SATYAJIT RAY
Master director Satyajit Ray had a 'deep respect' for women and portrayed them as having more moral strength than men in various roles that extended beyond their stereotypes as domestic machines, according to the actresses who appeared as leading ladies in his films.
Sharmila Tagore, Madhabi Mukherjee and Aparna Sen recall with nostalgia their experiences of working with Ray.
“He had a deep respect for women. He had told me once that probably because women were not equal to men in terms of physical prowess that they are much powerful when it comes to moral strength and his female characters show that,” said Aparna Sen who debuted as an actress in Ray's 1961 film "Teen Kanya" based on three short stories by Rabindranath Tagore. Sen played Mrinmoyee in the story “Samapti”.
Agreed veteran actress Sharmila Tagore who also started her celluloid journey with "Apur Sansar", the final film of Ray's Apu Trilogy, in 1959 at the age of thirteen.
“He had the director's gaze… that's what made him famous. He did a variety of films spanning different eras and showed what women could do during that period, in the given situation and according to the time. He was true to the time,” said Sharmila Tagore.
After “Apur Sansar”, Ray had cast Tagore as “Dayamoyee” in Devi, before she went on to become a very successful actress in Hindi films. She returned to work in later Ray films - "Nayak"," Aranyer Din Ratri "and "Seemabaddha". Sharmila Tagore is the only woman to have acted in the highest number of films—five—by Ray.
Tagore said she would never have become a film actor but for Ray as she did not want to be one.
“It was he who introduced me to cinema. He found me in front of my school and he changed my life. He introduced me to this wonderful world and I am sitting and talking with you,” said Tagore.
Aparna Sen echoed Tagore and said “without Ray, I wouldn't be me”. As Ray's wife Bijoya tells us in her book “Manik and I”, it was due to her prodding that the director turned his attention to Aparna Sen, then just a school student, and chose her for “Sampati”.
According Madhabi Mukherjee, best known for the title role in "Charulata", considered the best by Ray, “There was this idea that women belonged to the kitchen, But Ray brought them out from there. His films gave an idea about what should be done about the problems they faced in society,” said Mukherjee who played the powerful role in “Mahanagar” (1963) of a housewife who takes up a job and sustains her entire family particularly after her husband (played by Anil Chatterjee) loses his job following the collapse of a private bank in Kolkata.
It was Madhabi Mukherjee's performance in “Mahanagar” that prompted Ray to rope her in for “Charulata”, says Ray's wife Bijoya in her book.
According to Mukherjee, Ray's films stressed visual content allowing the audience to watching the story unfold rather than being served up with dialogues.
Sharmila Tagore, who called Ray a mentor, said his films are 'contemporary' and relevant even today across the world.
"Wherever I go--be it Paris or Los Angeles--I see people enjoying his films."
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