Page 6 - THE CHANGING WORLD OF RAY

is affine to the alienation Apu’s detached perspective

of the ethnographer in the exposes the hypocrisy of

field. Similarly to the ethno- village life, by juxtaposing

graphic eye, Apu’s Eye has dreamy scenes from the life

to remain distant and de- of the two children in the

tached, amoral and creative forest, enchanted with the

at the same time, distanci- amazing music score of Ravi
ated, in order to function as Shankar, against cruel dia-

a higher (a)moral force that logue in scenes portraying

allows the viewer to enter everyday life, gossip, cor-

this world from an insider’s ruption, cruelty, accusation,

perspective. It is distant, jealousy, social suffocation,

ethnographic, neo-romantic, isolation, and desperation.
‘innocent eye’ of a visionary In this dialectical way, Ray

fieldworker; the observant highlighted issues of pov-

‘seer’ (as in Grimshaw 2001: erty, lack of education, and

45), filled with childlike cu- religious superstition. In

riosity, and playful indiffer- front of this misery, human

ence. Ray’s detached, realist relationships, particularly
point of view allowed him between Durga and Indira,

to critically reflect upon the and Apu and his mother,

world in his respective his- feel like oasis in a world of

torical time. His ‘Strange’, suffering, from which, how-

paradoxical condition, being ever, Apu’s innocent perspec-

part of the same world (i.e. tive remains detached. In

‘Calcutta’) from which he is this suffocating world, the
alienated, echoes discussions appearance of the train in

of the artist as an ethnogra- Apu’s life is also the means

pher and vice versa (Clifford to escape from it. The Train,

and Marcus 1986, Foster the most recognizable ob-

1996, Gell 1999, and Grim- ject of modernity associated

shaw 2001, among others). with urbanization and rap-

id industrialization, is used
In Pather Panchali, throughout Ray’s film-mak-