Page 187 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

174 The Apu Trilogy

In general, he recognised the role of the film critic as a con-
noisseur: someone who can interpret original work for the ben-
efit of an audience who may otherwise dismiss it. He valued
critiques of his own work (even Crowther on Pather Panchali)
when they coincided with his own estimation of its strengths
and weaknesses, but he felt that few who wrote about films –
whether Indians or westerners – were properly equipped to do
it; when they were, he suspected they would have preferred to
become film-makers themselves, like the Cahiers du Cinéma
critics in France, Lindsay Anderson in Britain, and himself in
India. Reading the total volume of critical writing about him
since 1955, one can understand Ray’s scepticism. Laudatory
though much of it is – often amounting to a ‘rave’ – it seldom
rises to the demands of its subject. ‘What is attempted in most
films of mine is, of course, a synthesis’, wrote Ray in Sight and
Sound in 1982. ‘But it can be seen as such only by someone who
has his feet in both cultures’ – East and West. ‘Someone who
will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in
equal measure. Someone who will see both the wood and the
trees.’ The problem is, neither the Bengali nor the western critics
of his films share their creator’s easy familiarity with East and
West (as described in chapter 1). Bengali critics are too close to
and too involved with the stories, while western audiences are
too distant and too detached from them.

* * *

What is the future of Ray’s artistic legacy? In 1989, he wrote: ‘I
am sure Chaplin’s name will survive even if the cinema ceases to
exist as a medium of artistic expression. Chaplin is truly immortal.’
What about Ray’s name? Is it likely to be immortal? I should say
yes – but only as long as the cinema continues to exist as a means
of artistic expression. Among people who take films seriously,
rather than chiefly as entertainment, the best of Ray’s work will be
watched, along with the works of Chaplin, Bergman, Eisenstein,

9/16/2010 9:09:31 PM
Robinson_Ch09.indd 174
Robinson_Ch09.indd 174 9/16/2010 9:09:31 PM