In 1942, Ray returned to Calcutta, where he spent the next ten years as layout artist and art director for a British-run advertising agency. In his spare time he wrote film scenarios, among them an adaptation of Tagore's novel, Ghare-Baire, which producers rejected when Ray refused to make changes. With India's independence in 1947, Ray co-founded Calcutta's first film society with Chidananda Das Gupta and wrote articles calling for a new cinema.
His reputation as a graphic artist brought offers to illustrate books, including an abridged edition of Bibhuti Bhusan Banerjee's classic novel, Pather Panchali, in 1946. After an influential encounter with Jean Renoir in Calcutta in 1949 and a business trip to London in 1950, where he saw Vittorio De Sica's THE BICYCLE THIEF (1949), Ray set out to script and direct Pather Panchali. The film, shot on location on weekends, failed to attract backers and could not be completed until a request from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to include it in their Indian art exhibit led the West Bengal government -- in an unprecedented move -- to provide funds.
PATHER PANCHALI / SONG OF THE ROAD (1955) won several international awards and established Ray as a world-class director, as well as being a box-office hit at home. Artistic and financial success gave Ray total control over his subsequent films; in his numerous functions -- writer, director, casting director, composer (since 1961) and cinematographer (since 1963) -- he was able to continue Tagore's example in theater of welding the arts into a unified entity. Two sequels also based on the novel (APARAJITO, 1956, THE WORLD OF APU, 1959) completed the acclaimed Apu trilogy, whose slow-paced realism broke with the song-and-dance melodramas of Indian cinema. Using long takes and reaction shots, slow camera movements, and -- in KANCHANJANGHA (1962) -- real-time narrative, Ray allows the meticulous accumulation of details to reveal the inner lives and humanity of diverse Bengali characters.
In 1961, Ray revived Sandesh, a children's magazine founded by his grandfather, and he continued to contribute illustrations, verses and stories. From 1969, he also made four popular children's films which contain an unobtrusive yet distinct political awareness. Earlier in his career, Ray was criticized by Indian critics for failing to deal with Calcutta's immediate social problems. And although he defended his humanist (versus ideological) approach, THE ADVERSARY (1971) / PRATIDWANDI, signaled a shift toward political themes. In the 1970s, Ray's films acquired a bitter tone and deviated from his usual classical style, with the abrupt use of montage, including jump cuts and flashbacks.
Ray's GHARE-BAIRE / THE HOME AND THE WORLD (1984) was a return to his first screen adaptation. While shooting, he suffered two heart attacks and his son, Sandip, completed the project from his father's detailed instructions. Ray continued to be a prolific writer, having finished 13 half-hour TV screenplays to be directed by Sandip, and returned to directing in 1989 with GANASHATRU / ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. His last directing projects were SHAKHA PROSHAKHA / THE BRANCHES OF THE TREE (1990, also screenplay), AGANTUK / THE VISITOR (1991, also screenplay & story), and BAKSHA RAHASYA, finished in 1996 after his death.
Honorary Award 1991: "For his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures, and for his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world." Winner presented Statuette.
1 Honorary Award