Why Satyajit Ray's films were so boring

Who directed the only Indian film to ever get the Grand Prix (whose successor, in 1955, was the Palme d'Or)  at Cannes? Satyajit Ray? Ritwik Ghatak? Mrinal Sen? No. It was Chetan Anand, Dev Anand's elder brother. The film was 'Neecha Nagar' and the year was 1946. It must be said, that 10 other films shared the prize. Still, one of them was 'Brief Encounter' which is still very watchable. 'Neecha Nagar' wasn't wholly shite. The music director was Ravi Shankar. Kamini Kaushal made her debut in the movie. But the film was based on a story by Maxim Gorki. Needless to say that miserabilist shite was never distributed in India. Films should be entertaining. The Anands and Kapoors and Khans of various types got the message. Let the Bengali buddhijivis concentrate on the export market for meretricious faux-Marxian tripe.

It should be mentioned that Nitin Bose- Ray's maternal great-uncle- introduced playback singing to Indian cinema- thus giving it a u.s.p. He had been the cinematographer on Tagore's one venture into film which bombed at the box office. Still Bose made a number of hits- most notably 'Ganga Jamuna'. 

Why were Satyajit Ray's films so boring and stupid?  An article by Pallab Bhattacharya in the Daily Star gives us a clue-

"Films cannot change society. They never have. Show me a film that changed society or brought about any change," said master director Satyajit Ray in an interview for the American magazine Cineaste more than three decades ago.'

By then, 'Reel Society' had taken over 'Real Society' in Tamil Nadu. The two DMK parties that ran the State after 1968 had their roots in the film industry. I'd say Karunanidhi's script for 'Parashakti' (1952) changed Tamil Society. One result is that Tamil per capita income is now about a third higher than that of West Bengal.

The odd thing about Ray's remark is that the US was then ruled by, former film-star, Ronald Reagan whose foreign policy was based on 'Star Wars' and featured an 'Evil Empire'. 

The remarks came from a man who was one of the most politically conscious directors India had ever produced and was never constrained by it.

The fellow had shit for a brain. He wasn't conscious of what was happening across the border to people related to him by blood. He was only conscious of what the cool kids were getting up to in Calcutta.  

It's a political consciousness derived from the tumultuous years of the Naxalbari movement of the 1960s and 70s

which was utterly shit. China had attacked and humiliated India in 1962. Naturally, some Bengali decided the Sun shone out of Mao's ass and ran amok killing judges and policemen and so forth. Meanwhile millions of refugees were flooding over the border- but that was cool because there can be no political consciousness of anything done by Muslims to Kaffirs or, even, non Bengalis to Banglas.  

and the Emergency in the mid-seventies.

During which Ray was jailed. I'm kidding. He was busy making Shatranj for Suresh Jindal who had returned from America in 1974. Getting Attenborough to play Outram opened the door for Jindal to be associate producer on 'Gandhi'. Along with David Lean's 'Passage', the Brits were showing the Indians, thirty five years after Independence, that movies about India needn't be miserabilist while appealing to an international audience. Mrs. Gandhi quietly put some Government money into 'Gandhi'. By then no one expected anything of Ray or Shyam Benegal whom I met in Moscow in 1982. He was supposed to be doing a film on Nehru. I could vividly imagine the scene where the zamindar rapes Nehru while Girija Devi sings 'Kesariya' on the Gramophone. 

How has a director like Ray conveyed his own political views?

He hasn't. He has merely conveyed a senile penchant for sententious scolding. 

There are primarily two ways of finding them out: (1) through changes made in the script to recreate on screen the novels which "Jana Aranya" and "Pratidwandi" are based on and (2) through his interviews.

Quite true. Bhattacharya knows his subject. The author, Shankar, whose novels Ray adapted, had been a clerk to the last British barrister in Calcutta. He wrote of his own ups and downs in a City once of Palaces but now of pimps. Ray, a toff, ignored everything vivid and alive in Shankar's picaresque mise en scene and turned it into a tedious morality play of a Brahmo type.

While Ray made many departures from the books that "Jana Aranya" and "Pratidwandi" are based on to enhance the cinematic appeal, there are also some changes in dialogues that reflect his own views than those of the books' authors.

