Page 72 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

An Epic in Production 59

The friend then persuaded the chief minister to meet Ray. Roy
was sympathetic but did not know Banerji’s novel and from the
beginning understood the film to be more documentary than
drama. Noting that the script had a tragic ending – with Apu’s
family leaving the village – he asked Ray if he could change the
ending and have the family stay and rebuild their house. ‘Can’t
you inject a message that would go in favour of our work on
community development?’ asked the chief minister. One of Ray’s
supporters at the meeting countered by saying that the Banerji
family and the Bengali public would object to changing a liter-
ary classic. Apparently accepting this argument, Roy directed
his officials in the Home Publicity Department to examine the
costs of backing Pather Panchali as a Community Development
Project, after they had viewed Ray’s footage.
They knew little about the novel either, and cared not at all
about the film. One of them, watching the magical scene in
which the little procession of sweet-seller, Durga, Apu and a
village dog is reflected upside-down in a pond, shouted out that
the film was running backwards! The head of the department
reported privately to the chief minister: ‘My impression is that
even when exploited, this picture will not pay as much as is being
invested in it. Pather Panchali is rather dull and slow-moving. It
is a story of a typical Bengali family suffering privation and fam-
ily embarrassments, but at no point does it offer a solution or an
attempt to better the lot of the people and rebuild the structure
of their society.’ Ray’s experience with these philistine officials
in 1954 and after would be one of pure frustration.
Fortunately, a well-known playwright, Manmatha Roy, also
saw the footage along with the officials and reported on it
ecstatically. Contracts were drawn up by the government, in
which Mrs Banerji was paid for the film rights to the novel and
the producer Rana Dutta for the money he had already invested;
but Ray himself received nothing. Nothing was put in writing
about foreign rights either, although Ray made a verbal agree-
ment with the Home Publicity Department head that he would

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