather Panchali in the context of Satyajit Ray’s film oeuvre, but also Ray’s entire oeuvre itself in the context of global as well as Indian cinema.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Credits: Pather Panchali (1955)
Director: Satyajit Ray
Screenplay: Satyajit Ray, from the 1929 novel Pather Panchali (Song of the Road), by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Cinematographer: Subrata Mitra
Editor: Dulal Dutta
Music: Ravi Shankar
Production Designer: Bansi Chandragupta
Running time: 125 minutes
Format: 35 mm, in black and white
Cast: Kanu Banerjee (Harihar Roy), Karuna Banerjee (Sarbajaya Roy), Subir Banerjee (Apurba Roy [Apu]), Shampa ‘Runki’ Banerjee (Durga Roy [child]), Uma Das Gupta (Durga Roy [teenager]), Chunibala Devi (Indir Thakrun, the old aunt), Tulsi Chakraborty (Prasanna, schoolteacher), Reba Devi (Seja Thakrun), Aparna Devi (Nilmoni’s wife), Haren Banerjee (Chinibas, sweet-seller), Nibhanani Devi (Dasi Thakurun), Rama Gangopadhaya (Ranu Mookerjee), Roma Ganguli (Roma), Binoy Mukherjee (Baidyanath Majumdar), Harimohan Nag (Doctor), Kshirod Roy (Priest), Rampada Das, Haridhan Nag, Suren Roy
Feature Filmography: Satyajit Ray
Pather Panchali (Song of the Road, 1955)
Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956)
The Philosopher’s Stone (1958)
The Music Room (1958)
Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959)
The Goddess (1960)
Three Daughters (1961)
Kanchenjungha (1962)
The Expedition (1962)
The Big City (1963)
The Lonely Wife (1964)
The Coward and the Holy Man (1965)
The Hero (1966)
The Zoo (1967)
The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha (1968)
Days and Nights in the Forest (1969)
The Adversary (1970)
Company Limited (1971)
Distant Thunder (1973)
The Golden Fortress (1974)
The Middleman (1975)
The Chess Players (1977)
The Elephant God (1978)
Kingdom of Diamonds (1980)
The Deliverance (1981)
Home and the World (1984)
Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People, 1989)
Branches of the Tree (1990)
The Stranger, a.k.a. The Visitor (1991)
Filmography: Key Films of Postwar Global Neorealism Featuring Children
Somewhere in Europe (1948), directed by Géza von Radványi
Los Olvidados (1950), directed by Luis Buñuel
Forbidden Games (1952), directed by René Clément
Pather Panchali (1955), directed by Satyajit Ray
Sundays and Cybèle (1962), directed by Serge Bourguignon
Ivan’s Childhood (1962), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Barren Lives (1963), directed by Nelson Pereira Dos Santos
Hugo and Josephine (1967), directed by Kjell Grede
Naked Childhood (1968), directed by Maurice Pialat
Boy (1969), directed by Nagisa Oshima
Hoa-Binh (1970), directed by Raoul Coutard
Muddy River (1981), directed by Kobei Oguri
Pixote (1981), directed by Hector Babenco
Little Ida (1981), directed by Laila Mikkelsen
The Case Is Closed (1982), directed by Mrinal Sen
God’s Gift (1982), directed by Gaston Kaboré
Sugar Cane Alley (1983), directed by Euzhan Palcy
A Summer at Grandpa’s (1984), directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien
When Father Was Away on Business (1985), directed by Emir Kusturica
Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987), directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Salaam Bombay! (1988), directed by Mira Nair
Freeze. Die. Come to Life (1989), directed by Vitali Kanevsky
Yaaba (1989), directed by Idrissa Ouédraogo
The Abadanis (1993), directed by Kianoush Ayari
The White Balloon (1995), directed by Jafar Panahi
The Children of Heaven (1997), directed by Majid Majidi
The Mirror (1997), directed by Jafar Panahi
The Color of Paradise (1999), Majid Majidi
Ratcatcher (1999), directed by Lynne Ramsay
The Apple (1998), directed by Samira Makhmalbaf
It All Starts Today (1999), directed by Bertrand Tavernier
Abouna (2002), directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Osama (2003), directed by Siddiq Barmak
Nobody Knows (2004), directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Turtles Can Fly (2004), directed by Bahman Ghobadi
The Italian (2005), directed by Andrei Kravchuk
Additional information
Notes on contributors
R. J. Cardullo
R. J. Cardullo has had his essays, articles, and reviews appear in such journals as the Yale Review, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Film Quarterly, and Cinema Journal. From 1987 to 2007, he was the regular film critic for the Hudson Review in New York. Cardullo is the author or editor of a number of books, including Soundings on Cinema: Speaking to Film and Film Artists (SUNY Press), Michelangelo Antonioni: Interviews (UP of Mississippi), In Search of Cinema: Writings on International Film Art (McGill-Queens UP), and Playing to the Camera: Film Actors Discuss Their Craft (Yale UP). He is also the chief English-language translator of the film criticism of the Frenchman André Bazin, with several volumes to his credit. Cardullo’s own film and drama criticism has been translated into the following languages: Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Spanish, Korean, and Romanian. He took his doctoral degree from Yale University and received his B.A. from the University of Florida, Gainesville. Cardullo taught for four decades at the University of Michigan, Colgate, and New York University and is currently Professor of English at the University of Kurdistan in Erbil, Iraq.