Page 78 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

An Epic in Production 65

Sarbajaya first hears Harihar calling out for his children, she
is vacantly squatting, with her arm and a white bangle pressed
against her cheek. Involuntarily, she reacts to her husband’s voice
and moves her arm; the bangle slips down slightly. The indif-
ference of her gesture suggests just how indifferent to the world
she has become. It took Ray seven takes to get the bangle to
move exactly as he wanted it to. (The normal number of takes in
Pather Panchali was a highly economical one or two.)
He was also determined to get a typical village dog to trot
along behind Durga and Apu as they follow the sweet-seller.
The dog he chose was fine in rehearsal but wholly uninterested
under the camera’s gaze. This time it took twelve takes, about
1,000 feet of film and a tempting sweet invisibly held out behind
Durga’s back, to make the dog perform properly.
Of the scenes that were wholly improvised, three are outstand-
ing. First, there are the water-skaters and dragonflies exploring
the twigs, lilies and lotus leaves in the pond like Apu explor-
ing his village; along with Ravi Shankar’s sitar music, they her-
ald the coming of the monsoon. Ray and his cameraman had
shot such details of nature while idly ‘picnicking’, waiting for
the rain required by the main shooting. The scene with the
insects occurred to Ray only after the music had been composed.
Secondly, there is the train rumbling away from Apu and Durga
into the distance leaving a swathe of black smoke against the
white kash flowers. Five trains were used in shooting the scene.
After the last had departed, Ray noticed the unusual spectacle
produced by the smoke: ‘Within seconds, the camera was set up
and the shot taken in fast-fading sunlight. But I think that this
last-minute improvisation added a lot of beauty to the sequence.’
Lastly, near the end of the film, there is Apu’s discovery and
concealment of the necklace once stolen from a neighbour by his
now-dead sister; he throws it into the pond near the house, and
the weeds first open and then close over the place where it falls,
as nature hides Durga’s secret. This is a delicate visual rendering
of the same event described in the novel, where Apu hurls the

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