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- MILESTONES, Page 25
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- DIED. Satyajit Ray, 70, evocative Indian filmmaker; of heart
- disease; in Calcutta. Ray's first and most celebrated films
- (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar, released between
- 1955 and 1959) constituted a trilogy that was epic in
- everything but physical scale. Ranging over almost three
- decades, embracing both village and city life in modern India
- as well as all the most basic human emotions, the works simply
- traced the growth of their protagonist, Apu, from young
- childhood to young manhood. Financed on the scrounge, shot on
- weekends by an amateur cast and crew (Ray was then an
- advertising art director), the trilogy brought its director
- worldwide acclaim. He went on to create a superb body of work
- -- including such films as Devi (1960), Charulata (1964) and
- Distant Thunder (1973) -- that eloquently portrayed a society
- devastated first by colonial oppression, then by postcolonial
- cultural confusions. From his hospital bed in Calcutta, Ray last
- month accepted an Academy Award for lifetime achievement.
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