Neo Realism Of Pather Panchali Film Studies Essay

Neo Realism Of Pather Panchali take away Studies EssayThe Bengali feature film Pather Panchali or Song of The highway in English was directed by Satyajit radiation therapy and released in 1955. It was considered a landmark in the field of Indian as well as instauration cinema. Although it was theatre director Rays entry effort it went on to win unfavourable and popular acclaim from solely or so the world. The path breaking image was excessively instrumental in winning the Best Human document award at the Cannes require Festival of 1956.Satyajit Ray had his first transport with neo- currentism as far back as 1949, when Jean Renoir the famous director from France came to Calcutta to make the film The River. The neo- acceptedistic influence that is app bent in most of his films came from this connexion with the famed moving-picture show maker as also from the neo-realistic propensities of the then dominate Italian cinema (Ruberto. L, Wilson. E Kristi. M 2007). Ray ha ppened to take the famous director to various potential locations in the Bengal countryside. Later he went to capital of the United Kingdom on official business. During the short time he was in London, Ray saw myriads of cinemas and leaveing the film Bicycle Thieves do so impenetrable an impression on him that he decided to be a ikon maker, then and there (Robinson, 2003).Pather Panchali is considered to be neo-realist in its implications. The main reason for describing the ikon as neo-realistic was the fact that it was filmed non long after the II World War when neo-realism held sway in most of Europe. What make the critics change over the label of neo-realism to Rays movie?Ray chose mostly natural locations while hit Pather Panchali. He postulateed the backdrop of each shot to speak for itself. Also, he totally refrained from the craftificially exaggerated practices and gestures of the popular cinema predominant in India. The movie is said to form amply demonstrated some affiliations with the customs narration, bureau as well as musical address prevailing in earlier times in an effort to articulate in an Indian identity of the day sweep uping independence (Vasudevan, 2000). In an attempt to disarticulate himself and his creations from the moneymaking(prenominal) movies emanating from Bollywood, Satyajit Ray stated, The differences appear to emerge from evaluating the status of the narrative stochastic variable through which the real would be articulated, through what means of representation, styles of acting, aesthetic strategies the real would be invoked. Here the popular compendium studio shooting, melodramatic, externalized forms for the representation of use psychology, non- or in bourneittently continuous forms of cutting, diversionary story lines, performance sequences was non acceptable within the emergent artistic canon, for they undermined plausibility and a loveable regime of verisimilitude (Ray, 1976).Pather Panchali posse ssed all the essential characteristics of neo-realism as proposed by the big Italian movie maker Zabattini. The neo-realistic theory lays d bear the dictum that the film producer should not eer impose his own individual interpretation on the movie that he is making and should always remain a motionless observer of the reality that he happens to be creating. It does not matter whether he is depicting misery or prosperity, the movie maker should always uphold the utmost objectiveness, by subordinating logic to action at all times. Although, so far the staunchest of the neo-realists were utterly unable to attain such total objectivity for the simple reason that the subjective element always had a disposal to creep into either artistic creation, they neer stopped from trying to get hold of it.The same thing holds true for Satyajit Ray when he made his debut film Pather Panchali. In fact Ray was virtually unable to oblige the subjective element unwrap of his movie. But he ne ver made definitions on his actions, characters or situations. He never pitches hints at his audience and never tells them just what to think and feel. At the same time he was not at all apprehensive about taking the appropriate stances. This is because he was predisposed not to his characters but to the drama of brio itself. He had his own ways to suffuse carriage on to the screen in rate to im single out a shimmer of hope to all his characters.Pather Panchali and Bollywood movies A pedigreeBollywood movies are a far cry from the realism and objectivity of Rays movies When study and contrasting a Satyajit Ray movie to any Bollywood movie, there is nvirtuosontity much to compare but there is a lot to contrast. The exclusively factor a movie same(p) Pather Panchali has in common with a Bollywood movie is that both are shot in India and is about life in India. The similarity ends there. While Rays movies are predominantly realistic, there is nobody even remotely realistic about Bollywood films.To make matters worse, Satyajit Rays art films reliable their due recognition from the cognoscenti and welcomed with open hands within the ambit of world cinema. Evidently, Rays movies were in stark contrast to the populist fare dished out to the masses. This further discouraged any scholarly discussion of Bollywood movies within cinematic and media study circles. Madhava Prasad (2003) a film scholar wonders about the significance of the term Bollywood (2003). It force be that being imitative Bollywood cinema needs to be rechristened to emphasize this derivativeness.In another context, Gokulsingh et al states that whereas Hollywood filmmakers strove to conceal the constructed personality of their work so that the realistic narrative was wholly dominant, Indian filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a creation, an illusion, a fiction.GenreWhile movies like Pather Panchali comes under the musical style of art cine ma or parallel cinema, Bollywood movies come under the genre of Masala essence a mixture of hot spices. The main characteristic of the Masala genre is the outcry and dance sequences, a critical factor in defining the contingent genre. But audiences that invest social realism into cinema find it onerous to accept the genre as they are extraneous constructions of the real (Dudrah, 2002). It might be interesting to note that the term Bollywood does not signify Indian cinema as a whole but is confined to those movies emanating from Mumbai, the sometime(prenominal) Bombay (Corliss, 1996).BudgetAny film begins with a work out which in bit necessitates financial backing. Another factor that delineates Pather Panchali and Bollywood movies is the matter of budgeting. Pather Panchali was shot with the meager budget of $3000 while Bollywood spends incredible amounts to make musical extravaganzas. Even a wizard dance scene from a Bollywood movie costs tens of thousands of dollars. Satya jit Ray could not afford even what to a Bollywood producer is an insignificant sum. The government of Rays rest home state contributed the lions share of the production costs of Pather Panchali. This never happens with Bollywood films. Film distributors around India are standing ready to advance princely amounts of cash to a masala movie emanating from Bolllywood. Monroe cyclist, the then head of the prestigious Museum of Modern stratagem was greatly impressed with high levels of prime(prenominal) prevalent in Pather Panchali although what he saw at the time of his project to Calcutta in 1954 was an incomplete footage. Later Wheeler asked John Huston, the American movie director who was on a visit to Calcutta to look into the progress Rays debut movie. At Hustons favorable feedback, the Museum of Modern Art provided Ray with additional funds. Still three years had elapsed onward the movie went into post-production (Mehta, 1998).ScreenplayThe screenplay for Pather Panchali was b ased on the Bengali novel of the same title by the popular novelist Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. The novel was about the simple lives of people inhabiting the Bengal countryside of the period. much(prenominal) a theme is generally anathema to Bollywood directors. Again, the scripts of Bollywood movies tend to be involved, heterogeneous and resemble the raises of a jigsaw puzzle that somehow come in concert at the really end. In contrast Pather Panchali did not construct even a whole script (Robinson, 2003) as it was solely based on Rays notes and drawings. His theme was simple enough with seemingly random sequences of trivial as well as significant sequences pieced together, a practice that is foreign to the mind-set of Bollywood movie directors. Rather than dishing out a fare to assist the moviegoers to head for the hills from the harsh realities of life even it is for a few hours as is the contingency with Bollywood movies, Ray wanted the script to retain some of the ramb ling tonus of the novel because that in itself claimed a clue to the feel of authenticity life in a poor Bengali village does ramble (Ray, 1976). quite a unlike a Satyajit Ray movie, a bollywood film is replete with a plot that is extremely melodramatic in its connotations. Most of such movies follow a regular formula with ingredients that is often mindblogging to a serious movie goer. Such formulae is replete with love triangles, family ties, irate parents, corrupt politicians, conniving villains, kidnappers, meretricious hearted prostitutes, siblings long lost, sudden reversals of fortune, impossible coincidences and what not.Musical removeThe musical score consisting of Pather Panchali was prepared by the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar who at that time was at the sign stage of his musical development (Lavezzoli 2006). The background score, in the best tradition of Indian classical music, was something that was truly plaintive and exhilarating (Hoberman, 1995). A hard track that was based on the ragas of classical music and did not contain any songs to portray dance sequences was singularly at variance with the fatuous capers of Bollywood and something that was happening for the first time in the annals of Indian cinema.A Bollywood movie is an epitome of mediocrity with nothing to relate it with life as lived in India. The main emphasis is on musicals consisting of catchy tunes and words accompanied by a series of song-and-dance sequences. Even the theatricl trailers made to promote a movie have their emphasis on song and dance scenes The modular of a movie is based on mainly on the quality of the songs it features. In fact one major factor of movie furtherance with Indian commercial movies in general is to release the songs that a movie contains far ahead of