Page 183 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

170 The Apu Trilogy

environment from the beginning, though as with most such
hypotheses the premise is suspect: Ray abstracted from Bengal
could not have been the individual he was. The film-maker
Lindsay Anderson considered that probably he would not have
lasted very long, if one was thinking of ‘someone who sets him-
self the standards of quality and refinement and seriousness
and artistry Satyajit does, and who lives by them and wouldn’t
think of giving them up, and does not make films according
to any popular conception of entertainment.’ Anderson main-
tained that Ray’s position compared with western directors was
both very much tougher – technically speaking – and also easier
– economically speaking – because it cost so much less to make
a film in Calcutta than it did in the West, as witness Pather
Panchali.
He may have been right, although Anderson perhaps under-
estimated the perquisites of genius in any setting. There seems
no reason in principle why a western Ray should not have been
able to gather round him the loyal actors and co-workers that
an Ingmar Bergman, or even a Woody Allen, did. But cer-
tainly one cannot imagine Ray working as part of any large
organisation. Perhaps for him it was a case of once bitten (by
the West Bengal Government) on his first film, twice shy. He
was courted many times, by the Hollywood producer David
Selznick at one extreme to the BBC at the other – whom he
eventually declined, in 1978, for the revealing reason that he
‘found himself temperamentally unsuited to working for a
sponsor – however liberal.’
He may have had his brush with Selznick in mind when he
made that remark. It took place in Berlin in 1964 after Ray had
won the Selznick Golden Laurel three times at the Berlin Film
Festival (for Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Two Daughters). This
time Ray had agreed to present the award to Bergman for Winter
Light. On the day itself he and Selznick had lunch together and
Selznick asked him to make a film for him. Ray told him he
knew about his famous memos to directors and said he doubted

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