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Pather Panchali and the Sound of Rain on a Tin Roof

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Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray made his first film with borrowed money, an amateur cast and a cinematographer who had never shot a feature. Marama and Hemi Tāne, who ran the restored print at the cinema last month, talk about why it still fills the room.

  • The train through the kash flowers and how Ray built a whole film toward one image
  • Ravi Shankar recording the score in a single long session
  • Why the lack of conventional plot is the point, not a flaw
  • The 2015 Criterion restoration and what was lost in the original negatives
  • Spoilers begin at 22 minutes

Listener voice notes on the ending close the episode.

Transcript
Kia ora and welcome to Third Row Centre. I am Marama Whitcombe, I programme a small cinema in Wellington, and this is the film club where we watch one film a week and talk about it like we are walking home together afterwards. With me today is Hemi, who runs our projection booth and who threaded the restored print of Pather Panchali through our projector last month. It is Satyajit Ray's first film, made in 1955 in a village outside Calcutta with almost no money and a cast that had mostly never acted. Nothing much happens, and I have watched grown adults cry at the train scene. We are going to talk about why that is, and about Ravi Shankar's score, and then we will play your voice notes. Spoilers from 22 minutes. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts. Lights down.
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