‘Realism in Reels’ pays tribute to two of the greatest realist filmmakers of the 20th century and the legacy they left behind. That is, Satyajit Ray and his considerate mentor Jean Renoir. Both the Indian and the International counterparts have made ginormous contribution to world cinema. This book captures their sense of aesthetic and soul which reflected in their works while giving the readers an insight to their magical world of film. The book also pays homage to their respective cities which they were closely associated with. That is Ray’s Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Renoir’s Paris. As that has always been a reflection in their pieces of work. It draws the essence and creativity from both these cities outlining cultures and aesthetics.
REALISM IN REELS
REALISM IN REELS
SATYAJIT RAY
Standing 6’-4” tall, Satyajit Ray was a towering figure in the world of cinema. A master filmmaker, He began his career as a commercial artist illustrating for advertising agency and then later influenced by a lot of realist filmmakers and his thirst for cinema, he lead on to movies. He studied in the Calcutta University and later joined Tagore’s Shantiniketan to learn art and while there he was widely influenced by fine art frescoe painter Nandilal Bose and sculptor Ram Kinker Baij. He later irking his passion for films, found Calcutta’s first film society in 1947 which led to the foundation of Calcutta Film industry. Ray also edited Sandesh, a children’s magazine and wrote numerous fiction and nonfiction works. In 1992 he received an honorary Academy Award becoming the only Indian Filmmaker till date to recieve such an honour.
Fig 1
Fig 2
Satyajit Ray hails from a family of intellectuals with his grand father being Upendra Kishore Ray and his father Sukumar Ray. Both of them were poet and artists and had actively taken part in the Bengali Rennaisance and this lineage had definitely influenced Ray’s spectrum of work and the fields he excelled in. Another very huge influence on Ray was the revolt and progressive outlook of Brahmo Samaj during the British Colonial Rule. Ray’s family were even close friend’s with Tagore so the atmosphere since childhood was very artistic and literary. Since childhood Ray was interested in Cinema, Hollywood at that time, and western music . Later in his career he went on to compose music scores influenced by Mozart and other classic artists. After visiting Shantiniketan though Ray became closer to his roots with traditional classical music and Indian art.
Fig 3
Fig 4
In this six-months long stay abroad, Ray saw about a hundred films including Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. Bicycle Thieves made a profound impression on Ray. Later, in the introduction of ‘Our Films, Their Films’, he wrote- “All through my stay in London, the lessons of Bicycle Thieves and neo-realist cinema stayed with me”. The film had reconfirmed his conviction that it was possible to make realistic cinema with an almost entirely amateur cast and shooting at actual locations. He had completed his treatment of Pather Panchali on the return journey to India by a ship.
Fig 5
Fig 6
French realist film director Jean Renoir was known to be Ray’s mentor in a way and most things he learned about realist filmmaking was actually from Renoir himself. Ray met Renoir when Renoir visited to Calcutta scouting for locations and technicals across the city for shooting his first technicolour movie ‘River’. Ray assisted him from places to places, and seeing Ray’s enthusiastic and knowleadgable approach to cinema, Renoir advised him to pursue it as a career but as Ray was working with a British advertising company at that time he couldn’t think about the risk of moving to films. Ray also gave a brief outline of Pather Panchali which Renoir was very impressed about. At this time Ray also married his cousin Bijoya too.
Fig 7
Fig 8
Fig 9
Fig 9.1
Fig 10
His mother insisted upon Satyajit joining college. At the Presidency College, Satyajit read science for the first two years and for the third year, he took economics. At the cost of academics, Satyajit was spending more and more time and energies in pursuit of his two interests- Watching films and listening to western classical music on his gramophone. In films, his interest had shifted from stars to directors, savouring offering of Ernst Lubitsch, John Ford, Frank Capra, and William Wyler. He became a subscriber of Sight & Sound. He graduated in 1939. At the age of eighteen, he decided to give up further studies. Even though he had no formal training, he was planning to become a commercial artist. He had a natural flair for drawing. His mother however felt that he was too young to take up a job. She suggested that he should join as a student of painting at Shantiniketan. After initial resistance, he agreed.
Fig 12
Fig 11
In 1940, he joined Rabindranath Tagore’s Vishva-Bharati University at Shantiniketan despite the initial reluctance. The desire to learn about Indian arts to be successful as a commercial artist, mother’s wishes and the lure of Tagore, perhaps, were too strong to ignore. Tagore had been a close friend of his grandfather and father. Trips to nearby villages for sketching exercises, were the first encounters with rural India for the city-bred, Satyajit Ray. During this period, he discovered the oriental art- Indian sculpture and miniature painting, Japanese woodcuts and Chinese landscapes... Till then, his exposure to art had been limited to only the western masters. He also undertook a long tour of places of artistic interests in India along with three friends. For the first time, he had begun to appreciate qualities of Indian art. The tour drew his attention to use of small details in Indian art to signify a bigger meaning, a quality that his films would later demonstrate. Binode Behari Mukherjee, his art teacher at Shantiniketan, also demonstrated this quality in his work. He had an impressionable influence on Ray. About 30 years later, Ray would make a loving documentary on him - The Inner Eye, 1972. At Shantiniketan too, Ray had found means to pursue his interest in music and films. A German Jew, professor of English, had a collection of western classical records. Ray would often listen to music at his cottage in the evenings. He also found books on cinema in the university library such as Paul Rotha’s ‘Film Till Now’ and Raymond Spotiswoode’s ‘Grammar of the Film. Despite his great love for films the thought of becoming a filmmaker had not yet occurred. Tagore died on August 7, 1941.
