Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Feb 20, 2018
Review by Christopher S. Long
I continue to be astonished by Satyajit
Ray's ability to breathe life into his characters in the space of a
single shot; one line delivery or a quick facial expression provides
instant access to a fully-fleshed personality. Ray's films are
replete with people whose existence seems to preceded and extend past
their time on camera. The viewer simply hitches a ride with them for
a few minutes before they move on to other things.
In “The Hero” (1966), matinee idol
Arindam Mukherjee (played by the most popular of all Bengali stars,
Uttam Kumar) hops a train from Kolkata to Delhi to accept a prize.
Within ten minutes of his arrival on the train, writer/director Ray
sets a half dozen multi-layered characters into action. Each reacts
in some fashion to Mukherjee's presence, yet each character follows
their own agenda, all embracing the maxim that everyone considers
themselves the main character in the story.
Aditi Sengupta (Sharmila Tagore) edits
a magazine called “Modern Woman” and wrestles over whether to
interview the star to boost sales or to keep her journal free of
superficial movie gossip. Her smitten friend shyly eyes Mukherjee
from a distance, giddily recounting his numerous heroic roles.
Representing the skeptics, the elderly Mr. Chatterjee (Jogesh
Chatterjee) takes every possible opportunity to lecture the actor
about the failures of talking pictures, as well as the scientifically
established fact that all movie stars are notorious drunks.
Arindam, in an unusually introspective
mood after a personal crisis, greets everyone's advances with grace
and a sense of detached amusement. In an obvious nod to Marcello
Mastroianni's character from “8 1/2” he relies on his handsome
looks, his winning smile, and his tinted sunglasses to keep the world
at a distance, though Aditi's capacity to listen attentively in a
non-judgmental fashion will eventually break through his defenses.
Kumar was a mega-wattage star of the
Bengali cinema at the peak of his nearly unparalleled fame, and this
was the first time Ray worked with such a commercial juggernaut. The
casting prompted some critics to suggest the esteemed arthouse
director of “The Apu Trilogy” (1955-59) and “The Music Room”
(1958) was selling out, but Ray instead uses the opportunity to muse
on his own relationship with actors and with cinema. Viewers should
not assume the writer/director agrees with lines such as “A film
actor is nothing but a puppet” but there's little doubt that Ray,
also an accomplished novelist, composer, and illustrator, is working
out some issues with his cinematic work while also poking fun at a
mainstream industry that never quite found room for his brand of
“alternative” cinema.
Furthering the film's apparent
connection to Fellini, Ray presents a series of dreams and
flashbacks, the most prominent being a sequence in which Arindam
drowns in pools of money, reaching out for a hand that won't quite
save him. I find these moments somewhat stilted and unconvincing, and
far less satisfying than the rest of the film, though it's possible I
am also locked into an overly specific view of what a Satyajit Ray
film is “supposed” to look like. Also, I can't stand those scenes
in Fellini's films either.
Kumar is utterly charming throughout,
and if he's functioning as Ray's “puppet” he's certainly a
convincing one, fully invested in the moment just like every Ray
performer always seems to be. Sharmila Tagore is a revelation as
well. Just seven years after playing the very young bride in “The
World of Apu” (1959), she's now (literally, from the title of her
magazine) a modern woman who more than holds her own when sharing the
screen with a commercial superstar.
Whether or not Arindam really changes
by the time the train pulls into Delhi is an open question, but it's
certainly been quite a ride both the characters and the viewer.
Video:
The film is presented in its original
1.33:1 aspect ratio. From the Criterion booklet: “This new digital
master was produced from a restoration undertaken by RDB
Entertainments under the supervision of Kamal Bansal and Varsha
Banal. For the restoration, a digital transfer was created in 2K
resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the 35 mm original camera
negative and a 35 mm print at Pixion in Chennai, India.”
The image quality and black-and-white
contrast are sharp in this 1080p transfer, with a generally bright
look throughout. Another strong effort from Criterion.
