Satyajit Ray’s dominant position in cinema is undeniable when one looks at the range and volume of his work and the awards and accolades it has won him. Much of his genius rests on his capability to make his characters believable and casting actors who made them unforgettable. Beginning with Pather Panchali (1955), in which he cast mostly non-actors, Ray introduced many new faces, including Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna Sen. Many books have been written on Ray and his craft, some by Ray himself, and this one is a welcome addition, particularly for non-Bengali readers.
Film critic Amitava Nag collates information and quotes from Ray, his critics and actors (all available in the public domain) to state that actors delivered their best under his direction. Nag begins well; the first chapter on Chhabi Biswas has an interesting story about how Ray tackled the actor’s lack of musicality in Jalsaghar (The Music Room). There are other interesting anecdotes, like Ray refusing to cast Soumitra, the lead actor in 14 of his films, in Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne.
The book, however, falls short of being a seminal work. For one, it is repetitive. There are many extracts from Desh magazine’s special issue on Ray and other sources. Nag’s earlier book, Beyond Apu, was a tribute to Soumitra, who also makes an appearance in almost every chapter of this book. There’s very little space for Aparna Sen, no mention of actors like Harindranath Chattopadhyay and Gobinda Chakraborty and no separate chapter on Utpal Dutt, who played Maganlal Meghraj in Joi Baba Felunath and the lead in Hirak Rajar Deshe and Agantuk. In Joi Baba Felunath, if Jatayu is a prototype of Bengali ethos, Maganlal, operating in hawala mode, is more real than any 1970s screen villain.
In what seems like a hurriedly written last chapter (the book doesn’t have a formal conclusion), The Significant Others’, Nag erroneously writes Subhendu played Ajit, the assistant to Byomkesh Bakshi, played by Uttam Kumar in one of Ray’s least impressive film, Chiriyakhana. The Uttam Kumar chapter lacks a detailed analysis of his portrayal in Nayak and, instead, focuses on his matinee idol status. Also, for the Bengali reader, comparing Barun Chanda in Seemabaddha to Uttam Kumar in Nayak may be a bit too much.
Ray’s emphasis on casting can be gauged from the fact that unable to find the right actor to play Apu’s girlfriend Leela, he omitted the character in Aparajito. Sharmila Tagore, who made her debut in the final part of the Apu trilogy, has described her performance in Ray’s Devi as what a genius got out of me, not something I did myself. So, were Ray’s actors his puppets? Though the actors in this book say they had the freedom to interpret characters, Ray has written that sometimes he had to use the actor almost as a puppet. For those wanting a peek into Ray’s world, this is a quick look at his puppets’.
read the full story about Ray’s Puppets | Books
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