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Satyajit Ray on Cinema
Satyajit Ray, one of the greatest auteurs of twentieth century cinema, was a Bengali motion-picture director, writer, and illustrator who set a new standard for Indian cinema with his Apu Trilogy: "Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) (1955)," "Aparajito (The Unvanquished) (1956)," and "Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959)." His work was admired for its humanism, versatility, attention to detail, and skilled use of music. He was also widely praised for his critical and intellectual writings, which mirror his filmmaking in their precision and wide-ranging grasp of history, culture, and aesthetics.
Spanning forty years of Ray's career, these essays, for the first time collected in one volume, present the filmmaker's reflections on the art and craft of the cinematic medium and include his thoughts on sentimentalism, mass culture, silent films, the influence of the French New Wave, and the experience of being a successful director. Ray speaks on the difficulty of adapting literary works to screen, the nature of the modern film festival, and the phenomenal contributions of Jean-Luc Godard and the Indian actor, director, producer, and singer Uttam Kumar. The collection also features an excerpt from Ray's diaries and reproduces his sketches of famous film personalities, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Charlie Chaplin, and Akira Kurosawa, in addition to film posters, photographs by and of the artist, film stills, and a filmography. Altogether, the volume relays the full extent of Ray's engagement with film and offers extensive access to the thought of one of the twentieth-century's leading Indian intellectuals.
Spanning forty years of Ray's career, these essays, for the first time collected in one volume, present the filmmaker's reflections on the art and craft of the cinematic medium and include his thoughts on sentimentalism, mass culture, silent films, the influence of the French New Wave, and the experience of being a successful director. Ray speaks on the difficulty of adapting literary works to screen, the nature of the modern film festival, and the phenomenal contributions of Jean-Luc Godard and the Indian actor, director, producer, and singer Uttam Kumar. The collection also features an excerpt from Ray's diaries and reproduces his sketches of famous film personalities, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Charlie Chaplin, and Akira Kurosawa, in addition to film posters, photographs by and of the artist, film stills, and a filmography. Altogether, the volume relays the full extent of Ray's engagement with film and offers extensive access to the thought of one of the twentieth-century's leading Indian intellectuals.
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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About the author
Satyajit Ray
675 books1,522 followersSatyajit Ray (Bengali: সত্যজিৎ রায়) was an Indian filmmaker and author of Bengali fiction and regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of world cinema. Ray was born in the city of Calcutta into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and watching Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist 1948 film, Bicycle Thieves.
Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, primarily aimed at children and adolescents.
Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival. This film, Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) form The Apu Trilogy. Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, and editing, and designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Ray received many major awards in his career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a number of awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies, and an Academy Award in 1992. The Government of India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna in 1992.
Early Life and Background:
Ray's grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury was a writer, illustrator, philosopher, publisher, amateur astronomer and a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, a religious and social movement in nineteenth century Bengal. Sukumar Ray, Upendrakishore's son and father of Satyajit, was a pioneering Bengali author and poet of nonsense rhyme and children's literature, an illustrator and a critic. Ray was born to Sukumar and Suprabha Ray in Calcutta.
Ray completed his B.A. (Hons.) in Economics at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, though his interest was always in Fine Arts. In 1940, he went to study in Santiniketan where Ray came to appreciate Oriental Art. In 1949, Ray married Bijoya Das and the couple had a son, Sandip ray, who is now a famous film director.
Literary Works:
Ray created two of the most famous fictional characters ever in Bengali children's literature—Feluda, a sleuth in Holmesian tradition, and Professor Shonku, a genius scientist. Ray also wrote many short stories mostly centered on Macabre, Thriller and Paranormal which were published as collections of 12 stories. Ray wrote an autobiography about his childhood years, Jakhan Choto Chilam (1982). He also wrote essays on film, published as the collections: Our Films, Their Films (1976), Bishoy Chalachchitra (1976), and Ekei Bole Shooting (1979).
Awards, Honors and Recognitions:
Ray received many awards, including 32 National Film Awards by the Government of India. At the Moscow Film Festival in 1979, he was awarded for the contribution to cinema. At the Berlin Film Festival, he was one of only three to win the Silver Bear for Best Director more than once and holds the record for the most Golden Bear nominations, with seven. At the Venice Film Festival, he won a Golden Lion for Aparajito(1956), and awarded the Golden Lion Honorary Award in 1982. In 1992 he was posthumously awarded the Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, primarily aimed at children and adolescents.
Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival. This film, Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) form The Apu Trilogy. Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, and editing, and designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Ray received many major awards in his career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a number of awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies, and an Academy Award in 1992. The Government of India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna in 1992.
Early Life and Background:
Ray's grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury was a writer, illustrator, philosopher, publisher, amateur astronomer and a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, a religious and social movement in nineteenth century Bengal. Sukumar Ray, Upendrakishore's son and father of Satyajit, was a pioneering Bengali author and poet of nonsense rhyme and children's literature, an illustrator and a critic. Ray was born to Sukumar and Suprabha Ray in Calcutta.