its release.A Satyajit Ray movie appeals to the filmgoer for the aesethetic sense it imparts. To see Pather Panchali was to have what MSN Carta defined as a cerebral experience (MSN Encarta).To c ome across such films the audience should have a sound notion of what a true movie should be as also expect them to be of a high standard. But it is not at all so in the case of Bollywood movies.Plagiarism in Bollywood MoviesBollywood script writers and music composers have a tendency to plagiarize from western sources and from Bengali and Malayalam movies of India which are of a comparatively high standard. Plot lines, ideas, tunes as well as riffs are fair game for Bollywood (Ayres Oldenburg, 2005). In the past Bollywood could get away with impunity as the movies were largely unknown to non-Indian viewers with the result that none had the faintest notion that ones materials was beeing steal (Dudrah, 2002). Well known Bollywood Director Vikram Bhatt put it succinctly when he remarked Financially, I would be more secure knowing that a particular piece of work has already done well at the box office. copy is endemic everywhere in India. Our TV shows are adaptations of American prog rammes. We want their films, their cars, their planes, their diet cokes and also their attitude. The American way of life is creeping into our culture. and also If you hide the source, youre a genius. Theres no such thing as originality in the creative sphere.However some copyright violations were indeed resulted in litigation. For compositors case the Bollywood movies Zinda in 2005 and Partner in 2007 were taken to court for having plagiarized from the Hollywood movies Oldboy and Hitch respectively.AccoladesAnother point to note is that Rays films remains an important part of world cinema and he has received more accolade than any other Indian moviemaker. Noted critic Basil Wright made this comment after viewing Pather Panchali for the first time I have never forgotten the private projection room at the British Film Institute during which I experienced the shock of recognition and excitement when, unexpectedly, one is suddenly exposed to a new and incontrovertible work of art (Cha pman, 2003). For instance the noted film critic Constantine Santas opined that Ray developed a distinctive style of film-making (Santas, 2002). Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake stated that the basis of Rays works is comprised of strong secular humanism and visual lyricism (Gokulsing Dissanayake, 2004). Roy had the singular honor of establishing himself as an auteur of cinema with his very first movie (Santas 2002).In contrast no Bollywood film has ever won an international award, won any critical claim or even special mention from anywhere in the world pull in those pulp magazines singing paeans to the movie moguls of Bollywood and their mediocre creations this in go against of the fact that Bollywood churns out more movies per annum than any other country in the world.Although Bollywood movies are immensely popular with India and Indians living abroad, many South Asians centerfield them with derision labeling them as maudlin and unrealistic. To quote Edward Johnsons aside as he was commenting on the film posters of Bollywood movies, Indian cinema has a reputation in the West founded more on myth than reality. Art directors such as Satyajit Ray are given fulsome praise whilst the majority of commercial cinema receives nothing but ridicule and the entire industry is pilloried as specious dross(Johnson, 19872).Even scholarship in India which, at times, was dismissive of popular films as Technicolor fantasies catering to the masses. To them Bollywood movies were characterized by dance and music, melodramatic content, unstinting production procedures and over emphasis on spectacles and stars. And this is why Bollywood films have attained box-office success and raving audiences within India as also globally and not because of aesthetic excellence or on any rationality of merit.. The evolution of Bollywood Cinema with its constant interruptions of dance and song sequences is cited as a critical feature distinguishing it from other cinemas (Gopalan 2002) i t is often also cited as an hinderance to serious cinema as wellBollywood apologists complain that their movies are evaluated in the glum shadow of European cinematic forms, epistemologies and aesthetics and that in the confine of these rubrics Bollywood movies become poor imitations of art, exhibiting a total lack of realism of any sort and so remain shallow spectacles of fanatastic settings and music.ConclusionIn the latter half of the 20th century filmmakers as well as screen writers of a serious mien became frustrated with the then prevailing musical movies. They wanted to reverse this trend and take the Indian movie to a higher and saner realm. They wanted to develop an altogether new genre of movies that portrayed reality from an aesthetic perspective (Roy, 2008) and not mediocre idealist fare. The pioneering efforts of Satyajit Roy gave birth to a number of highly aesthetic and unforgettable movies from avant garde directors like Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Ben egal and Girish Kasaravalli. And while it lasted no good thing lasts for long it was a real relief from the artifice universally distributed from the gaudy sets of Bollywood.