| The Apu Trilogy | |
|---|---|
 Region 2 box set cover of Satyajit Ray's trilogy | |
| Directed by | Satyajit Ray |
| Written by | Satyajit Ray |
| Screenplay by | Satyajit Ray |
| Based on | Pather Panchali andAparajito byBibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay |
| Produced by | Satyajit Ray |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Subrata Mitra |
| Edited by | Dulal Dutta |
| Music by | Ravi Shankar |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics /Merchant Ivory Productions (Pather Pachali was distributed by The Aurora Film Corporation) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 342 minutes (total) |
| Country | India |
| Language | Bengali |
The Apu Trilogy is a celebrated series of three Indian Bengali-language drama films directed bySatyajit Ray:Pather Panchali (1955),Aparajito (1956) andThe World of Apu (1959). The trilogy's score was composed byRavi Shankar.
Adapted from two Bengali novels byBibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay—Pather Panchali (1929) andAparajito (1932)—these films are widely regarded as a cornerstone of Indian and world cinema and have been widely acclaimed as masterpieces.[1] Produced on a modest shoestring budget using an amateur cast and crew, the trilogy garnered widespread critical acclaim and won numerous prestigious awards, including threeNational Film Awards and multiple honours at theCannes,Berlin andVenice Film Festivals.[2] Notably,Pather Panchali was made with a budget of roughly₹ 150,000,[3] approximately $45,300 at the time.[4][5]
The three films comprise a "coming of age" narrative in the vein of abildungsroman; they describe the childhood, education and early maturity of a youngBengali named Apu (Apurba Kumar Roy) in the early part of the 20th century.
Pather Panchali (English, "Song of the Little Road")
Apu's early experiences in ruralBengal as the son of a poor but highcaste family are presented. Apu's father Harihar, aBrahmin, has difficulty in supporting his family. After the death of Apu's sister, Durga, the family moves to the holy city ofBenares.
Aparajito (English, "The Unvanquished")
The family's finances are still precarious. After his father dies there, Apu and his mother Sarbajaya come back to a village in Bengal. Despite unrelenting poverty, Apu manages to get formal schooling and turns out to be a brilliant student. He moves to Calcutta to pursue his education. He slowly distanced himself from his rural roots and his mother who was not keeping well at the time. In the process the growing Apu comes into conflict with his mother. Later he is informed that, when his mother dies too, he has to learn to live alone.
Apur Sansar (English, "The World of Apu")
Attempting to become a writer, Apu unexpectedly finds himself pressured to marry a girl whose mother rejected her mentally ill bridegroom on the day of their wedding. Their blossoming marriage ends in her death in childbirth, after which the despairing Apu abandons his child, but eventually returns to accept his responsibilities.
In 1950, Ray had decided thatPather Panchali, the classic coming of age story (bildungsroman) ofBengali literature, published in 1928 by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay, would be the subject matter for his first film. This semi-autobiographical novel describes the growing up of Apu, a small boy in a Bengal village. He went ahead with the film after meetingJean Renoir during filming ofThe River (1951) and after watching theItalian neorealist filmBicycle Thieves (1948) while he was in London. Besides the influence ofEuropean cinema and Bengali literature, Ray is also indebted to theIndian theatrical tradition, particularly therasa theory of classicalSanskrit drama. The complicated doctrine ofrasa centers predominantly on feelings experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the spectator. The duality ofrasa representation shows inThe Apu Trilogy.[6]
Ray gathered an inexperienced crew, although both his cameramanSubrata Mitra andart directorBansi Chandragupta went on to achieve great acclaim. The cast consisted of mostly amateur artists. Shooting started in late 1952, using Ray's personal savings. He had hoped that once the initial shots had been completed, he would be able to obtain funds to support the project, but such funding was not forthcoming.[7]Pather Panchali was shot over the unusually long period of three years, because shooting was possible only from time to time, when Ray or production managerAnil Chowdhury could arrange further money.[7] With a loan from theWest Bengal government, the film was finally completed and released in 1955 to great critical and popular success, sweeping up numerous prizes and having long runs in both India and abroad. During the making of the film, Ray refused funding from sources who demanded a change in script or the supervision of the producer, and he ignored advice from the government (which finally funded the film anyway) to incorporate a happy ending in having Apu's family join a "development project".