Audio:
The linear PCM mono audio track isn't
designed to overwhelm, mostly just carrying the dialogue clearly. No
complaints here. Optional English subtitles support the Bengali
audio.
Extras:
Criterion has only included a few
extras here, though they're both good.
First up is a 2008 interview (12 min.)
with Sharmila Tagore, who doesn't appear to age like other people.
She talks about her experiences working with Ray and her progression
from child actor to adult actor under Ray's mentorship.
We also get a new interview (25 min.)
with film scholar Meheli Sen, who talks in detail about the film's
production and reception (it wasn't a hit like many of Ray's earlier
films) as well as the unique status star Uttam Kumar had in Bengali
film.
The insert booklet includes an essay by
author Pico Iyer and a transcript of Satyajit Ray's comments at a
1980 commemorative gathering after Uttam Kumar's death.
Final Thoughts:
I don't think “The Hero” ranks as
one of Ray's greatest accomplishments, but a middling Ray film towers
over most of the competition. This Criterion releases only offers a
few brief extras, but the transfer is strong, and if they feel like
eventually releasing every single Ray title as part of the
collection, I won't have any objections.
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Nov 17, 2015
Review by Christopher S. Long
The scope of Satyajit Ray's “The Apu
Trilogy,” adapted from the popular Bengali novels of Bibhutibhusan
Banerjee, is nothing less than the life of its title protagonist from
birth to adulthood, from an impoverished childhood in a rural Indian
village to a university education in Calcutta and then to points
beyond that. Any effort to encapsulate the entire series in a mere
review is doomed to seem superficial and incomplete.
Better to recount only the moments that
linger most vividly, though even they are so numerous as to cram a
short-form essay to bursting, in the hopes of creating an impression
for the reader of just how monumental Ray's achievement is, one of
the most monumental in the history of cinema.
For starters, Apu is nowhere near the
most interesting character in the first film in the series. The stars
of “Pather Panchali” (1955) are three remarkable women. Mother
Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) shines in the first two films of the
trilogy. In her debut, she provides the pragmatic ballast to her
idealist husband Harihar (Kanu Banerjee), which leaves her to do the
literal dirty work of the household as well as putting her in charge
of discipline. The latter duty generally involves daughter Durga
(Runki Banerjee as a little girl, Uma Das Gupta when older), the
unrepentant petty thief so full of energy and joy that the confines
of the crumbling family abode cannot contain her. She dashes through
the countryside, dances in the rain, and cagily evades prying eyes to
spend time with her beloved Auntie.
I am confident that nobody who has ever
seen “Pather Panchali” will forget Auntie, played by 80-year-old
veteran stage actress Chunibala Devi, coaxed out of a lengthy
retirement by Ray. Auntie is an unspecified family relation so bent
over by time her body forms a near-perfect right angle as she
shuffles through the dirt, defiantly stealing one more day and still
another, all with a quiet dignity and scrappy resourcefulness that
inspires Durga, even as the burden of Auntie's upkeep frustrates
Sarbajaya whose own dreams die each day she shoulders the role of
universal caretaker.
All three women are so mesmerizing that
little Apu (Subir Banerjee) can hardly make an impression by
comparison. Yet his first appearance still provides one of the
series' high points. Durga wakes up her sleepy-head brother who hides
under a blanket until a single eye is visible peering out at his
sister and at the audience. Both mother and sister dote on Apu to the
point of ignoring their own needs, a testament to a patriarchal
society but also to genuine love, which also conveniently sets us up
for the next chapter when Apu will finally take center stage in his
own trilogy.
The family home, a dirt courtyard and a
few small rooms partially ringed by collapsing stone walls, is almost
as memorable as the women of the film. Shots of the surrounding
countryside further showcase the evocative power of effective
location shooting, lending the film the sense of naturalism that
earned instant comparisons to Italian neo-realism. Rendered in
subdued black-and-white by cinematographer Subrata Mitra, this poor
rural village is a defining element inextricable from the characters
that populate it.
