I 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 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 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 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 RAYThe director is the only person who knows what the film is about.
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 RAYThere’s always some room for improvisation.
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 RAYThe conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.
SATYAJIT RAYThe only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.
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 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 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 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 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 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 RAY