[8] Even greater help than Renoir's encouragement occurred when Ray showed a sequence toJohn Huston who was in India scouting locations forThe Man Who Would Be King. The sequence is the remarkable vision Apu and his sister have of the train running through the countryside. It was the only sequence Ray had filmed due to his small budget. Huston praised Ray toMonroe Wheeler at theNew York Museum of Modern Art, saying that a major talent was on the horizon.In India, the reaction to the film was enthusiastic;The Times of India wrote that "it is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema [...].Pather Panchali is pure cinema".[9] In the United Kingdom,Lindsay Anderson wrote a glowing review of the film.[9] However, the reaction was not uniformly positive. After watching the film,François Truffaut is reported to have said, "I don't want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands".[10]Bosley Crowther, then the most influential critic ofThe New York Times, wrote a mixed review of the film that its distributor Ed Harrison thought would kill off the film when it got released in the United States, but it enjoyed an exceptionally long run.
Ray's international career started in earnest after the success of his next film,Aparajito (The Unvanquished).[11] This film shows the eternal struggle between the ambitions of Apu as a young man and the mother who loves him.[11] Some critics, notablyMrinal Sen andRitwik Ghatak, rank it even higher than the first film.[11] Aparajito won theGolden Lion at theVenice Film Festival. The film is also notable for its application ofbounce lighting to recreate the effect of daylight on sets with the use of large scale diffusers, pioneered by the cinematographerSubrata Mitra.[12]
Ray had not thought about a trilogy while makingAparajito, and it occurred to him only after being asked about the idea in Venice.[13] The final installation of the series,Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), was made in 1959. A number of critics find this to be the supreme achievement of the trilogy (Robin Wood,Aparna Sen). Ray introduced two of his favourite actors,Soumitra Chatterjee andSharmila Tagore, in this film. The film finds Apu living in a nondescript Kolkata house in near-poverty. He becomes involved in an unusual marriage with Aparna, the scenes of their life together forming "one of the cinema's classic affirmative depiction of married life",[14] but tragedy ensues. AfterApur Sansar was harshly criticised by a Bengali critic, Ray wrote an article defending it—a rare event in Ray's filmmaking career (the other major instance involved the filmCharulata, Ray's personal favourite).[15] His success had little influence on his personal life in the years to come. Ray continued to live with his mother, uncle and other members of his extended family in a rented house.[16]
| Character | Film | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pather Panchali (1955) | Aparajito (1956) | The World of Apu (1959) | |
| Apurba "Apu" Roy | Subir Banerjee | Pinaki Sen Gupta (boy) Smaran Ghosal(adolescent) | Soumitra Chatterjee |
| Durga Roy | Runki Banerjee (child) Uma Dasgupta(teenager) | ||
| Harihar Roy | Kanu Banerjee | ||
| Sarbajaya Roy | Karuna Banerjee | ||
| Indir Thakrun | Chunibala Devi | ||
| Prasanna | Tulsi Chakraborty | ||
| Bhabataran | Ramani Ranjan Sen | ||
| Nanda Babu | Charu Prakash Ghosh | ||
| Headmaster | Subodh Ganguly | ||
| Aparna | Sharmila Tagore | ||
| Kajal | Alok Chakravarty | ||
| Pulu | Swapan Mukherjee | ||
| Pulu's wife | Sefalika Devi | ||
| Sasinarayan | Dhiresh Majumdar | ||
| The Landlord | Dhiren Ghosh | ||
This trilogy is considered by critics around the globe to rank among the greatest achievements ofIndian film, and it is established as one of the most historically important cinematic debuts.Pather Panchali won at least thirteen international prizes (including Best Human Document at the1956 Cannes Film Festival), followed by eleven international prizes forAparajito (including theGolden Lion at theVenice Film Festival) and numerous other awards forApur Sansar (including theSutherland Trophy at theLondon Film Festival). When Ray madePather Panchali, he worked with a cast and crew most of whom had never been previously involved in film. Ray himself at the time of directingPather Panchali had primarily worked in the advertising industry, although he had served as assistant director onJean Renoir's 1951 filmThe River. From this foundation, Ray went on to create other highly acclaimed films, likeCharulata,Mahanagar, andAranyer Din Ratri, and his international success energised other Bengal filmmakers likeMrinal Sen andRitwik Ghatak.
