‘It Is The Kind Of Cinema That…’: What Akira Kurosawa Said After Watching Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray 99th birth anniversary: The legendary filmmaker was born on May 2, 1991.

Akira Kurosawa (left) and Satyajit Ray

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Satyajit Ray birth anniversary: It has been more than six decades since Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali was released. The film based on a story by noted Bengali author Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay had changed the way Indian cinema was viewed by the world audience.

It was Pather Panchali that marked the debut of Ray, who went on to become one of the most proclaimed filmmakers India ever produced.

The legend that was born with the 1955 film would be celebrating his 99th birthday on Monday, May 2, if he were alive.  

Nothing Irrelevant Or Haphazard In Ray’s Cinematographic Technique: Kurosawa 

Pather Panchali went on to win 11 international awards, and is still considered a masterpiece. 

While the film, its plot, narration and cinematography got rave reviews across the world, legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa possibly had the most generous words.  

“The quiet but deep observation, understanding and love of the human race, which are characteristic of all his films, have impressed me greatly. … I feel that he is a “giant” of the movie industry…Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon,” Kurosawa had said in Moscow in 1975, according to satyajitray.org, a website dedicated to the Indian filmmaker.

“I can never forget the excitement in my mind after seeing it (Pather Panchali). It is the kind of cinema that flows with the serenity and nobility of a big river,” Kurosawa said, as reported by Ekshan film magazine in 1987. 

He also said Ray’s cinematographic technique had nothing “irrelevant or haphazard”, and that was the “secret of its excellence”.

“People are born, live out their lives, and then accept their deaths. Without the least effort and without any sudden jerks, Ray paints his picture, but its effect on the audience is to stir up deep passions. How does he achieve this? There is nothing irrelevant or haphazard in his cinematographic technique. In that lies the secret of its excellence,” Kurosawa said about Ray.

In 1992, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences conferred the Honorary Oscar Award on Ray, which he could not collect in person due to ill health.

“In recognition of his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures, and of his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world,” the citation read, according to the website mentioned above.