Page 39 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

26 The Apu Trilogy

Ray reading a music score, London, 1950

unacknowledged tribute to Tagore’s unique and overwhelming
impact in Germany in the 1920s.
From Venice, Ray dropped another line to Chandragupta
(who had now finished shooting The River with Renoir): ‘Venice
is a fantastic place – very reminiscent of Benares in some ways,
and equally photogenic.’ His comment had a curious presci-
ence about it. Seven years later, he would come back to Venice
for a different reason: to collect, most unexpectedly to him, the
Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for the second
part of the Apu Trilogy, Aparajito, which opens, immortally, on
the ghats of Benares.
On board ship returning to India in October 1950, he at long
last started to draft his script for Pather Panchali.

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