The Big City
Directed by Satyajit Ray • 1963 • India
Starring Madhabi Mukherjee, Anil Chatterjee, Jaya Bhaduri
THE BIG CITY, the great Satyajit Ray’s first portrayal of contemporary life in his native Kolkata, follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family. With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working-class life, Ray builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the modern Indian woman.
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The Big City
Directed by Satyajit Ray • 1963 • India
Starring Madhabi Mukherjee, Anil Chatterjee, Jaya BhaduriTHE BIG CITY, the great Satyajit Ray’s first portrayal of contemporary life in his native Kolkata, follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), who decides, despite t...
Extras
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The Coward
Directed by Satyajit Ray • 1965 • India
Starring Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi MukherjeeSatyajit Ray explores the ache of desire in this exquisitely brief, emotionally layered chamber piece, in which Amitabha (Soumitra Chatterjee), a screenwriter from Kolkata, finds himself unexpectedly reunited...
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Madhabi Mukherjee on THE BIG CITY
The following interview with actor Madhabi Mukherjee, who plays Arati in THE BIG CITY, was conducted in Calcutta in 2013.
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Jhumpa Lahiri on THE BIG CITY
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Suranjan Ganguly on Satyajit Ray
In the following interview, conducted in 2013, Satyajit Ray scholar and author Suranjan Ganguly discusses how Ray presents women faced with the challenges of modernity in THE BIG CITY, CHARULATA, and THE COWARD.
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B. D. Garga’s SATYAJIT RAY
This short 1974 profile by B. D. Garga, one of India’s pioneering documentary filmmakers and a leading Indian film historian, features narration by director Satyajit Ray and on-set footage from the making of THE BIG CITY.
