The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.
SATYAJIT RAYThe only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.
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 RAYWhat is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.
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 RAYI think they quite like me when I work because I’m one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don’t bring their costs in back home, once they’re shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs.
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 RAYEver since Two Daughters I’ve been composing my own music.
SATYAJIT RAYI was interested in both Western and Indian classical music.
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 RAYMy films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.
SATYAJIT RAYParticularly in the final stages I always find that I’m rushed. It’s dangerous when you’re rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.
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 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 RAYAt the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.
SATYAJIT RAYThe director is the only person who knows what the film is about.
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 RAY