Apur Sansar
Encyclopedia
Apur Sansar also known as The World of Apu, is a Bengali film
directed by Satyajit Ray
. It is the third part of The Apu Trilogy, about the childhood and early adulthood of a young Bengali
named Apu in the early twentieth century Indian subcontinent
. The film is based on the last two-thirds of the 1932 Bengali novel
, Aparajito
, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay
.
Released in 1959, The World of Apu focuses on Apu's adult life, and also introduces the actors Soumitra Chatterjee
and Sharmila Tagore
, who would go on to appear in many subsequent Ray films. The film won the National Film Award for Best Film
and several international awards, including the Sutherland Award for Best Original And Imaginative Film
and National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film
. The World of Apu has been influential across the world and is frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.
) is an unemployed graduate living in a rented room in Calcutta. Despite his teacher's advice to go to University, he is unable to do so because he can't afford it. He tries to find a job, while barely getting by providing private tuition. His main passion is writing a novel, partially based on his own life, hoping to get it published some day. One day he meets his old friend Pulu, who coaxes him to join him on a trip to his village in Khulna
to attend the marriage of a cousin named Aparna (Sharmila Tagore
).
On the day of the marriage it turns out that the bridegroom has a serious mental disorder. The bride's mother cancels the marriage, despite the father's protests. He and the other villagers believe, according to prevalent Hindu tradition, that the young bride must be wedded off during the previously appointed auspicious hour, otherwise, she will have to remain unmarried all her life. Apu, after initially refusing when requested by a few villagers, ultimately decides to take Pulu's advice and come to the rescue of the bride by agreeing to marry her. He returns with Aparna to his apartment in Calcutta after the wedding. He takes up a clerical job, and a loving relationship begins to bloom between them. Yet the young couple's blissful days are cut short when Aparna dies while giving birth
to their son, Kajal. Apu is overcome with grief and holds the child responsible for his wife's death.
He shuns his worldly responsibilities and becomes a recluse – travelling to different corners of India
, while the child is left with his maternal grandparents. Meanwhile, Apu throws away his manuscript for the novel he had been writing over the years. A few years later, Pulu finds Kajal growing wild and uncared for. He then seeks out Apu, who is working at a mining quarry and advises Apu one last time to take up his fatherly responsibility. At last, Apu decides to come back to reality and reunite with his son. When he reaches his in-laws' place, Kajal, having seen him for the first time in his life, at first does not accept him as a father. Eventually he accepts Apu as a friend and they return to Calcutta together to start life afresh.
)
National Film Awards
(India)
British Film Institute Awards
(London Film Festival
)
14th Edinburgh International Film Festival
National Board of Review Awards
(United States)
British Academy Film Awards
(United Kingdom)
, The World of Apu has a 100% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 16 reviews. In 1992, Sight & Sound
(the British Film Institute
's film magazine) ranked The Apu Trilogy at #88 in its Critics' Poll list of all-time greatest films. In 2002, a combined list of Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll results ranked The World of Apu at #93 in the list. In 1998, the Asian film
magazine Cinemaya
s critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked The Apu Trilogy at #7 on the list. In 1999, The Village Voice
ranked The Apu Trilogy at #54 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics. The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film
at the 32nd Academy Awards
, but was not accepted as a nominee.
In 1996, The World of Apu was included in Movieline Magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films". In 2001, film critic Roger Ebert
included The Apu Trilogy in his list of "100 Great Movies" of all time. In 2002, The World of Apu featured in "The New York Times
Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was included in Time magazine
's All-Time 100 best movies list.
The World of Apu has been influential across the world. In Gregory Nava
's 1995 film My Family
, the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of Apur Sansar. The film's influence can also be seen in famous works such as Martin Scorsese
's 1976 New Hollywood
film Taxi Driver
, several Philip Kaufman
films, and Key
's 2004 Japanese visual novel
Clannad. References to The World of Apu are also found in several films by European filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard
, and in Paul Auster
's 2008 novel Man in the Dark
where two characters have a discussion about the film.
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...
directed by Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
. It is the third part of The Apu Trilogy, about the childhood and early adulthood of a young Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
named Apu in the early twentieth century Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. The film is based on the last two-thirds of the 1932 Bengali novel
Bengali novels
Bengali novels occupy a major part of Bengali literature. Though the first Bengali novel was "Karuna O Phulmonir Bibaran", the Bengali novel actually started its journey with Durgeshnondini written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1865...
