May is the month when/in which great people are born. You do not believe me, right? Well, just check the details about dates, okay? Especially remarkable is the greatest May Day (remember the nautical language? "May Day, May Day" means saving life itself, fine?), that is, May 2. Why? Simply superb souls are born on May 2.
Yes, you guessed it right. Yours Truly, too, was born on May 2. Geniuses share May 2 as a birthday! Satyajit Ray, for instance, boasts of May 2 as his birthday. Yes, Yours Truly, too, is multi-talented. Yet the scales are indeed vastly different. Hence enough of this tomfoolery. Let us concentrate on Ray who shines bright like the summer brilliance.
Ray is truly a Renaissance figure. Reading his literary works, studying his scripts, looking at his 'set' sketches, listening to the way he designed music, the list would be endless. Honestly, each of the frames of his every film is sheer poetry on celluloid. Even his last film which was unmistakably 'drama'tic proves this point.
I can write a book each on every one of his films. In this small little blog though, today let me talk of his finesse in choosing THE perfect artist for a given role. Let me give a few examples to prove my point. Have you seen "Pather Panchali"? Even a minor character like Indir Thakuran, Durga's Pishima, comes alive because Chunibala Devi literally lived the role.
Remember the 1959 "Apur Sansar", one of the most lyrical presentations of love in Indian cinema? You cannot imagine anyone else except Sharmila Tagore as Aparna, while Ray's favourite most actor, Soumitra Chatterjee, who enters the Ray world in this film, can alone be the lovelorn Apu, upset with life itself, and yet beyond the contemporaneous Devdas iconography.
In fact, Sharmila Tagore of the bouffant variety is the best in her Ray films, and without attracting any attention to her famous dimples. As the distraught "Devi" to her 1960's 'modern' avatars in Ray's Calcutta trilogy, it is difficult to believe that this actress is the same simpering miss of Bollywood.
I suppose, that is the true talent of a great director who can locate the perfect, the ideal face which makes every character come alive in the casting stage itself. Ray, moreover, makes his actors emote so naturally that spectators can easily identify with the characters.
Madhabi Mukherjee, Utpal Dutt, Robi Ghosh could be a few of the other illustrious examples of his perfect casting. He repeated all these talented actors film after film. He had an equally devoted team in Soubrata Mitra, Soumendu Roy (cinematography), Dulal Datta (editing), while masters made music for him. No wonder, the Ray oeuvre has the shine of a glistening May morn!
Pratima@ Ray's perfect casting has a very personal connect for me. Subir Banerjee as the young Apu of "Pather Panchali" looks exactly like my brothers (Sanju more) when they were young. Aai used to love that entire sequence of Durga and Sarbojaya getting Apu ready for the school. She adored that still often used as the film advert.
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