This extract fromYouth, by South African authorJ. M. Coetzee, talks of the music in theApu trilogy, which is based onIndian classical music:
At the Everyman Cinema there is a season of Satyajit Ray. He watches the Apu trilogy on successive nights in a state of rapt absorption. In Apu's bitter, trapped mother, his engaging, feckless father he recognizes, with a pang of guilt, his own parents. But it is the music above all that grips him, dizzyingly complex interplays between drums and stringed instruments, long arias on the flute whose scale or mode – he does not know enough about music theory to be sure which – catches at his heart, sending him into a mood of sensual melancholy that lasts long after the film has ended.
OnRotten Tomatoes,Pather Panchali has a 98% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 82 reviews[17] and in 2009 was included in its list of top 100 foreign films.[18]Aparajito has a 96% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 25 reviews,[19] andApur Sansar (The World of Apu) has a 97% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 29 reviews.[20] This makesThe Apu Trilogy one of the highest-rated film trilogies of all time (97%, 94%, 100%)[when?], along with theToy Story trilogy (100%, 100%, 99%),The Lord of the Rings trilogy (91%, 96%, 93%), the originalStar Wars trilogy (94%, 97%, 83%), and theBefore trilogy (100%, 95%, 98%).[citation needed]
Film criticRoger Ebert, when including the films in hisGreat Movies list, wrote about the trilogy:
The great, sad, gentle sweep of "The Apu Trilogy" remains in the mind of the moviegoer as a promise of what film can be. Standing above fashion, it creates a world so convincing that it becomes, for a time, another life we might have lived.[21]
Andre Robinson, in his bookSatyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, comments that the three films differ in their predominant moods, and he compares the trilogy to the development of anIndian classicalraga.[22]
Sight & Sound, theBritish Film Institute's film magazine, listedPather Panchali several times in its Critics' Poll ofall-time greatest films, in 1962 (ranked #11),[23] 1982 (ranked #79),[24] 1992 (ranked #6),[25] 2002 (ranked #22),[26][27] 2012 (ranked #42)[28] and 2022 (ranked #35).[29]The World of Apu appeared in 1982, ranked at #42.[24] In the 1992 edition, bothAparajito andThe World of Apu were tied at #127,[30] whileThe Apu Trilogy was ranked separately at #88.[23] In a combined list ofSight & Sound critics' and directors' poll results in 2002,Pather Panchali was ranked at No. 28,The World of Apu at No. 93 andAparajito at #160.[31] If the votes are combined, thenThe Apu Trilogy as a whole would be ranked at No. 14 in 1982,[24] No. 4 in 1992[23] and No. 14 in 2002.[31] In director's poll ofGreatest films of all time bySight & Sound magazinePather Panchali ranked 48th in 2012[32] and 22nd in 2022.[33]
In 1988,John Kobal's poll of critics and filmmakers rankedThe Apu Trilogy at No. 35 on their list of Top 100 Movies.[34][35] In 1998, the Asian film magazineCinemaya's critics' poll of all-time greatest films rankedThe Apu Trilogy at No. 7 on the list, whilePather Panchali alone was ranked at No. 2 on the same list. If the votes are combined, thenThe Apu Trilogy would be ranked at #1.[36] In 1999,The Village Voice rankedPather Panchali at No. 12 (tied withThe Godfather) in its top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics, whileThe Apu Trilogy was ranked separately at No. 54 in the same poll. If the votes are combined,The Apu Trilogy would be ranked at #5.[37] In 2000, an audience poll of bestAsian films conducted byMovieMail rankedThe Apu Trilogy at No. 2 on the list.[38] In January 2002, the trilogy as a whole was included on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by theNational Society of Film Critics.[39][40] In 2021 the trilogy was ranked at No. 65 onTime Out magazine's list ofThe 100 best movies of all time.[41]The Independent rankedThe Apu Trilogy at No. 4 on its list of "10 greatest movie trilogies of all time".[42]
