Page 182 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

Apu in the East and West 169

Devi, a performer who apparently enjoyed coming back into
the limelight after 30 years of obscurity – her wages paid for
the narcotics she used daily. As ‘Auntie’, she is so remark-

ably likeable that you may find the relationship between
her and the mother, who is trying to feed her children and
worries about how much the old lady eats, very painful.
In Bengali.

So dissimilar are these two reviews, that they appear to be
describing two different films.
Ray was certainly grateful for sensitive western appreciation
such as Kael’s (and that of many others, starting with the critics
at the Cannes Festival in 1956), and was resigned to the fact that
some western critics would not bother with his films or would
patronise them with faint praise – from Pather Panchali right up
to the end of his career in 1992. ‘But why should the West care?’
he reasonably asked in an article in 1963. Two decades later, he
said: ‘The cultural gap between East and West is too wide for
a handful of films to reduce it. It can happen only when critics
back it up with study on other levels as well. But where is the
time, with so many other films from other countries to contend
with? And where is the compulsion?’
Rather than rely on the loyalty of his foreign audience, Ray
preferred to follow his instinct and make films primarily for
Bengalis. He was never able to predict which of his films would
do well abroad anyway – the success of The Music Room came as
a real surprise to him, for instance – and so he generally aimed to
make his films pay their way in Bengal alone (with the exception
of The Chess Players). ‘It is better not to spend too much rather
than to find ways to be sure of the return,’ as he explained. In the
majority of cases the sums worked out and foreign sales simply
added to the profit in Bengal. ‘Whatever comes from abroad is
extra,’ Ray said.
It is an interesting question whether Ray would have been
able to survive had he been obliged to operate in a western

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