• "The Changing World of Satyajit Ray: Reflections on Anthropology and History"

    Editor(s):
    Jyotirmaya Patnaik (see profile)
    Date:
    2020
    Group(s):
    Communication Studies, Cultural Studies, Film-Philosophy, Film Studies, Television Studies
    Subject(s):
    Motion pictures and history, Motion pictures and literature, Motion pictures, Indic, Motion pictures, Art, American
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    : Apu’s Eye, Shakti, prem, disenchantment, world society, Film and history, Literature and film, Indian cinema, Indian culture, Film arts
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/j9ee-b774
    Abstract:
    The visionary Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) is India’s most famous director. His visual style fused the aesthetics of European realism with evocative symbolic realism, which he based on classic Indian iconography, the aesthetic and narrative principles of rasa, the energies of shakti and shakta, the principles of dharma, and the practice of darsha dena/ darsha lena. He incorporated these aesthetic elements in a self-reflective manner as a means of observing and recording the human condition in a rapidly changing world. This unique amalgam of selfexpression expanded over four decades that cover three periods of Bengali history, offering a fictional ethnography of a nation in transition from agricultural, feudal societies to a capitalist economy. His films show the emotional impact of the social, economic, and political changes, on the personal lives of his characters. They expand from the Indian declaration of Independence (1947) and the period of industrialization and secularization of the 1950s and 1960s, to the rise of nationalism and Marxism in the 1970s, followed by the rapid transformation of India in the 1980s. Through the Eyes of his characters, Ray’s films reflected upon the changes in the conscious collective of the society and the time they were produced, while offering a historical record of this transformation of his imagined India, the ‘India’ that I got to know while watching his films; an ‘India’ that I can relate to. The paper highlights an affinity between Ray’s method of filmmaking with ethnography and Kantian anthropology. For this, it returns to the notion of the charismatic auteur as a narrator of his time, working within the liminal space in-between fiction and reality, subjectivity and objectivity, culture and history respectively, in order to reflect upon the complementary ontological relationship between the charismatic auteur and the role of the amateur anthropologist in an ever-changing world.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.15655/mw/2020/v11i2/195663
    Publisher:
    Media Watch
    Pub. Date:
    2020-5-6
    Journal:
    Media Watch
    Volume:
    11
    Issue:
    2
    Page Range:
    371 - 393
    ISSN:
    2249-8818,0976-0911
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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