Pather Panchali was included in various other all-time greatest film lists, includingTime Out magazine's "Centenary Top One Hundred Films" in 1995,[43] theSan Francisco Chronicle's "Hot 100 Films From the Past" in 1997,[44] theRolling Stone "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" in 1999,[45] and the British Film Institute's Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films in 2005.[46]Akira Kurosawa rankedPather Panchali at No. 37 on hisTop 100 favourite films of all time list.[47][48] In 1996,The World of Apu was included in Movieline Magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films".[49][50] In 2002,Pather Panchali andThe World of Apu featured in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made".[51]The Apu Trilogy as a whole was included in film criticRoger Ebert's list ofThe Great Movies in 2001[21] and inTime magazine'sAll-Time 100 best movies list in 2005.[52] It was also ranked No. 17 inEmpire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.[53] The original trilogy has been reconstructed via the Harvard Film archive & Criterion and was shown in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA the 1st week of July 2015.
Apur Panchali is a Bengali film based onSubir Banerjee's life, who played childApu in thefirst installment ofApu Trilogy.[54][55] DirectorKaushik Ganguly won the award of best director forApur Panchali in the 44thInternational Film Festival of India (IFFI) in November 2013.[56] The director mentioned in an interview that he found similarities between certain parts of the life of Subir Banerjee and the iconic character Apu.[54] In the film actorParambrata Chatterjee portrays a younger Subir Banerjee, while Ardhendu Bannerjee plays the role of the aged Banerjee.[57]
According to Michael Sragow ofThe Atlantic Monthly in 1994:
In the four decades since Ray's debut as a writer-director—with the first Apu movie, Pather Panchali (1955)—his influence has been felt both in the type of work other directors attempt and in the means they employ to execute it. The youthfulcoming-of-agedramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy, which Terrence Rafferty has rightly called "cinema's purestBildungsroman". In baggy-pants homage to Ray, American TV's cartoon-burlesque Bildungsroman,The Simpsons—which could be called "The Education ofBart Simpson"—contains an Indian convenience-store owner namedApu.[58]
Across the world, filmmakers such asMartin Scorsese,[59][60]James Ivory,[61]Abbas Kiarostami,Elia Kazan,Carlos Saura,[62]Isao Takahata,[63]Barry Jenkins,[64][65]Philip Kaufman,[66]Wes Anderson[67] andDanny Boyle[68] have been influenced byThe Apu Trilogy, with many others such asAkira Kurosawa praising the work.[69] FilmmakerMartin Scorsese when talking aboutThe Apu Trilogy remarked "without a doubt, in [Ray's] films the line between poetry and cinema, dissolved".[70] InGregory Nava's 1995 filmMy Family, the final scene is duplicated from the final scene ofApur Sansar. Similar influences and references to the trilogy can be found, for example, in recent works such asSacred Evil,[71]Paul Auster's 2008 novelMan in the Dark,[72] theElements trilogy ofDeepa Mehta and even in films ofJean-Luc Godard.[73] The technique ofbounce lighting pioneered bySubrata Mitra, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets, has also had a profound influence on the development ofcinematography.[12]Ravi Shankar's soundtracks to the films were also a major influence onThe Beatles, specificallyGeorge Harrison.[74]