Some of Sankar's books  have been translated into English. They are good because they are based on observation and personal experience. The logic of the market is generally shown to be more humane than that of the 'bhadralok' who have fallen on hard times. The arbitrageur straddles worlds to a mutually beneficial end. The dead morality of the bureaucratized gentry preferred an apocalyptic dies irae for its funeral pyre though this would destroy the life chances of those whom they, as compradors, had oppressed and degraded. 

It was surprising how the interviewer of Cineaste magazine of Chicago asks Ray in 1982 if he thought he had avoided making major political statements. More interesting for a student of Ray's films is the answer he gave: "I have made political statements more clearly than anyone else, including Mrinal Sen."

Scolding is not a political statement. It is a nuisance. What Ray meant was that the Left Front government should give him money to make his shitty films. Come to think of it, Doordarshan did get him to shoot a TV film based on a Premchand's Sadgati. That's when everybody in Delhi realized Ray was shit. His dialogue made Om Puri and Smita Patil look like a Punch & Judy show. 

The political climate of the 1970s is manifested from the very opening shot of "Jana Aranya," where mass copying occurs during a college examination in Kolkata.

But even those who got their degrees without copying were jobless- unless they had connections. The Left was killing off industry. 

We are shown graffiti on the classroom wall hailing the Naxalite movement (slogans like, "Armed revolution is the only way to emancipation for the proletariat" and "Power comes out of the barrel of a gun") and also a sketch of Mao Zedong.

The intellectuals were miffed that Mao, in 1962, hadn't gone on to conquer Bengal. 

As the film's protagonist Somnath Banerjee, an educated unemployed middle-class youth, walks along the streets in futile search of a job, the camera shows the Naxal movement slogans on the boundary walls of buildings in Kolkata. This scene helped brilliantly recreate the atmosphere in the city during the peak of the Naxalite movement.

Was the snatching of weapons from policemen and the killing of judges depicted? No. Yet, that's what was happening. Ray's film didn't really have to be boring. It could have been a thriller.  

The political statement in the film becomes clear early on when Somnath's father learns from his elder son Bhombol about the three young Naxalites being killed in an encounter with the police.

Why won't the police just hand over their weapons and then hang themselves? How can they be so lacking in sensitivity? Haven't they read Engels on Althusser? 

The father, a Gandhian, is stunned and responds by saying one cannot muster such courage to die unless motivated by a great ideal.

The Naxals wanted to kill policemen but felt hurt and bitter when they themselves were slaughtered by men in khaki. Indeed, they decided to run away from Calcutta as a mark of their disapproval.

In the preceding dialogue, the father contrasts it with his own time as a student in pre-independence India when they hit the streets against British colonial rule at the call of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi was pushing against an open door. The problem was that Jinnah and a host of others, too, were pushing so as to get through the door first. That is the only reason the Brits got to dictate the pace and scope of reform. Not even the Maha-crackpot could prevent the Brits delivering full provincial autonomy to Bengal by the 1935 Act. 

However, they were scared of dying.

Gandhi & Co were scared of killing policemen because they knew the police would catch them and then have a lot of fun with them before they were executed or transported to the Andamans. 

It is a stark contrast between two political ideals of two different times.

Gandhians didn't want to kill. Naxals did. Then the Naxals were killed or else simply ran away.  

Somnath's father is so drawn to the Naxalite ideology that he asks his elder son to get him the Communist political documents. One sentence from the father sums up beautifully the prevailing socio-economic climate of the time, leaving the youth with two options: "Either you resort to dishonest means and join the rot or join the revolution."

But the revolution was even more rotten! Still, it is nice to think of Somnath's father slaughtering a Congress supporting woman's sons and then mixing their blood in rice and forcing her to eat it, thus driving her mad. One future senior Left Front Cabinet minister was acclaimed for an atrocity of this type at around that time.  

Another masterpiece one-liner dialogue from Ray, which sums up the political climate of the day in "Jana Aranya," is when the father hears from Somnath about one lakh applications for ten posts and responds, "it is not without reason that they (youth) are revolting."