Fig 13.1
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
Fig 15.1
Fig 17
Fig 16
Fig 18
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 22
Fig 21
Fig 23
Fig 24
Fig 25
Fig 26
About three years after his father’s death, the printing business changed hands and Satyajit and his mother had to leave their spacious house. They moved to Satyajit’s maternal uncle’s house. His mother taught needlework to supplement the household income. Here he would also meet cousin Bijoya, his future wife. At an age of eight, Satyajit joined Ballygunj Government School, until then he had been taught by his mother. Satyajit was an average student. While still at school, he became a film fan, regularly reading Hollywood trivia in magazines like Picturegoer and Photoplay. Western classical music was another interest. He would often pick-up gramophone records at flea markets. He matriculated when he was just short of fifteen.
Fig 27
Fig 28
Fig 30
Fig 29
Fig 32
Fig 31
Fig 33
About three years after his father’s death, the printing business changed hands and Satyajit and his mother had to leave their spacious house. They moved to Satyajit’s maternal uncle’s house. His mother taught needlework to supplement the household income. Here he would also meet cousin Bijoya, his future wife. At an age of eight, Satyajit joined Ballygunj Government School, until then he had been taught by his mother. Satyajit was an average student. While still at school, he became a film fan, regularly reading Hollywood trivia in magazines like Picturegoer and Photoplay. Western classical music was another interest. He would often pick-up gramophone records at flea markets. He matriculated when he was just short of fifteen.
Fig 34
Fig 35
JEAN RENOIR
Fig 36
Jean Renoir is one of the most famous and critically renowned French filmmaker who has bought the light of poetic relaism in all of the film entusiasts awareness. His portrayal of poetic realism seemed natural and relatable with bourgeouis class stories which were quite in contrast with the early on-going Impressionism and Surrealism.Out of which too,he took cues from and presenting the audience with an intricate platter. His silent era films too evoked a certain naration which was unspoken for, and although not recognized first but was later profusely appreciated. He remained accessible to the mainstream audience at the same time critically curating a beautiful flow of realism and certain elements from the previous movements which were inspired by his father too.
Fig 37
Renoir’s vintage films actually have the power to move the cinema audiences today. But although they are deeply rooted in the 19th century. Renoir’s scintillating photography echoes, in silvery monochrome, the paintings of his father, the impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Through whom Renoir actually got famous. His father and Monmartre, where he hils from was also a great influence in most of his works. Renoir’s father may have had a paint brush but Renoir had the camera and through film he daringly moved us showcased like paintings and evoking various thoughts. These films are full of life like the colours in impressionist art but yet at the same time dares to open his viewers to serious issues with explicit and experimentative content which has also a tranquil experiene.. His films are a beautiful string attatched to the late 19th and early 20th century.
Fig 40
Fig 39
About three years after his father’s death, the printing business changed hands and Satyajit and his mother had to leave their spacious house. They moved to Satyajit’s maternal uncle’s house. His mother taught needlework to supplement the household income. Here he would also meet cousin Bijoya, his future wife. At an age of eight, Satyajit joined Ballygunj Government School, until then he had been taught by his mother. Satyajit was an average student. While still at school, he became a film fan, regularly reading Hollywood trivia in magazines like Picturegoer and Photoplay. Western classical music was another interest. He would often pick-up gramophone records at flea markets. He matriculated when he was just short of fifteen.
Fig 38
Fig 41
Jean Renoirwas bought up in the bohemian Montmartre district of Paris. The district springe of art movememnts and the lost generation writers. Renoir comes from a family rich of artists and creatives: besides his painter father, his brother, Pierre, was an actor of film and stage, and his nephew, Pierre’s son Claude, was a cinematographer who would eventually work with Jean on many of his films. Hence he has had various influences in his lifetime which he has portrayed in his works . After fighting in the First World War and becoming injured due to a shot wound in his leg, Renoir was now on the hunt for a career-path, and after his father’s suggestion of taking up ceramics was quickly tried, tested and abandoned, he found film. A slew of early silent-era films kickstarted Renoir’s career, although not much profit was made from them, so Jean resorted to selling his father’s paintings to fund these first few productions.