In “Aparajito” (1956) the family
has moved to the holy city of Benares (now Varanasi) where Apu's
father plies his trade as a local priest. Early shots of hundreds of
people gathered along the Ganges, just about everyone dressed in a
white that fills the visual field (occasionally making subtitles
difficult to read) immerse viewers inthe new location. Apu (now
played by Pinaki Sengupta) is a bit older, but still young enough to
spend most of his day playing and wandering. This produces some
dreamy interludes such as when he watches a muscle-bound man on the
docks swinging a weighted rod, or when Apu feeds a cluster of monkeys
who chatter and ring bells, performing a chorus just for the young
boy.
Apu's idle adventures fire his
imagination and lead to perhaps the most inspiring sequence in the
trilogy. After Apu enrolls in school, his connection to a broader
world of ideas yields a seismic effect. He explains the orbital
mechanics of an eclipse to his wide-eyed mother and is transformed so
completely that, without warning, in the space of a single cut, Apu
has suddenly become a teenager (Smaran Ghosal) who is now the star
pupil of his school.
If I have made the series out to be a
childlike wonderland so far, let me disabuse you of the notion.
Satyajit Ray is a cruel taskmaster. Death is a constant presence in
the trilogy, but tragedy manifests by many other means as well. Apu's
education is a personal liberation, but also drives a permanent wedge
between him and his mother, who knows how bleak life will be if her
pride and joy dashes off to Calcutta to continue his studies. Cinema
has offered many a mother who tugs on the viewer's heartstrings, but
I cannot offhand recall a more brutal moment in filmic mother-son
relations than when the loving, hard-working, self-sacrificing
Sarbajaya asks Apu “Am I to be cast aside?” and he, in effect
ultimately answers, “Yes.”
By “Apur Sansar” (1959), the adult
Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee, who would star in over a dozen Ray films)
is alone in Calcutta and forced to abandon university studies, though
hopefully not his burgeoning writing career, due to a lack of funds.
After he unexpectedly finds himself pinch-hitting for the groom at a
wedding, he embarks on a new chapter of his life as a married man. It
is only after the marriage that he falls wildly in love with his
young bride Aparna (Sharmila Tagore, just 13 at the time) and ready
to enjoy life once again. In one of the most-quoted shots in the
trilogy, Aparna rises from bed to conduct her morning chores, only to
find that the mischievous Apu has tied her voluminous sari to his own
clothing; she must pry it away before she can escape his tender
clutches. Staying consistent with the pattern of the series, Ray
doesn't allow happiness to last long, and Apu spends much of the film
lost in the labyrinth his own grief, with no promise he will ever
find his way back out.
The special place “The Apu Trilogy”
occupies in the canon of world cinema is justified solely by its
artistic achievements, but is buttressed in no small part because its
story of the emergence and maturation of Apu mirrors that of its
writer/director/producer. Satyajit Ray was no country bumpkin when he
began shooting. A member of a proud artistic and literary family, Ray
was an accomplished commercial artist whose book illustrations
(including those for an abridged version of “Pather Panchali”
adapted for children) were both well-known and respected. But Ray had
nurtured a passion for cinema for years, co-founding the Calcutta
Film Society in 1947, writing criticism (including an influential
essay critiquing Indian commercial cinema), and participating in
location scouting for Jean Renoir's 1950 film “The River.”
In the fall of 1952, Ray decided to
start filming his screenplay of “Pather Panchali” with no prior
directing experience. His severely underbudgeted crew was similarly
inexperienced, including cinematographer Subrata Mitra, an
accomplished still photographer now working with a motion-picture
camera for the first time. With virtually no money, Ray's initial
plan was to shoot a few scenes on location in rural Bengal, in hopes
of using it to secure government funding to complete the film. His
audacious gambit succeeded, though the shoot would proceed in fits
and starts, taking about two years to complete due to multiple
prolonged stoppages necessitated by the lack of cash flow.
“Pather Panchali” was a success in
Indian theaters, a pleasant surprise in a country defined by lavish
musical productions far removed from Ray's gritty, naturalistic, and
sometimes depressing vision. When it hit the festival circuit, the
film not only introduced Satyajit Ray to the world, but was largely
credited with introducing the category of Indian cinema to
international audiences. Ray would often be seen as the global
representative of all Indian film, an unfair burden for the director
and an equally unfair dismissal of one of the world's most prolific
national cinemas.