The youth were revolting because they were as stupid as shit. Everybody knew that the ten posts in questions would go to some Minister's nephews.  

The word 'Naxal' is never uttered by Somnath's father or any of the film characters, yet even the most naïve person cannot miss the reference.

Which is why we think Ray was a virtue signaling cunt.  The fact is, he wanted to become a State supported auteur and since the State had turned to the Left he wanted to ingratiate himself with the authorities. 

Years later, we find Ray admiring in an interview the courage of Naxalites.

Why not admire the courage of the Pakistan Army in raping and slaughtering Banglas? How about the courage of Mao's soldiers in 1962? 

The director is asked by his official biographer Andrew Wilson if he admires the courage of a Naxalite activist like the younger brother in "Pratidwandi." He replied, "Oh yes, I do. Because I don't share that kind of courage—the kind that can face bullets and even lay down one's life.

But Ray was equally anti-National. Sadly he lacked the courage to go fight on the side of the Chinese or the Pakistanis.  

This aspect of Naxalism has always fascinated me. The extraordinary amount of courage that they have – the sheer physical, elemental courage. I don't think I could face a situation like that. One can't avoid admiring such courage."

Mamta showed more courage which is why she is now CM and keeps beating the Commies, or ex-Commies, with vim and vigor.  

There is little doubt that Ray has put something of himself in what Somnath's father says: "Ora maartey jaane morteyo jaane (They can kill and are ready to die)."

The shithead didn't notice that soldiers and policemen do so all the time.  

Another illustration of Ray's approach to political issues comes out in the interview with the Cineaste. He said, "You can see my attitude in The Adversary where you have two brothers. The younger brother is a Naxalite. There is no doubt that the elder brother admires the younger brother for his bravery and convictions. The film is not ambiguous about that."

We don't care what convictions the police and the Army have so long as they slaughter vermin with vim and vigor.

Somnath's father's admiration of the courage of Naxalites in "Jana Aranya" is akin to "Pratidwandi" protagonist Siddhartha's admiration of Vietnamese people liberating their country from American occupation troops.

 They also liberated their country from a lot of non-Communist Vietnamese people by shooting holes in them. Still, it must be said, Vietnam is a great and valorous nation.

The latter comes out in the interview sequence at the start of "Pratidwandi." Siddhartha is asked in the interview to list the two most important achievements of the last decade, and he places the Vietnam liberation war above man's landing on the moon. Asked by the interviewer why he thinks so, Siddhartha argues that while the moon landing was not entirely unpredictable and had to happen one day, the Vietnam war outcome was a different case.

We now believe the opposite. The moon landing was a vanity project. Vietnamese liberation was inevitable. Still, the Communists would not have prevailed without Mao's help. Sadly, Mao didn't conquer Bengal. Neither did Tojo, despite Netaji's passionate assistance.

He points out the "extraordinary power of resistance of the Vietnamese people; their plain human courage." The interviewer asks Siddhartha if he is a Communist and his curt reply is that one does not have to be one to admire the Vietnamese people.

So, the fellow is suggesting he is not a Commie. He just likes people who slaughter non-Commies like himself. 

"Jana Aranya" begins and ends with shots of decay--moral and socio-economic.

Because Bengal had turned to shit after the departure of the Brits. 

We are shown how this occurs in the educational system (mass copying in college examinations and the perfunctory manner in which the examiner evaluates protagonist Somnath's History paper, costing him marks)

which wouldn't have happened under the Brits- right? 

and in the corporate world and society. Unable to get a job, Somnath turns into a businessman procuring orders and supplying goods.

He becomes self-employed. What's wrong with that?  

He does not hesitate in using a prostitute,

he does hesitate. He offers to pay her without her having to perform her side of the bargain. But she has a strong work ethic and insists on raping some poor businessman whose only crime was to drag his feet in completing a business deal. 

who turns out to be his close friend Sukumar's sister, to seal business deals. Portrayed is a society in which a young woman is forced to sell her body to earn money and sustain a family while her brother struggles to find a job.

He drives a taxi. The message here is that all Bengalis must get white collar employment. Prostitutes and Taxi drivers should be supplied by Sweden under an International AID program properly supervised by Amartya Sen and Sukhumoy Chakraborty such that the capabilities and functionings of bhadralok men are properly developed.  