Fig 42
Although his initial films were not as appreciated before, his laer films were fr more applauded but now after decades his silent films and their irreveocable naration gets much applaud and also are arguably considered the best filmed. He worked with so many great actors and even acted in his movies himself. He is known tto be a poet of realism and a master of artifice, a revolutionary and a classicist, he is a key figure in the history of European modernism. Renoir has influenced so many filmmakers through the years and as varied as Franรงois Truffaut and Robert Altman, Satyajit Ray, and Wes Anderson. To of his greatest films were The Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game.
Fig 43
About three years after his father’s death, the printing business changed hands and Satyajit and his mother had to leave their spacious house. They moved to Satyajit’s maternal uncle’s house. His mother taught needlework to supplement the household income. Here he would also meet cousin Bijoya, his future wife. At an age of eight, Satyajit joined Ballygunj Government School, until then he had been taught by his mother. Satyajit was an average student. While still at school, he became a film fan, regularly reading Hollywood trivia in magazines like Picturegoer and Photoplay. Western classical music was another interest. He would often pick-up gramophone records at flea markets. He matriculated when he was just short of fifteen.
Fig 44
Fig 45
Fig 46
Fig 47
There are very few film directors who have single-handedly bought the core out and changed the whole perspective of realism completely and Renoir is defintely one of them. Renoir is never afraid to tackle social issues, war inssues and class systems in his films which were unusual back inthe early 20th century. His fictious and cinematic realism on an international scale. is sitting somewhere between the birth of cinema and the French New Wave , Renoir’s style was vital in the establishment of film in France, with his early films part of the silent era, and his later work developing into modern realism. And also helped the birth of New Wave. He surely is a legend and swill always be one.
Fig 48
Fig 50
Fig 49
Fig 52
About three years after his father’s death, the printing business changed hands and Satyajit and his mother had to leave their spacious house. They moved to Satyajit’s maternal uncle’s house. His mother taught needlework to supplement the household income. Here he would also meet cousin Bijoya, his future wife. At an age of eight, Satyajit joined Ballygunj Government School, until then he had been taught by his mother. Satyajit was an average student. While still at school, he became a film fan, regularly reading Hollywood trivia in magazines like Picturegoer and Photoplay. Western classical music was another interest. He would often pick-up gramophone records at flea markets. He matriculated when he was just short of fifteen.
Fig 51
Fig 53
Fig 54
Fig 57
Fig 51
Fig 56
Fig 58
Fig 55
After a few years after the Nazis captured Paris and with the demise of film and art of the era, Renoir moved to Hollywood and made the film The Southerner. Although he had worked with Hollywood actors like Ingrid Bergman before, this was his first complete Hollywood production. He even filmed in India were he shot his first technicolour movie The River. It was during the shooting of this drama, that Renoir met the still very green Satyajit Ray and persuaded him to take on the film industry as he clearly had talent. Many directors with realist works have been originallyinspired by him and continue to be inspired by him.
Fig 59
Fig 60
Fig 61
Fig 62
Fig 63
Fig 65
Fig 64
Fig 66
Fig 68
Fig 67
CALCUTTA
Calcutta known as the city of joy has been a hub of culture, art, film, literature and cuisine. The source of Bengal and Indian Rennaissance in the late 19th abd early 20th century, it delves in depths of culture and aesthetic and even is one of the most charming cities in India. From Calcutta Book Fair, Coffe house, Calcutta Youth Choir, Kolkata Internaitional Film Festival, Tagore and of course Ray, Calcutta has been always proud of its cultural aspects. A city full of intellectual, Calcutta has a huge amount of contribution towards art, literature and film not only in India but world too. Tribute to its rich heritage the city till date brims with creative youth energy. The city also has one of the best cuisines in India to indulge in. The city is a crazy mayhem from the only existing monorails (trams) to the always rushing vintage yellow and blue ambassador Taxis. Here is a look into the city and its culture.
Fig 69
Fig 71
Fig 72
Fig 70
Fig 75
Fig 74
Fig 73
Fig 76
Fig 77
Fig 78
Fig 79
Fig 80
Fig 81
Fig 82
Fig 83
Fig 84
Fig 85
Fig 86
Fig 89
Fig 88
Fig 87
Fig 90
PARIS
Fig 91
One of the most imporatant cultural centers of the world, Paris evokes desire and lure in every individual. This popularized city is everything and much moe, with great cultural aspects and a rich history to delve in. A pioneer of the orignal rennaissance, Paris is the hub of art, culture and literature. Always leading a culture roadway, Paris has a lot of Bohemian culture being a home for Hemingway to Picasso. Paris has birthed the lost generation and contributed to art and literature greatness of the world. It houses the world’s greatest opera, architecture, palaces and museums and also leading world’s greatest art and literary movements. Here is a look into the slightly vintage, Bohemian Paris.
Fig 92
Fig 93
Fig 94
Fig 96
Fig 95
Fig 98 Fig 97
Fig 100
Fig 99
Fig 101
The famous Moulin Rouge in Montmartre hill in Paris Flapper girls in a cafe in Paris in 1920s.
Fig 102
Fig 103
Fig 105
Fig 104
Fig 106
Fig 107
Fig 108
Fig 109