“Aparajito” wasn't nearly as
successful commercially in India, but it still earned positive
festival attention and convinced Ray to complete the trilogy, which
was not at all his idea from the start. By the time the world got to
see Apu as an adult in “Apur Sansar,” the neophyte who took the
world by storm had become an established star both at home and
abroad. He had already snuck in another masterpiece, “The Music
Room” (1958), before completing the trilogy and would waste no time
in proving that he was no flash in the pan, churning out, seemingly
effortlessly, equally great films such as “The Big City” (1963)
and “Charulata” (1964). “The Apu Trilogy” was an achievement
sufficient to secure an lifelong legacy - for Ray, it was merely the
opening salvo in one of the most remarkable careers of the 20th
century.
And, yeah, I swear, even here just past
the 1,500 word mark, I really did just touch on a few of the
highlights. And I didn't even talk about the trains. Or mention Ravi
Shankar.
Video:
Most of us have become accustomed to
seeing lesser-quality versions of “The Apu Trilogy.” This is due
in part to a 1993 laboratory fire in London which badly damaged the
original negatives to several of Ray's films, including “The Apu
Trilogy.” Sony Pictures Classics released the trilogy on DVD back
in 2003 and though they'd had some restoration, the picture quality
was disappointing even if it was “best possible” at the time.
The extensive restoration project
undertaken by Criterion and L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy
for this Blu-ray release involved salvaging whatever of the burned
negatives could still be restored (through rehydration, recreating
sprocket holes, etc.) and scouring the globe for other sources to
restore the rest of the material. A feature on disc three explains
part of the laborious process.
The net result can only be described as
a revelation for viewers. With multiple sources there is inevitably
some variation with damage more noticeable in a handful of scenes,
but so much of the trilogy looks outright luminous with sharp detail
visible in scenes I had only seen in blurry, badly compromised
versions before. The films generally look much brighter than in
previous DVD releases which means the prominent whites can sometimes
be a bit overwhelming (though seldom “blown out”) in these
black-and-white images, but compared to the dingy, drab look before
this is still a vast improvement. “Apur Sansar” is the most even
in quality but this is probably due to the fact that none of the
original negative could be used and the whole film “was restored
from a fine-grain master and a duplicate negative.”
Considering how close we were to losing
Ray's original negatives, it's simply extraordinary to have the
opportunity to see them restored to this condition.
Audio:
The audio required extensive
restoration as well. Dropoffs in audio quality are usually more
noticeable and jarring than, say, a slightly softer image might be.
Considering how much damage was present and how many sources were
used for these transfers, the consistent quality of the audio is
nothing short of amazing. The voices in “Pather Panchali” may
sound a bit tinnier than in the other two films, but that's likely
attributable to Ray's low-budget approach in his debut film. The most
important aspect of the sound mix is the Ravi Shankar score, heavy on
sitar on flute, that helps to define the trilogy almost as much as
the image, acting, and writing. In a word, it sounds great. I'm
really not qualified to attest to how true to the original it is, but
I can't imagine it's far off. Optional English subtitles support the
Bengali dialogue.
Extras:
There are no commentary tracks offered
on this three-disc set, but Criterion has included an ample array of
supporting extras on each disc.
Disc One (“Pather Panchali”) kicks
off with “A Long Time On The Little Road” (14 min.) This is an
audio-only extra that features Satyajit Ray reading from his 1957
“Sight & Sound” article about the making of “Pather
Panchali.” The audio was recorded by film critic Gideon Bachmann.
In addition to his seemingly endless artistic gifts, Ray had a
magnificent speaking voice, rich and smooth and utterly mesmerizing.