Somnath receiving unexpected marks in History (which, according to his father, was his forte) due to the examiner being unable to properly read his handwriting without his power glasses and the father's protests after the result comes out, has an interesting similarity with Ray's personal experience of what happened with his son Sandip.

A talented filmmaker in his own right 

Sandip was also a student of History at the University of Calcutta. We read about this in great detail in "Manik and I" (Penguin, Page 300-302), the memoir written by Ray's wife Bijoya, who said, "I have lost all faith in the modern system of education and examinations after these bitter experiences." There are indications in the book that Ray shared the views of his wife.

Sandip graduated before the Left Front came to power. Academic standards would decline much more steeply. 

The satirical portrayal of Congress MLA Jagabandhu as a politician bluffing the people during a conversation with Somnath and his friend Sukumar is bold by any standard.

Fuck off! He is clearly 'Old Congress'. 

No party is mentioned in the film, but when the MLA is shown in his chair with portraits of Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru on the wall, one is left to doubt little about the political identity of Jagabandhu.

He may be a sycophant but isn't a thug of the sort rising up in the Youth Congress. 

Ray cites this sequence in his interview with the Cineaste to say that, "I have made political statements more clearly than anyone else, including Mrinal Sen. In Middleman, I included a long conversation in which a Congressite discusses the tasks ahead. He talks nonsense, he tells lies, but his very presence is significant. If any other director had made that film, that scene would not have been allowed." Ray was convinced that he had pushed the envelope more than anyone else when dealing with political issues.

Ray is saying he was regarded as a sycophant of the Dynasty. The film was released in 1976. That was a time when everybody was terrified of Sanjay and his goons.  Clearly, Ray knew on which side his bread was buttered. 

The conversation sequence mentioned above involving Somnath's father, Somnath and his elder brother, the dialogues between Jagabandhu and Sukumar in "Jana Aranya" and the interview sequence in "Pratidwandi" are not in the original novels and are totally Ray's creations.

They are shit. Sankar was a good novelist who held up a mirror to life. Ray was only concerned with wowing foreign critics while sucking up to the powers that be at home. If Indira lurched to the Left, so did he. Still, he was careful to make his films as boring as possible- coz that's 'Art', right? 

They make artistic value addition to the films and reflect a view that resonated widely among a cross-section of people in West Bengal in the 1960s and 1970s.

Not really. The Bengali middle-class knew that the Naxals were stupid shitheads. They themselves were trying to get their kids to Amrika or Yurop just like everybody else.  

In "Jana Aranya," Ray has packaged a middle-class family's story into what is undoubtedly his best political film by making changes in his script from the novel by Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay.

Shankar's novel isn't miserabilist shite. The protagonist isn't particularly smart and thus can't become a lawyer and perhaps eventually a judge like his father. His elder brothers have done well. The boy could just stay at home doing nothing but, commendably, he wants to earn money for himself. It is clear that people can do so without becoming pimps. The fact is, respectable businessmen will steer clear of you if there is gossip about you bringing women to the hotel rooms of business contacts. 

Notwithstanding his admiration for Naxalites' courage, Ray's interest as an artist was not on individuals bound by an ideology but on those who are caught in a struggle between ideology and the sheer need to survive in a prevailing political and social system.

Policemen needed to survive. That's why they killed Naxals with vim and vigor.  

This struggle is the essence of human drama in "Jana Aranya" and "Pratidwandi." The protagonists would like to revolt against the system but are finally forced to accept it not only for their survival but also for their families.

But you survive better if you do smart things and maintain a reputation for moral integrity.  

In "Pratidwandi," the elder brother (played by Dhritiman Chatterjee) revolts on coming to know that his sister's office boss uses her more for her looks than her educational qualifications.

Bosses should only employ elderly hags. 

He wants to kill the boss but can do it only in his dream. And when he reacts violently in real life against the lack of basic amenities like a fan for candidates waiting in searing heat for a job interview in an office, he loses an opportunity to find a job in Kolkata. Eventually, he accepts a job far away from Kolkata.

