Satyajit Ray: In Search of the Modern

by Suranjan Ganguly

Overview

Satyajit Ray is usually credited with ushering modernity into the tradition-bound Indian Cinema. Suranjan Ganguly's book examines six of Ray's major films focusing on issues such as human subjectivity, the importance of education, the emancipation of women, the rise of the new middle class, and the crisis of identity in post-Independence India. He provides close readings of the following films: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), Apur Sansar (1959), Charulata (1964), Aranyer Din Ratri (1970), and Pratidwandi (1970). All six films relate to Ray's interest in how a culture acquires a composite, hybrid shape through the fusion of history and modernity.

By placing Ray's films within the socio-historical and cultural contexts of Indian modernity, Ganguly offers a radically different approach, which will enable Western readers to engage more fully with the filmmaker's work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810859005
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/03/2007
Series:	The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series , #73
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Suranjan Ganguly teaches film at the University of Colorado at Boulder with a special emphasis on European and Asian cinema.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     xi
Introduction     1
The Apu Trilogy: Slate and Globe     11
The Apu Trilogy: Apu's Other Education     31
Charulata: A Woman's Eye     55
Aranyer Din Ratri: Rewriting Self and Nation     85
Pratidwandi: The Nature of Inaction     113
Conclusion     141
Chronology     151
Filmography     153
Selected Bibliography     165
Index     169
About the Author     175

Editorial Reviews

Recommended.

Choice Reviews

Ganguly's meticulously researched study of the master, beautifully illustrated with examples of the brilliant camerawork of Ray's films, will be of immense help to the reader in situating his complex cinematic characters in the cultural context to which they belong.

Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies

Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) revolutionized Indian film and is widely considered to be one of the great filmmakers of all time. In this work, Ganguly (U. of Colorado) examines Ray's negotiations with history and modernity in the six major films he made between 1955 and 1970: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar, Charulata, Aranyer Din Ratri, and Pratidwandi. Overall, Ganguly sets himself the task of examining how Ray's films convey the filmmaker's belief that the modern is best understood as a total experience in relation to how people express themselves in a changing society, although more specific concerns such as Ray's preoccupation with subjectivity in contexts such as education, urban culture, and the management of grief; the nature of action in a society suspended between apathy and revolution; and writing as a form of female discourse frequently intrude. This is a paperbound edition of a work first published in 2000.

Reference and Research Book News

Recommended.

Choice

Recommended.

CHOICE

Ganguly's meticulously researched study of the master, beautifully illustrated with examples of the brilliant camerawork of Ray's films, will be of immense help to the reader in situating his complex cinematic characters in the cultural context to which they belong.

Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies

Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) revolutionized Indian film and is widely considered to be one of the great filmmakers of all time. In this work, Ganguly (U. of Colorado) examines Ray's negotiations with history and modernity in the six major films he made between 1955 and 1970: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar, Charulata, Aranyer Din Ratri, and Pratidwandi. Overall, Ganguly sets himself the task of examining how Ray's films convey the filmmaker's belief that the modern is best understood as a total experience in relation to how people express themselves in a changing society, although more specific concerns such as Ray's preoccupation with subjectivity in contexts such as education, urban culture, and the management of grief; the nature of action in a society suspended between apathy and revolution; and writing as a form of female discourse frequently intrude. This is a paperbound edition of a work first published in 2000.

August 2007 Reference and Research Book News

Ganguly's meticulously researched study of the master, beautifully illustrated with examples of the brilliant camerawork of Ray's films, will be of immense help to the reader in situating his complex cinematic characters in the cultural context to which they belong.

Scope: An Online Journal Of Film Studies