Patreon update #46 (Fire Walk With Me in season 3, Pyaasa & more) and preview of Renee/Jade/Knox character studies

I planned to have a big "Other Topics" section this week covering the midterms, lots of podcast recommendations, and some random subjects that came up recently on Twitter or elsewhere, followed by more listener feedback next week. However, each of those efforts have been pushed back a week because my "Twin Peaks Reflections" and "Opening the Archive" segments are both longer than usual. For the first, I delve into my recent piece on Fire Walk With Me mofits in The Return; for the second, I revisit a 2013 review of an Indian film that has just been added to MUBI. See you next week - before Thanksgiving - for a 90th anniversary film in focus!

Twin Peaks characters: Renee, Jade, and Knox (November "See the Future" Preview #1 - 2nd tier reward)

Episode 45: (Fire Walk With Me in Season 3, Pyaasa & more)

Line-up for Episode 45

INTRO

WEEKLY UPDATE/recent posts: Twin Peaks: The Return & Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

WEEKLY UPDATE/Patreon: 2nd tier biweekly preview - Renee/Jade/Knox

WEEKLY UPDATE/work in progress: Lady Bird review, Cinepoem, picture galleries

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: Fire Walk With Me in season 3

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: Pyaasa

OUTRO

BECOME A PATRON

The Favorites - The Apu Trilogy (#67)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. The Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, The World of Apu/1955-1959/India/dir. Satyajit Ray) appeared at #67 on my original list.

What it is • The Apu trilogy begins and ends in the countryside, but between the opening verdant village and the final wide-open path, the story contains multitudes. The first film shows a difficult rural life through the joyous, impressionable eyes of a little boy (Subar Bannerjee); the second film uproots the growing child (Pinaki Sengupta and Smaran Ghosal) and his family as he works, gets an education, and experiences hardship; and the third film takes the young man (Soumitra Chatterjee) into adulthood, offering greater rewards and even greater challenges as he finds his way in the world. Rare for films on my list, this entry actually covers several works rather than just one, some of which were released before others had even been conceived with the entire process of creation taking about a decade. As such, the trilogy reflects not only the growth of its characters but of its filmmaker. Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray's debut picture, was a very faithful adaptation of a classic novel. It was crafted almost entirely outside the prodigious Indian studio system on a shoestring budget, with long gaps during shooting when money ran out. Many of the actors were nonprofessionals, or had theatrical but no film experience, and Ray (who worked as an assistant on Jean Renoir's The River, which appeared earlier on this list) had never directed a foot of film. Aparajito, adapted a little more loosely from that novel's follow-up, was shot partially in studios. By now Ray had received international acclaim for the first film but was still finding his way. By the time he concluded the saga with The World of Apu he was departing more radically from the source material, and his filmmaking had taken on an exceptionally impressive, professional sheen - with a bravura sense of elaborate mise en scene replacing the charming, rugged, and poetic neorealism of the first movie.

Why I like it •

Learning to Look: Eye Contact in Satyajit Ray's The Big City (video)

Note: True Detective episode 3 will go up on Thursday. I haven't watched it yet.

My second video for Fandor went up a few weeks ago, but yesterday it was posted on the site itself. The reception so far has been very enthusiastic, which is certainly encouraging. Here is what I wrote about it:

It’s all in the eyes, and this case they belong to Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), a housewife-turned-saleswoman in Satyajit Ray‘s classic film The Big City. Her personal growth is charted through her gazes, whether they are exchanged with husband, customers, boss—or even her own reflection. Throughout The Big City, Ray uses eye contact to establishes familiarity, intimacy and shifting power dynamics; the story of the film is told through the way the characters look at one another.

And here is the video, along with a couple images...

Pyaasa

"Who are the fortunate ones who gain the love they seek?
When I asked for flowers, I was given thorns.
Who are the fortunate ones who gain the love they seek?
When I searched for happiness, I was lost in streets of sadness
When I sought songs of joy, I heard songs of sorrow.
Every torment doubled the pain of my heart
When I asked for flowers, I was given thorns.
Who were the fortunate ones who got the love they sought?
Companions came, stayed awhile, then left me all alone.
Who can spare the time to clasp the hand of a falling man?
Even my shadow eludes me as it fades away.
When I asked for flowers, I was given thorns.
Who are the fortunate ones who gain the love they seek?
If this is called living, then I'll live my life somehow.
I shall not sigh, I'll seal my lips, I'll dry my tears.
Why should I fear grief, when I have encountered it so often?
When I asked for flowers, I was given thorns.
Who are the fortunate ones who gain the love they seek?"

-Vijay (Guru Dutt), Pyaasa (1957)

I entered Pyaasa blind, knowing only that it was considered one of the classics of Indian cinema. I haven't seen any other Guru Dutt films (in fact only afterwards did I realize Dutt himself played Vijay, the poet protagonist who struggles against a hostile world) and haven't seen a great many Indian films; only recently have I been making a conscious effort to explore this rich corner of the cinematic globe. I wasn't even sure when Pyaasa was produced, only locating it in the late fifties when a young character referenced his graduation from college in 1952. The viewing experience is often enriched by such ignorance, as it certainly was here. In any case, despite many distinctly Indian touches - including, of course, the casual breaking-into-song outside of what we would consider ordinarily musical scenarios - Pyaasa's story and themes are universal, and I found its pathos in many ways more relatable than the world presented on American screens in the 21st century. Pyaasa is as moving and enchanting as ever, a powerful fusion of cinema's illusionistic and reflective tendencies. Laced with dazzling musical numbers, sumptuous sets, comedic asides, swooning romantic interludes, Pyaasa is also penetrating in its social critique, empathetically embedded in the perspective of the downtrodden, and at its heart is, well, heart: a genuine, earnest investment in what is being offered to us.