This is a guy who needs to grow up a little. Once he knuckles down to work, he may do very well for himself.  

In "Jana Aranya," Somnath is gripped by moral qualms when he has to use his own friend's sister as a prostitute to win a lucrative business contract.

The cretin has become a pimp. He doesn't get that he has destroyed his own career. No big businessman will allow him to be involved in any business deal because the suspicion will be that he supplied them with prostitutes.  

Somnath tries to prod her to move away on the night he takes her to a hotel to entertain an entrepreneur from whom he will earn the contract. But the woman refuses, and Somnath goes ahead only to return home late that night to tell his father he has managed to win the contract.

Why not just be a pimp? There is a scalable business right there.  

Ray himself has said in an interview that "Jana Aranya" is his "darkest" film that leaves one with a sense of hopelessness. But it is so realistic that it makes "Jana Aranya" the best political film.

It is utterly unrealistic. The fact is India is a country of gossip. You know instinctively that if you are seen with a tart, word will get round. A pimp will have to perform more and more degrading work for his patron. He can never rise in the business world. The other point is that professional pimps have to pay off the local Don. This guy is going to get a beating and will be on the hook to gangsters for the rest of his life.

In the interview with Cineaste, Ray, referring to his focus on the elder brother in "Pratidwandi," made it clear that, "(As a filmmaker) I was more interested in the elder brother because he is the vacillating character.

He is stupid. The guy doesn't get that if you pimp once, you are branded a pimp for life. Calcutta is a gossipy place.  

As a psychological entity, as a human being with doubts, he is a more interesting character to me. The younger brother has already identified himself with a cause.

Why? That was the question people were asking at that time. A film which answered that question would not have been boring shite. 

That makes him part of a total attitude and makes him unimportant. The Naxalite movement takes over. He, as a person, becomes insignificant."

A thriller could be made about a guy from a nice family who turns to terrorism. But Ray didn't want to make interesting movies.

The humanist in Ray dominates over the political animal Ray.

Nope. Scolding 'Society' isn't 'humanistic'. It's just very fucking annoying is all.  

He was more interested in exploring the human relationships and psychology shaped by circumstances in different layers.

There are no 'human relationships' or rounded psychologies here. There is merely melodrama of a boring type.  

Ray acknowledges the limitations of fighting a deeply entrenched system.

He wasn't fighting shit. He was making very boring movies. Meanwhile, in the South, Cinema was taking over Politics.  

"There are definitely restrictions on what a director can say. You know that certain statements and portrayals will never get past the censors. So why make them?" he shared in the Cineaste interview.

Other cinema folk were fighting the Government. Films like Aandhi and Kissa Kursi Ka were banned.

When asked if he sees the role of a filmmaker as a passive observer or an activist, he pointed to a director's limits in attacking the establishment.

Yet, some directors did attack even the dictatorial Indira Gandhi.  

For instance, he pointed out that, "In 'Hirak Rajar Deshe,'

which was produced by the Left Front Government of West Bengal. By the time it was released Mrs G was back in power but since nobody watches Ray's movies, she was least bothered. 

there is a great clean-up scene where all the poor people are driven away. That is a direct reflection of what had happened in Delhi and other cities during Indira Gandhi's Emergency.

Cities should not be beautified. Why have streets if people aren't crapping on them? 

In a fantasy, like In the Land of the Diamond King, you can be forthright, but if you're dealing with contemporary characters, you can be articulate only up to a point because of censorship.

So, the man was no giant of the Cinema. He was a cowardly little time server.  

You simply cannot attack the party in power," said Ray and recalled how Amrit Nahata's Hindi film "Kissa Kursi Ka" against the Emergency was destroyed. "You are aware of the problems, and you deal with them, but you also know the limit; the constraints beyond which you just cannot go," said Ray in the Cineaste interview.

Ray had sucked up to the Left and was rewarded for it. The big constraint on his productivity was that nobody wanted to pay to see his films- except some snobbish foreigners. Thus, 'the limits' he recognized had to do with getting Government cash.  

Asked if he could go farther than he had gone in making political statements, Ray replied, "No, I don't think I can go any farther. It is very easy to attack certain targets like the establishment. You are attacking people who don't care. The establishment will remain totally untouched by what you're saying.

