The ‘Translated’ Cityscape: A Study of Select Satyajit Ray Films

Abstract

The present paper attempts to examine the ‘translated’ nature of the cityscapes in Satyajit Ray’s films. With a select reading of films like ‘Mahanagar’ (lit. The Big City, 1963) and ‘Pratidwandi’ (The Adversary also called Siddhartha and the City, 1970), I argue for the ways in which the city becomes a space of contestation, debate, negotiation and translation between clashing ideologies of the old and the new, the rural and the urban, the ancient and the modern. Ray’s films have been studied from several perspectives, in terms of thematic, stylistic and ideological development. However, it seems to me that the city and its ‘translational’ aspect have not received enough attention. The present paper proposes to understand the role the city plays in Ray’s cinema. As an avant garde film maker, Ray’s cinema is replete with moments of conflicting ideologies, transitions and crossovers. It seems to me that the city provides the base for several such negotiations and intersections in Ray. Using certain recent developments in Translation Studies, I propose to read episodes in select Ray films as indicative of a larger ideological and cultural shift necessitated and made possible by/in the new space of the city. As a translating and translated space, the city’s agency enables other changes and transformations which would not have been possible in the absence of this primary actor – the city. The present paper is an attempt to look at several such moments of intersections and translations that Ray’s films make available to us. 1 An earlier version of this article was presented at the17th International MELOW Conference on ‘Space, Place and Language in Literatures of the World’, Dharamshala, 9-11th, March, 2018. I am grateful to the questions and discussion from the audience and conference participants which helped me rethink some ideas presented here.