The shocking reason why François Truffaut walked out of Satyajit Ray film ‘Pather Panchali’
The 1960s was a revolutionary decade in the history of French cinema, with the decade being taken over by New Wave artists eager to stamp their identity on the industry. The likes of Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut each contributed to a period of great creative innovation, releasing such classics as Cleo from 5 to 7, Breathless and Day for Night, respectively.
Each of these filmmakers had a significant impact on the shape of American cinema, with countless directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese being inspired by their form. Of the aforementioned trio, however, it might be the Day for Night director François Truffaut who is most recognisable in the world of mainstream cinema, largely thanks to his appearance in the 1977 science fiction classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, helmed by Steven Spielberg.
Although the director was known for some of the greatest 20th-century flicks, including The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim, and Pocket Money, Truffaut wasn’t afraid of a bit of conflict, coming to blows several times with his new wave peer, Jean-Luc Godard.
The success of Day for Night, for example, winning the award for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ at the Academy Awards, considerably rubbed Godard up the wrong way. Penning a note to Truffaut and actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, Godard wrote: “Yesterday I saw Day for Night. Probably no one else will call you a liar, so I will,” making remarks to his affair with actor Jacqueline Bisset, he added: “One wonders why the director is the only one who doesn’t screw in Day for Night.”
In response, Truffaut snapped: “I am returning your letter to Jean-Pierre Léaud: I have read it and find it disgusting. It is because of this that I feel that the time has come to tell you, at length, that in my view, you are behaving like a shit.”
Their feud didn’t even end after Truffaut passed away, with Godard stating in 1978: “I think that François absolutely doesn’t know how to make films. He made one that truly corresponded to him, and then it stopped there: afterwards, he only told stories…Truffaut is a crook who passes himself off as an honest man, which is the worst thing”.
Yet, Truffaut’s public feud with Godard wasn’t the only one which he sought to fuel, even going after the greatest Indian filmmaker of all time, Satyajit Ray.
His criticism came after he walked out of Satyajit Ray’s debut movie, 1955’s masterpiece Pather Panchali, when it was screened late at night during the Cannes Film Festival. “I don’t want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands,” Truffaut reportedly said to the press before stating that the film, which tells the story of a priest who fights for a better life for his family in rural Bengal, was “insipid”.
Although he found the film slow and meaningless after his first viewing, Truffaut saw the errors of his ways when he gave it a re-watch, later applauding Ray’s directorial style and apologising for his initial stance.
Nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes, Ray walked away with wins for ‘Best Human Document’ and the ‘OCIC Special Mention’ for Pather Panchali. His debut remains one of his most celebrated releases, kicking off the Apu trilogy, which would later be followed by Aparajito in 1956 and The World of Apu in 1959, with the iconic trio chronicling the tale of Apu, a young spirited boy who flourishes into a mature adolescent and finally an elderly man battered by the tribulations of life.
In the contemporary world, Ray is considered to be the greatest Indian filmmaker of all time, helming such classics as The Big City, The Hero and The Kingdom of Diamonds in the following decades. His legacy can be compared to some of India’s very best directors, including Raj Kapoor, Mrinal Sen, Bimal Roy and Guru Dutt.