Ray completed his B.A. (Hons.) in Economics at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, though his interest was always in Fine Arts. In 1940, he went to study in Santiniketan where Ray came to appreciate Oriental Art. In 1949, Ray married Bijoya Das and the couple had a son, Sandip ray, who is now a famous film director.
Literary Works:
Ray created two of the most famous fictional characters ever in Bengali children's literature—Feluda, a sleuth in Holmesian tradition, and Professor Shonku, a genius scientist. Ray also wrote many short stories mostly centered on Macabre, Thriller and Paranormal which were published as collections of 12 stories. Ray wrote an autobiography about his childhood years, Jakhan Choto Chilam (1982). He also wrote essays on film, published as the collections: Our Films, Their Films (1976), Bishoy Chalachchitra (1976), and Ekei Bole Shooting (1979).
Awards, Honors and Recognitions:
Ray received many awards, including 32 National Film Awards by the Government of India. At the Moscow Film Festival in 1979, he was awarded for the contribution to cinema. At the Berlin Film Festival, he was one of only three to win the Silver Bear for Best Director more than once and holds the record for the most Golden Bear nominations, with seven. At the Venice Film Festival, he won a Golden Lion for Aparajito(1956), and awarded the Golden Lion Honorary Award in 1982. In 1992 he was posthumously awarded the Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 24, 2014
What really strikes in these collection of essays and articles of Satyajit Ray, more than anything else is his deeply compassionate nature and humanism. While many references and subjects seem dated by today's time, still his passion for the 'art' shines through and his observations about the cinematic world and the society in general, are full of empathy and love. While his contempt for the mainstream audience and film makers who didn't care about the medium and its artistic merits, was never a secret, it does come out rather harshly in many of his essays here. I admit that I missed many of his filmy-references as I haven't seen a lot of films which he refers to, still it was an engaging read. Would definitely like to return to some portions once I complete watching his entire oeuvre.
A great director, even greater human being.
A great director, even greater human being.
August 20, 2025
Reading Satyajit Ray on Cinema is like being invited into the director’s quiet study, sitting across from him while he thinks aloud, shaping his ideas with the same precision with which he composed his frames. The book is not theory in the heavy, academic sense. It is, instead, Ray speaking plainly, without pretension, about the craft he spent a lifetime refining—about cinema as an art form, a language, and, in the Indian context, almost a civilizational necessity.
What first struck me was the clarity of his writing. Ray doesn’t mystify; he refuses the jargon that so often clouds film studies. He explains the grammar of cinema with the same transparent elegance that guided Pather Panchali—accessible, layered, and utterly devoid of excess. His essays on realism, on sound, and on the delicate balance between story and image, read like distilled lessons from a master who has tried every experiment on himself first. Reading them on Kindle in 2022, I felt how fresh they remain, how they refuse to age. Cinema has gone digital, and platforms have exploded, but Ray’s voice carries undiminished authority.
And then, there’s the candor. Ray is not afraid to call out mediocrity in Indian filmmaking—the formulaic patterns, the excessive borrowing from the West without digestion, and the overreliance on melodrama. Yet, there’s no cruelty in his critique, only a gentle disappointment, a teacher’s measured disapproval. He admired Hollywood’s craft but distrusted its excess. He revered Renoir, De Sica, and Kurosawa, not as distant gods but as fellow travelers in the search for truth in image. When Ray writes about Renoir filming The River in Bengal, you feel the warmth of personal memory, the sense of inheritance.
At the heart of these essays is a defense of realism, but not in the simplistic sense. For Ray, realism was not just about showing poverty or rural hardship; it was about capturing life’s rhythms honestly, letting silence breathe, and letting a child’s glance carry the story. This resonates with the Indian aesthetic idea of rasa—emotion distilled, not exaggerated. Ray never quotes Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, but his films embody its principle: the evocation of mood, the suggestion of inner life through outward gesture. Reading these essays, I felt the bridge between ancient theory and modern cinema was not accidental. Ray was always constructing that bridge, even if unconsciously.
What also shines here is Ray the polymath. The essays never let you forget that this filmmaker was also an illustrator, composer, and writer. His sense of design informs how he speaks of visual composition; his ear for music shapes his reflections on sound. He never compartmentalized art forms. For him, cinema was the meeting point of all—line, rhythm, narrative, colour, and silence. And because of this, his essays carry the rare authority of someone who saw the whole elephant, not just the parts.
The foreword by Shyam Benegal and the editorial work of Sandip Ray add gentle frames around this voice, but the pleasure is entirely in hearing Ray himself. Sometimes I paused mid-page just to marvel at the thought that here was a filmmaker who could also write this well. How often does one encounter such economy of language, such balance of critique and wonder?
By the time I finished, I felt less like I had read a book and more like I had attended a private masterclass. The difference was intimacy: Ray was not showing off; he was conversing. And in that intimacy lay the gift. He left me not just with ideas about cinema, but with a way of looking at the world — attentive, compassionate, and uncluttered.
