Contemporary Literary Criticism | Ray, Satyajit - Robin Wood

ROBIN WOOD

I should confront the problem … of the accessibility of Ray's films for western audiences: can we feel any confidence that we are adequately understanding, intellectually and emotionally, works which are the product of a culture very different from our own? The problem has two aspects. One is content, our intermittent sense that certain passages or details in the films may mean something more, or something different, to Indian audiences. The other is tempo: the chief explicit grumble in the West about Ray's films is that they move slowly.

The 'content' problem can easily be stood on its head: what is remarkable is how seldom in Ray's films the spectator is pulled up by any specific obstacle arising from cultural differences. Partly, this can be attributed to the fact that Ray appears to have learnt his art mainly from the western cinema….

In terms of general subject-matter, Ray's films usually deal with human fundamentals that...

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