Satyajit Ray: liberalism and its vicissitudes.(Critical essay)

Cineaste, September, 2009 by Sengoopta, Chandak

Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), whose films were showcased earlier this year in New York at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, has long been India's best-known filmmaker in the West. Initially hailed as an Indian incarnation of Robert Flaherty or Jean Renoir, Ray came to be celebrated for his "humanistic" focus on individuals and their destinies and for his supposed distance from such nasty things as politics or ideology. "Like Chekhov," critic Bert Cardullo enthused, "Ray refuses to take sides either with characters or ideologies; since he is interested above all in the complexly human ... there are no real heroes or villains in his work, no simple winners and losers." (1) In India, Ray was a heroic figure, but he did face significant criticism from...

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