The disc also includes several
interviews recently recorded by Criterion. Soumitra Chatterjee (7
min.) does not appear in “Pather Panchali” but talks about how
the film and his appreciation for Ray's early work prepared him for
his film debut as the adult Apu in “Apur Sansar.” Shampa
Srivastava (16 min.) played young Durga (credited as Runki Banerjee)
and discusses what it was like to be a six-year-old actress on set
with Ray, who she describes as tall and handsome, both imposing and
awe-inspiring. Soumendu Roy (12 min.) was an assistant cameraman on
“Pather Panchali” and later become one of Ray's regular camera
operators. He discusses the challenges of location shooting in Boral
Village and how the shoot felt very much like a family experience.
The disc also includes a short feature
with the great musician Ravi Shankar (6 min.) who composed the music
for all three films. This mildly disappointing feature consists of
brief excerpts from a 2003 documentary titled “The Song Of The
Little Road.”
Disc Two (“Aparajito”) begins with
“The Small Details” (11 min.), a recent interview with film
writer Ujjal Chakraborty who touches on Ray's career as a commercial
illustrator while also providing some details about the shift in
locations in “Aparajito.”
We also get another audio recording by
Gideon Bachmann, this time of Ray speaking at the 1958 Robert
Flaherty Film Seminar in Vermont in conjunction with the official
U.S. release of “Pather Panchali.” This 14-minute audio-only
feature sees Ray specifying his work as Bengali rather than Indian
and touching on other details about the trilogy's release. Ray's
voice – my goodness.
“Making 'The Apu Trilogy': Satyajit
Ray's Epic Debut” (38 min.) is a new video essay written and
narrated by Ray biographer Andrew Robinson. He describes the
trilogy's impact as nothing less than a “radical re-orientation of
the world's view of India” and provides plenty of information about
Ray's career and insightful analysis of the trilogy.
“The Creative Person: Satyajit Ray”
(29 min.) is a 1967 episode of the Canadian TV series “The Creative
Person” directed by documentarian James Beveridge. Beveridge went
to Calcutta to film Ray at work and this episode consists of
interviews with Ray, Soumitra Chaterjee, Karuna Banerjee, and other
cast and crew.
Disc Three (“Apur Sansar') offers a
feature (15 min,) that combines new interviews with actor Soumitra
Chaterjee and actress Sharmila Tagore. I was particularly interested
in Tagore's account of being a schoolgirl thrown into a major shoot
and discovering a previously unknown love of acting that would shape
her life. She describes how heavily directed her performance was at
this early stage of her career and how Ray didn't shoot many takes or
conduct lengthy rehearsals.
“'The Apu Trilogy': A Closer Look”
(43 min.) is a lengthy interview with Mamoun Hassan, filmmaker,
producer and former head of production at the British Film Institute.
Hassan provides a close reading of several motifs in the films with
special attention to some of its more ominous aspects. And he talks a
lot about trains.
The disc also includes a feature on the
restoration of the trilogy, directed by filmmaker::kogonada and is
offered both in a Shorter Version (3 min.) and a Longer Version (12
min.). For Criterion fans, the longer version will let you see and
hear from several Criterion employees as well as from the diligent
preservationists at L'Immagine Ritrovato in Bologna. Many of The
amount of restoration that went into this project was nothing short
of heroic.
The final feature is a 3-minute video
of Ray's acceptance speech when he was awarded an honorary Oscar in
1992, shortly before his death. Even gravely ill in his hospital bed,
he has a commanding presence and even gets a few good laughs.
The insert booklet includes essays by
film critics Terrence Rafferty and Girish Shambu, whose blog at
girishshambu.blogspot.com should be on every cinephile's reading
list, as well as several of Ray's storyboards for “Pather Panchali”
and a few pages discussing the films' restoration.
Final Thoughts:
Sorry, “Star Wars” fans, this is
the greatest trilogy of all time. And this epic three-disc set from
Criterion, restoring Ray's masterpiece to its audiovisual glory, is
going to be hard to beat as the besst Blu-ray release of 2015.