, Aparajito
Aparajito
Aparajito is a 1956 Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is adapted from the last one-fifth of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Pather Panchali and the first one-third of its sequel Aparajito. It focuses on the life of Apu from childhood to college...
, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay
Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay was one of the most famous Bengali novelist and writer of modern Bengali literature...
.
Released in 1959, The World of Apu focuses on Apu's adult life, and also introduces the actors Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.-Background:Soumitra graduated from...
and Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...
, who would go on to appear in many subsequent Ray films. The film won the National Film Award for Best Film
National Film Award for Best Film
The National Award for Best Feature film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, India, and was constituted in the year 1954. This is one of the Golden Lotus Awards given among National Film Awards...
and several international awards, including the Sutherland Award for Best Original And Imaginative Film
Sutherland Trophy
Created in 1958, the Sutherland Trophy was awarded annually by the British Film Institute to "the maker of the most original and imaginative [first or second feature] film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year"...
and National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film
National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the annual awards given by the National Board of Review.Note: This list is incomplete.-1930s:-1940s:-1950s:-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
. The World of Apu has been influential across the world and is frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.
Plot
A large part of the story unfolds in Calcutta. Apu Roy (Soumitra ChatterjeeSoumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.-Background:Soumitra graduated from...
) is an unemployed graduate living in a rented room in Calcutta. Despite his teacher's advice to go to University, he is unable to do so because he can't afford it. He tries to find a job, while barely getting by providing private tuition. His main passion is writing a novel, partially based on his own life, hoping to get it published some day. One day he meets his old friend Pulu, who coaxes him to join him on a trip to his village in Khulna
Khulna
Khulna is the third largest city in Bangladesh. It is located on the banks of the Rupsha and Bhairab rivers in Khulna District. It is the divisional headquarters of Khulna Division and a major industrial and commercial center. It has a seaport named Mongla on its outskirts, 38 km from Khulna...
to attend the marriage of a cousin named Aparna (Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...
).
On the day of the marriage it turns out that the bridegroom has a serious mental disorder. The bride's mother cancels the marriage, despite the father's protests. He and the other villagers believe, according to prevalent Hindu tradition, that the young bride must be wedded off during the previously appointed auspicious hour, otherwise, she will have to remain unmarried all her life. Apu, after initially refusing when requested by a few villagers, ultimately decides to take Pulu's advice and come to the rescue of the bride by agreeing to marry her. He returns with Aparna to his apartment in Calcutta after the wedding. He takes up a clerical job, and a loving relationship begins to bloom between them. Yet the young couple's blissful days are cut short when Aparna dies while giving birth
Maternal mortality in fiction
Maternal death in fiction is a common theme encountered in literature, movies, and other media.The death of a mother during pregnancy, childbirth or puerperium is a tragic event. The chances of a surviving child to survive are compromised...
to their son, Kajal. Apu is overcome with grief and holds the child responsible for his wife's death.
He shuns his worldly responsibilities and becomes a recluse – travelling to different corners of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, while the child is left with his maternal grandparents. Meanwhile, Apu throws away his manuscript for the novel he had been writing over the years. A few years later, Pulu finds Kajal growing wild and uncared for. He then seeks out Apu, who is working at a mining quarry and advises Apu one last time to take up his fatherly responsibility. At last, Apu decides to come back to reality and reunite with his son. When he reaches his in-laws' place, Kajal, having seen him for the first time in his life, at first does not accept him as a father. Eventually he accepts Apu as a friend and they return to Calcutta together to start life afresh.
Cast
- Soumitra ChatterjeeSoumitra ChatterjeeSoumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.-Background:Soumitra graduated from...
as Apu - Sharmila TagoreSharmila TagoreSharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...
as Aparna, Apu's wife - Alok Chakravarty as Kajal
- Swapan Mukherjee as Pulu
Awards
President's Medals (New DelhiNew Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
)
- Winner – 1959 – President's Gold Medal http://www.satyajitray.org/films/apursan.htm
National Film Awards
National Film Awards
The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it is administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorate of Film Festivals since 1973.Every year, a national panel...
(India)
- Winner – 1960 – Best FilmNational Film Award for Best FilmThe National Award for Best Feature film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, India, and was constituted in the year 1954. This is one of the Golden Lotus Awards given among National Film Awards...
British Film Institute Awards
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
(London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
)
- Winner – 1960 – Sutherland Award for Best Original And Imaginative FilmSutherland TrophyCreated in 1958, the Sutherland Trophy was awarded annually by the British Film Institute to "the maker of the most original and imaginative [first or second feature] film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year"...
