Page 58 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

An Epic in Production 45

in principle; however no financial arrangements were discussed.
When the news was announced in the Calcutta newspapers,
she received letters from friends rebuking her for her faith in an
unknown; but, fortunately for Ray, she stuck by him throughout
the film’s long and painful gestation.
Like Jean Renoir, who touted the script of La Grande Illusion
round French producers for three years (often with Jean Gabin,
his chief draw, rather than a famous story, in tow), Ray spent
nearly two years trying to sell his film on the back of the novel’s
fame. Most of the potential producers who half-listened to him
could not see beyond the fact that he offered none of the enter-
tainment traditionally part of Bengali films; a few who had more
imagination nonetheless insisted on a co-director. ‘Who would
come to see an old hag like that?’ ‘Where was the love interest?’
‘Why were there no songs?’ – these were some of the reactions.
‘They were stupid people,’ remarked Ray in the 1980s. ‘They
believed only in a certain kind of commercial cinema. But one
kept hoping that presented with something fresh and original
and affecting, they would change.’
One of them, who undoubtedly perceived commercial pos-
sibilities in the story if conventionally done, played a trick on
Ray. This man met him, heard him out, and suggested a further
meeting a week later to draw up a contract. In the meantime the
producer paid a visit to Mrs Banerji with a proposal that the suc-
cessful director Debaki Bose do the film and made a large offer
for the rights. She turned him down.
Ray got only one genuine offer, and that fell through when the
producer’s then-current film opened and failed. But the man who
had arranged this meeting, Anil Chowdhury, joined the small
group of people around Ray (including Subrata Mitra, his future
cameraman, and Bansi Chandragupta, his future art director)
who would make Pather Panchali possible. Chowdhury became
production controller of this and all subsequent films by Ray.
In mid-1952, Chowdhury recalled Ray’s declaring to him in
his office at Keymer’s that he could live in limbo no longer. Four

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