LATE RAY: ECLIPSE SERIES 40 (S. Ray, 1984, 1989, and 1991)
Eclipse Series Box Set, DVD, Release Date January 7, 2014
Review by Christopher S. Long
(Re-posted in honor of Satyajit Ray, born this day in 1921)
Writer-director (and composer and
camera operator and just about everything else) Satyajit Ray's
characters must be the most subtly shaded and sensitively observed in
all of cinema. He could breathe life into even the most minor players
in just a few shots; over the length of a feature film his
protagonists emerge as rich and nuanced as characters carefully
sculpted over many years of episodic television. Cliches and
stereotypes had no place in the world of a humanist who cared far too
much to take shortcuts or settle for easy answers.
Ray only honed his strength over the
years, a fact evidenced by the complex personalities inhabiting the
three films in this “Late Ray” set from Criterion. After his
debut film “Pather Panchali” (1955) made him an international
star and the de facto representative of all Indian cinema to much of
the rest of the world, Ray vaulted over the high bar he had already
set with a steady string of masterpieces from the rest of the Apu
trilogy to “The Music Room” (1958), “The Big City” (1963),
“The Chess Players” (1977) and still more. By the end of the '70s
he was widely hailed as a national treasure, yet somehow avoided
letting either the fame or the responsibility interfere with his
work.
After a brief break at the beginning of
the '80s, he was finally ready to adapt the Rabindranath Tagore novel
he had originally planned as his first film. Ray had secured the
rights to “The Home and the World” back in 1948, and patience
proved to be a virtue when he finally began shooting in 1982. Set in
1907, the film (released in 1984) takes place shortly after the
British Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal, heightening tensions between
Hindus and Muslims and leading to the rise of the nationalist
Swadeshi movement, a call to boycott foreign products in favor of
homegrown.
As is typical in Ray's work, the film
addresses sweeping historical changes by focusing on a few characters
caught in the middle. Soft-hearted liberal aristocrat Nikhil (Victor
Banerjee) encourages his bright but cloistered wife Bimala
(Swatilekha Chatterjee) to meet his old school friend Sandip
(longtime Ray collaborator Soumitra Chatterjee) who has arrived for a
visit. It's a business trip, as Sandip styles himself the political
firebrand who can fan the Swadeshi flames on Nikhil's land.
In scene after scene, Ray allows the
three players to careen off each other, sharing their world
philosophies, sometimes finding common ground and other times
declaring respectful opposition. The curious Bimala finds herself
torn not just between two men but two visions: Sandip possesses the
magnetism of a man devoted to a cause he has necessarily simplified
to black-and-white, Nikhil is inhibited by the hesitancy of a man who
sees nuance and inherently distrusts the motives of a movement
sparked by cries of “Hail, Motherland!”
Yet in that grand Ray fashion, Bimala
does not exist merely to choose between two men, but also to chart a
course for herself; one of the most delicate balancing acts in the
story is her effort to become her own person despite the annoyingly
enlightened insistence of her husband that she do so. Sandip's
fanaticism flashes an early warning sign, and there's little doubt
his partisan brand of Swadeshi will topple into violence, but Ray
never lets him become a mere villain. Everyone shares their reasoning
both with each other and with the audience, making for a truly
dynamic, organic story.
Ray suffered a heart attack during
filming on “The Home and the World” and could not return to
directing for several years. Still severely limited, he established a
less physically taxing regimen which might explain the restricted,
functional look of “An Enemy of the People” (1989), shot almost
exclusively in studio. Working from the 1882 Henrik Ibsen play of the
same name, Ray transplants the action from 19th century
Norway to the 1980s in a small town in Bengal. A doctor (Soumitra
Chaterjee again) discovers that the holy water at the local Hindu
temple is polluted and is shocked by the political resistance he
meets in his effort to reveal the health threat to the townsfolk;
that temple's a goldmine for lots of people. The outlook is more
clearcut here than in the previous film, as the doctor winds up
having to stand almost alone against the forces of corruption, but
Ray unpeels the various layers of that corruption from the bigger
fish with the most to gain to the smaller players who sometimes wind
up cozying up or caving in to power. “Enemy” is clearly the least
accomplished of the three films in the set, but still absorbing and
surprisingly lean at 99 minutes.
