I wouldn’t mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they’re not on a fixed salary.
SATYAJIT RAYI wouldn’t mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they’re not on a fixed salary.
SATYAJIT RAYThe conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.
SATYAJIT RAYAt the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.
SATYAJIT RAYI’ve made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.
SATYAJIT RAYYou cannot go beyond a certain limit in your expenditure if you want to bring back money from your local market, which is very small after Pakistan.
SATYAJIT RAYI had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.
SATYAJIT RAYI don’t start a film with the heroine but with the cinema subject. If there is a woman in the story, she has to be of a particular type. It’s not as if I start with Madhuri Dixit and then think what kind of film.
SATYAJIT RAYWell the Bombay film wasn’t always like how it is now. It did have a local industry. There were realistic films made on local scenes. But it gradually changed over the years.
SATYAJIT RAYWhen I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I’m familiar with. I don’t write stories about the nineteenth century.
SATYAJIT RAYFor a film maker, an Oscar is like a Nobel Prize, you know. So I am very happy… delighted. There is nothing more after this. I cannot hope to get anything more prestigious.
SATYAJIT RAYI mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time.
SATYAJIT RAYWhen I’m shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot – new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can’t do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical.
SATYAJIT RAYThere’s always some room for improvisation.
SATYAJIT RAYSometimes a director is making three films. Perhaps he is shooting a film in Madras and a film in Bombay and he can’t leave Madras as some shooting has to be done, so he directs by telephone. The shooting takes place. On schedule.
SATYAJIT RAYThe director is the only person who knows what the film is about.
SATYAJIT RAYIt was only after Pather Panchali had some success at home that I decided to do a second part. But I didn’t want to do the same kind of film again, so I made a musical.
SATYAJIT RAY