14th Edinburgh International Film Festival
Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...
- Winner – 1960 – Diploma Of Merit
National Board of Review Awards
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 in New York City, just 13 years after the birth of cinema, to protest New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.'s revocation of moving-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve 1908. The mayor believed that the new medium...
(United States)
- Winner – 1960National Board of Review Awards 1960- Top Ten Films :#Sons and Lovers#The Alamo#The Sundowners#Inherit the Wind#Sunrise at Campobello#Elmer Gantry#Home from the Hill#The Apartment#Wild River#The Dark at the Top of the Stairs- Top foreign Films :...
– Best Foreign FilmNational Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the annual awards given by the National Board of Review.Note: This list is incomplete.-1930s:-1940s:-1950s:-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
http://www.satyajitray.org/films/apursan.htm
British Academy Film Awards
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
(United Kingdom)
- Nominated – 196215th British Academy Film AwardsThe 15th British Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1962, honoured the best films of 1961.-Best Film: The Hustler Ballad of a Soldier *Apur Sansar*The Innocents...
– BAFTA Award for Best FilmBAFTA Award for Best FilmThis page lists the winners and nominees for the BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film for each year, in addition to the retired earlier versions of those awards...
Reception and legacy
At Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, The World of Apu has a 100% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 16 reviews. In 1992, Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
(the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's film magazine) ranked The Apu Trilogy at #88 in its Critics' Poll list of all-time greatest films. In 2002, a combined list of Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll results ranked The World of Apu at #93 in the list. In 1998, the Asian film
Asian cinema
Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...
magazine Cinemaya
Cinemaya
Cinemaya is an influential film magazine established in 1988 devoted exclusively to coverage of Asian film. It is published in New Delhi, India and distributed internationally. The present editor-in-chief of Cinemaya is Aruna Vasudev, noted film journalist...
s critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked The Apu Trilogy at #7 on the list. In 1999, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
ranked The Apu Trilogy at #54 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics. The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
at the 32nd Academy Awards
32nd Academy Awards
The 32nd Academy Awards honored film achievements of 1959 on 4 April 1960.MGM's and director William Wyler's three and a half-hour long epic drama Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars in 1959, breaking the previous year's all-time record of nine...
, but was not accepted as a nominee.
In 1996, The World of Apu was included in Movieline Magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films". In 2001, film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
included The Apu Trilogy in his list of "100 Great Movies" of all time. In 2002, The World of Apu featured in "The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was included in Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
's All-Time 100 best movies list.
The World of Apu has been influential across the world. In Gregory Nava
Gregory Nava
Gregory Nava is a film director, producer and screenplay writer, of Mexican and Basque heritage.-Education:...
's 1995 film My Family
My Family (film)
My Family is an American drama film directed by Gregory Nava and written by Nava and Anna Thomas. The motion picture stars Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, and others. It also features Jennifer Lopez in her second film role....
, the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of Apur Sansar. The film's influence can also be seen in famous works such as Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's 1976 New Hollywood
New Hollywood
New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the "American New Wave", refers to the time from roughly the late-1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, influencing the types of films produced, their production and...
film Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
, several Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
films, and Key
Key (company)
Key is a Japanese visual novel studio which formed on July 21, 1998 as a brand under the publisher Visual Art's and is located in Kita, Osaka, Japan. Key released their debut visual novel Kanon in June 1999, which combined an elaborate storyline, an up-to-date anime-style drawing style, and a...
's 2004 Japanese visual novel
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
Clannad. References to The World of Apu are also found in several films by European filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, and in Paul Auster
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
's 2008 novel Man in the Dark
Man in the Dark (novel)
Man in the Dark is a novel by Paul Auster published in August 2008. Its topic is a dystopian scenario of the present-day USA being torn apart by a new secession and civil war after the presidential elections of 2000...
where two characters have a discussion about the film.
See also
- The Apu Trilogy
- Satyajit RaySatyajit RaySatyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
- Bengali cinemaBengali cinemaBengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...
- Cinema of West BengalCinema of West BengalThe cinema of West Bengal refers to the Tollygunge-based Bengali film industry in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932...
- Cinema of West Bengal
- Cinema of IndiaCinema of IndiaThe cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
- Parallel CinemaParallel CinemaThe Indian New Wave, commonly known in India as Art Cinema or Parallel Cinema as an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema, is a specific movement in Indian cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times...
- Parallel Cinema
- Writer's blockWriter's blockWriter's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
- List of submissions to the 32nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of Indian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
External links
- Apur Sansar at SatyajitRay.org