Reading Satyajit Ray on Cinema in 2022 was like receiving a letter from the past that knows exactly how to address the present. It reminded me that cinema, however much technology reshapes it, will always return to the same simple demand: to see truly. And Ray, through these essays, continues to teach us how.
What first struck me was the clarity of his writing. Ray doesn’t mystify; he refuses the jargon that so often clouds film studies. He explains the grammar of cinema with the same transparent elegance that guided Pather Panchali—accessible, layered, and utterly devoid of excess. His essays on realism, on sound, and on the delicate balance between story and image, read like distilled lessons from a master who has tried every experiment on himself first. Reading them on Kindle in 2022, I felt how fresh they remain, how they refuse to age. Cinema has gone digital, and platforms have exploded, but Ray’s voice carries undiminished authority.
And then, there’s the candor. Ray is not afraid to call out mediocrity in Indian filmmaking—the formulaic patterns, the excessive borrowing from the West without digestion, and the overreliance on melodrama. Yet, there’s no cruelty in his critique, only a gentle disappointment, a teacher’s measured disapproval. He admired Hollywood’s craft but distrusted its excess. He revered Renoir, De Sica, and Kurosawa, not as distant gods but as fellow travelers in the search for truth in image. When Ray writes about Renoir filming The River in Bengal, you feel the warmth of personal memory, the sense of inheritance.
At the heart of these essays is a defense of realism, but not in the simplistic sense. For Ray, realism was not just about showing poverty or rural hardship; it was about capturing life’s rhythms honestly, letting silence breathe, and letting a child’s glance carry the story. This resonates with the Indian aesthetic idea of rasa—emotion distilled, not exaggerated. Ray never quotes Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, but his films embody its principle: the evocation of mood, the suggestion of inner life through outward gesture. Reading these essays, I felt the bridge between ancient theory and modern cinema was not accidental. Ray was always constructing that bridge, even if unconsciously.
What also shines here is Ray the polymath. The essays never let you forget that this filmmaker was also an illustrator, composer, and writer. His sense of design informs how he speaks of visual composition; his ear for music shapes his reflections on sound. He never compartmentalized art forms. For him, cinema was the meeting point of all—line, rhythm, narrative, colour, and silence. And because of this, his essays carry the rare authority of someone who saw the whole elephant, not just the parts.
The foreword by Shyam Benegal and the editorial work of Sandip Ray add gentle frames around this voice, but the pleasure is entirely in hearing Ray himself. Sometimes I paused mid-page just to marvel at the thought that here was a filmmaker who could also write this well. How often does one encounter such economy of language, such balance of critique and wonder?
By the time I finished, I felt less like I had read a book and more like I had attended a private masterclass. The difference was intimacy: Ray was not showing off; he was conversing. And in that intimacy lay the gift. He left me not just with ideas about cinema, but with a way of looking at the world — attentive, compassionate, and uncluttered.
Reading Satyajit Ray on Cinema in 2022 was like receiving a letter from the past that knows exactly how to address the present. It reminded me that cinema, however much technology reshapes it, will always return to the same simple demand: to see truly. And Ray, through these essays, continues to teach us how.
June 24, 2024
Wonderful insights on cinema
July 5, 2016
The master film maker talks about his journey , his work , his visions & opinions about Indian Bengali Films & Indian Films . He focuses on the technology , the evolve of cinema as an art & talks about the then Film Industry .
As I previously read Tareque Masud's Chalachitralekha (চলচ্চিত্রলেখা) & Chalachittrajatra (চলচ্চিত্রযাত্রা) , what I find in common both directors' working up their way to establish a serious & different kind of art form rather than commercial movies , creating an audience of their own & their winning over International Film festivals & audience .
As I previously read Tareque Masud's Chalachitralekha (চলচ্চিত্রলেখা) & Chalachittrajatra (চলচ্চিত্রযাত্রা) , what I find in common both directors' working up their way to establish a serious & different kind of art form rather than commercial movies , creating an audience of their own & their winning over International Film festivals & audience .
July 3, 2016
Ray, the finest of directors, is also a fine writer. Articles is book reflect his deep understanding of cinema world, Indian & foreign. Moreover, there is not a trace of delusion when he is talking about his own work. He knows what was wrong with his most famous of works, what people saw in them, why they are important. The realism of his movies is present in his writing also. Overall a great read for every person who enjoys good movies (not necessarily art movies).
December 25, 2015
A glimpse into a boundless mind
The book containing scattered articles is a small glimpse into his thoughts on cinema. The articles of section 1 and 2 are a treatise for a real cinema lover, who wants to/ understands the art form. His depth of study and vastness of knowledge can be inferred from these. Read it if u truly care about understanding cinema
The book containing scattered articles is a small glimpse into his thoughts on cinema. The articles of section 1 and 2 are a treatise for a real cinema lover, who wants to/ understands the art form. His depth of study and vastness of knowledge can be inferred from these. Read it if u truly care about understanding cinema
April 22, 2015
It is always fascinating to read what the masters of cinema have to say.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews