Page 60 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

An Epic in Production 47

articles in his book Our Films Their Films; they concern, mostly,
the correct use of camera and lenses. ‘The moment you are on
the set the three-legged instrument takes charge. Problems come
thick and fast’, he wrote. ‘Where to place the camera? High or
low? Near or far? On the dolly or on the ground? Is the 35 OK or
would you rather move back and use the 50? Get too close to the
action and the emotion of the scene spills over; get too far back
and the thing becomes cold and remote. To each problem that
arises you must find a quick answer. If you delay, the sun shifts
and makes nonsense of your light continuity.’
But one lesson involved the direction of Apu. The boy was
expected to walk haltingly through the kash as if on the lookout
for Durga. ‘Little did I know then that it was twice as hard to
achieve impeccability in a shot like that than in a shot of, say,
charging cavalry.’ It did not help that Subir Banerji as Apu was a
decidedly unresponsive actor. ‘He looked so right,’ Ray said later,
‘but he couldn’t act at all; he was also inattentive.’ Ray’s solution
in the end was to lay small obstacles in the boy’s path for him

Pather Panchali: Apu and Durga

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