Which brings us to “The Stranger”
(1991) and perhaps Ray's most memorable character since Apu. The
routinized life of a bourgeois Indian couple is disrupted by the
receipt of a letter. The gobsmacked Anila (Mamata Shankar) reads
shocking news aloud to her husband Sudhindra (Dipankar Dey): her
uncle who disappeared when she was just a child three decades ago
will be arriving by train in a few days and hopes to spend the week
with them. The husband is instantly skeptical, but Anila remains
guardedly hopeful. Their various suspicions will not be quickly
resolved.
The uncle (renowned theater and film
star Utpal Dutt) had become a family legend in his absence, and it
takes Anila time to understand him as a flesh-and-blood figure. An
absurdly erudite world-traveler, he only becomes more enigmatic with
each revelation about his time abroad; he has almost literally done
everything and been everywhere (except Australia, his next stated
destination). The couple and their friends, many still on the lookout
for a scam, grill the uncle over a series of deeply engaged
intellectual discussions, but it's clear that they've never met
anybody quite like him. In his own words, he refused to be a “frog
in a well,” unwilling to be trapped by the mere circumstance of his
birth. One day he simply gave in to his wanderlust and never looked
back.
Dutt is absolutely riveting as the man
who has an opinion on everything, and Ray observes him with a healthy
balance of affection and skepticism. His obvious brilliance sometimes
shines too brightly, and his need to extoll the glories of his
globetrotting ways leads him to condescend unfairly to perceived
Bengali provincialism. The film gleefully addresses the big questions
(“Do you believe in religion?”, “What about science?”) while
always scanning for the smallest details, and even drops the English
word “floccinaucinihilipilification” just when you least expect
it. Which is any time.
“The Stranger” turned out to be
Ray's final film. A year after its release he received an honorary
Oscar which, alas, is far too often the sign that the end is near.
Ray died shortly thereafter on April 23, 1992 at the age of 70 and
right at the peak of his craft. Few directors maintained such a level
of excellence from start to finish. It was always unfair to think of
Ray as the sole representative of a vast and diverse national cinema,
but that doesn't mean he was ever overrated. Many of us are just
beginning to understand how truly great he was. Releases like this
Eclipse set help with the discovery process.
Video:
Unfortunately even the Ray films that
have been offered on North American region DVDs have generally been
of poor quality. Criterion helped remedy that with recent Blu-ray
releases of “The Music Room,” “The Big City,” and
“Charulata.” None of the three SD releases in this Eclipse set
have been restored or can match the quality of the full Criterion
releases, but what we get is better than most other Ray titles.
“The Home and the World” looks a
bit like a second generation copy with some distortion visible at
times and somewhat mediocre image resolutions. Colors are fairly
rich, however, and the overall transfer is solid.
The other two transfers are stronger,
though neither film is one of Ray's most visually arresting works.
The color palette looks a bit oversaturated on “The Stranger” but
no major complaints.
All three films are presented in their
original 1.33:1 aspect ratios.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital Mono tracks are about
average overall. Perhaps the music (composed by Ray) would be better
treated by a lossless mix, but the audio here is clean and
consistent. One minor complaint: optional English subtitles are
provided for the Bengali dialogue, but not for the relatively
frequent English dialogue. There's no reason not to have subs for
everything.
Extras:
Each of the three films is stored on a
single disc and housed in its own slim keepcase, all three cases
tucking into the thin cardboard sleeve for the set. As is usual for
Criterion's no-frills Eclipse collection, no extras are provided on
the discs. However, we get liner notes up to the usual excellent
standards of writer Michael Koresky.
Final Thoughts:
I'm not sure how much longer
Criterion's SD-only Eclipse collection will continue to be viable,
but I hope it's for quite a while because it's a great way for
viewers to get films that aren't slated for restorations or high-def
upgrades. I read one review describing these films as “minor” Ray
releases, but that's just not right. “The Home and the World” and
“The Stranger” are both quite major and it's great to have them
finally available on home video in North America even without bells
and whistles.
