Abstract
Satyajit Ray remains one of India’s remarkable film-makers that ushered in films with multi-faceted dimensions and themes. In Ray, India unearthed an artist who created films that were a confluence of European and Indian aesthetic sensibilities. Realistic in approach, his films serve as an apparatus that fused the different elements to drive home a plethora of significations. This paper makes a deconstructive analysis of the film Pather Panchali, the first of the Apu Trilogy that won Ray international acclaim. On the one hand lies the Promethean theme and on the other the theme of social change. Neither recognizing the hierarchy nor looking for a possible prioritization of the theme, has this paper attempted to arrive at a plausible interpretation that would draw the essence of the film.
John W. Hood, a scholar of Indian art cinema and a translator of Bengali literature, in the preface to Beyond the World of Apu: The Films of Satyajit Ray ridicules the “Bengali Bhadrolok” (Bengali “gentlemen”) who consider themselves “pillars of culture and thinkers of India,” and who, in spite of being a Bengali, “would know far more Bombay commercial films than films of Satyajit Ray, and yet be quick to defend him as one of their cultural giants” (2). Absolute film auteurs as Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Kitchcock, Howard Hawks, Jean Renoir, and Satyajit Ray who have questioned, challenged, and pursued unknown paths are exemplary in their outlook on the need to provide a wider dimension to the art of film-making.
Ray’s films are the product of a fusion of the British colonial intrusion and the European rationalism and values that formed an inevitable part of his consciousness. Ashis Nandy observes this personality as a “bi-cultural component” partly due to his cultural heritage, and partly due to his upbringing (241). In general, Ray tended to avoid melodramatic and sentimental approaches when dealing with these delicate issues.
In Pather Panchali, Ray introduced the neo-realist tradition of using non-actors and actually shooting on location while using an unadorned style of photography. The details of speech, behavior, habits, customs, rituals, substantiated the very simple structure and the narrative line. Pather Panchali is an adaptation of an eponymous semi-autobiographical Bengali novel by noted Bengali writer Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.
The Promethean Theme and Social Change
The focus, if one could say, of Pather Panchali, is man’s struggle as he moves forward in search of something better by overcoming or ignoring the upheavals including the untimely death of dear ones. Man never surrenders to fate. Quoting Eric Rhode on Satyajit Ray, “The director posed the question, in what way can man control the world and what is the price he must pay for trying to do so?…This …is the Promethean theme” (134). Pather Panchali is the first film of The Apu Trilogy, the others being Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959).
At the centre of Pather Panchali lie two elements — the Promethean theme and suggestion for social change. Instead of a single of being or ‘essence’ one finds a division, a sort of difference, an inherent plurality in the structure of the centre of the film, which neither individual readers nor film critics generally neglect. This practice helps Derrida to introduce his theory of deconstruction.
Deconstructing the Binary Hierarchies
The Promethean theme/strong suggestions for social change form the core elements of the central thematic structure of Pather Panchali that cannot be hierarchised. This notion of hierarchisation and “violent hierarchy” form the core of the Derridian concept of deconstruction. Derrida elaborately exemplifies this notion of “violent hierarchy” with speech/writing. To him writing a species of speech and writing is a contaminated form of speech. Speech is original, pure and the bearer of the presence whereas writing lacking presence, is repeatable without its original context, the writer and the intended readers.
The structure of the centre being hierarchised with the Promethean theme or suggestions for social change in rural Bengal, the reversal of the hierarchy been deployed, the effort is to identify further hierarchies that suffer reversal. Other elements in the core or centre of Pather Panchali are for instance, poetry (the lyrical quality of the film) or poverty in this film.
Film as Discourse
Film today is considered as discourse which means that the structure of the film is in the form of a structure of discourse. The absence of the transcendental signified hence extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely. As a result, Pather Panchali is devoid of a unique center.
The film blends a harmonious play of cinematic images and sounds. For instance, in the death sequence of Durga, a random substitution of signs is seen. The cyclonic wind as envisaged in the interior of Harihar’s poor house, the shaking of the idol of Ganesha, the outburst of wind through the window and Sarbojaya’s panic-stricken movements are some of the substituting signs.
The Motif of the Train
The motif of the train in Pather Panchali completes its process of signification throughout The Apu Trilogy. Once the train is presented in its full appearance, Apu and Durga wonder at its motion in the middle of the field. The presence of the train could suggest the progressive way of civilization, social transformation and the emergence of industrialization responsible for the changing texture of the future society in Bengal and much more. Tracing of the moments of the passing of the train suggests the interplay of Derridian presence/absence or Saussurian relational identity of signs.
Differance, the key word in Derridian deconstruction means both ‘to differ’ and ‘to defer’. Derrida also uses the word spacing or espacement in a language which signifies the absence of something or the presence of absence in the formation of meanings. Such paradoxes of signification and the role of differance prepare the reader for further exploration in films with the process of prolific tracing of the signs potentially inherent in it.
Ray’s films abound in themes that are either socially or politically committed, yet he denies the artist’s onus for such a responsibility. In the concluding part of the essay “What is wrong with Indian Films?” Ray neatly summarises that “The raw material of the cinema is life itself. It is incredible that a country which has inspired so much painting and music and poetry should fail to move the film maker. He has only to keep his eyes open and his ears. Let him do so” (24). The true mark of a genius as Ray lies in his ability to open the doors for divergent thinking through a medium that remains open in itself.
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