But for Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak could well have been India's finest cinema director. Ray, at heart, was an optimist [hence the changes to the novels 'Apur Sansar' and 'Mahanagar' while scripting/filming them] and was extremely depressed with the way 'Debi' had turned out, despite being impressed enough by the story to not change it while scripting/filming it, and this led to the birth of Ray-the-writer-of-his-own-films with 'Kanchanjungha'.
Was it Ghatak's profound sense of, and belief in, his own political ideals, that has kept him from being as well-accepted as Ray to people from all the layers and strata of the society? His vision of 'act of class warfare' was quite a bleak one [he may or may not have been aware of this, but even if he did, to his credit, he refused to compromise, unlike Mrinal Sen]. Despite his brilliance, he was unable to be objective about it and keep it separate from the language of Cinema, hence an all-pervading sense of bleak gloominess and apparent lack of humour.
Contrast this with the subtle vein of humour that runs through even the weakest of Rituparno Ghosh's films. Like Ray, he too did not allow his political beliefs to influence his understanding of the language of Cinema.
Was it Ghatak's profound sense of, and belief in, his own political ideals, that has kept him from being as well-accepted as Ray to people from all the layers and strata of the society? His vision of 'act of class warfare' was quite a bleak one [he may or may not have been aware of this, but even if he did, to his credit, he refused to compromise, unlike Mrinal Sen]. Despite his brilliance, he was unable to be objective about it and keep it separate from the language of Cinema, hence an all-pervading sense of bleak gloominess and apparent lack of humour.
Contrast this with the subtle vein of humour that runs through even the weakest of Rituparno Ghosh's films. Like Ray, he too did not allow his political beliefs to influence his understanding of the language of Cinema.
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