Only if you are as boring as shit 

So what is the point?"

Karunanidhi and MGR and Jayalalitha and NTR used cinema as their launching pad into politics. But their films weren't as boring as shit.  

What comes out clearly from Ray's films and the remarks made by him is that, given the kind of political setup in India, there is a limit to which you can take on a deeply entrenched state apparatus.

Tamil Nadu has been ruled by DMK parties since 1968. The Congress was once deeply entrenched there. Now Rahul will have to beg Stalin (Karunanidhi's son) to get elected from there in 2024. 

In "Ganashatru," based on Henrik Ibsen's play,

Ibsen was writing about nineteenth century Norway. The Brits in India had made it mandatory for Doctors and other Health professionals to immediately report any infectious disease outbreak to the authorities. Thus, no such person could be labeled 'the enemy of the people.' Ray was showing remarkable ignorance of his own country. 

Ray deals with religion and politics and how different vested interests in a small town try to resist the scientific outlook of a doctor who is out to prove that the source of water used in a temple is polluted. In the film, the doctor struggles against several adversaries, including his own brother, who is the chairman of the local municipal body, and the editor of a local daily who backs out from publishing his article on temple water contamination.

This is stupid shit. The Brits gave India a highly centralized, top-down, administration. Doctors have to report such things to the relevant Department. If any priests or mobs turns up at their door, they say 'I have to get my daughter married. Please spare me. I had to report the matter otherwise I'd have lost my job and my pension and my daughter would remain unmarried.'  

But, as playwright-director-actor Utpal Dutt pointed out, the ending of "Ganashatru" the film, unlike Ibsen's play, leaves you with a sense of hope.

It is stupid shit. In India, Doctors send their report to higher authority which takes action- or not, if suitably bribed or if they simply can't be arsed. There is no question of having to 'raise the consciousness of the masses' or join some revolutionary 'shtruggle'.  

That shows how far Ray had travelled from the bleak "Jana Aranya."

He had travelled to nineteenth century Norway. What a fuckwit!

In May 1999, political commentator Kanchan Gupta said in an article that "Anandalok" magazine of Kolkata quoted Ray as saying, "I have never found the formula-cast so-called progressive attitudes interesting, valid or of any substance.

Bengal doesn't have 'progressive attitudes'. It has an attitudinizing senile dementia.  

I always found them an over-simplification…I don't know what Marxism means today – Marxism has changed so much over the years. There's a huge difference between Marx's Marxism and today's Marxism…(Marxism as we see it today) makes me feel as if all doors and windows have been shut…"

Mamta had become Railways Minister at the Center. Ray, like many Bengalis, saw that the wind had changed direction. But then, several Left Front ministers were talking about embracing Deng Xioping style market based reform.  

As a humanist and a liberal, Ray could never be seen through any ideological prism

which is what the author is trying to do 

as he explores layers of human society, emotions and psychology in a given socio-economic setup.

Ray didn't understand, or want to understand, the socio-economic set up. His was an Ivory tower existence. In 1987 I sent him the script for a movie titled 'Biraktikar Babu'. There was a scene where a young College graduate gets a job with a big Merchant Bank. In accordance with custom and so as to expedite the signing of appointment letter, the budding buddhijivi procures a prostitute for the Managing Director. Sadly the wench has rabies and bites the Managing Director who, it turns out, is a large pig who wears a silk top-hat and a monocle. 'You damn nigger!' the pig says, 'Don't you know that anyone who gets a job in the private sector must hold down their own grandmother while evil Capitalists from Wall Street take turns raping her? You have brought a rabid dog, not your own grandmother to me!'

'Sir' the young graduate replies 'this is the evil running dog of the South Vietnamese lackeys of Wall Street. Also, both my grandmothers are currently in Yurop-Japan getting raped by oligarchs. This dog, however is my great-aunt which is why I brought her here for your delectation. Only thus can I hope to prosper in this rotten Society. Jai Kali Marx!' 

Sadly, Ray did not read my script. My mistake, I think, was to write it in Chinese because- don't you know?- Chairman Mao is our Chairman! Laal Salaam!