Daily Archives: March 29, 2017

The Goddess (Devi)
Directed by Satyajit Ray
Written by Satyajit Ray; story by Prabhat Kumar Mukherjee
1960/India
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle. Naomi Wolf [/box]

I’m still pondering the meaning of this beautiful but strange film.

Doyamoyee and Umaprasad (played by Shamila Tagore and Soumitra Chaterjee of Apu Sansar) have been married three years and still seem like newlyweds.  They live with his father (Chhabi Biswas, The Music Room), a wealthy devotee of Kali, Hindu goddess of destruction, creation, time and power.  Umaprasad is a Christian.  Doyamoyee is apparently Hindu. Umaprasad’s married brother also lives at home.  His small son is devoted to his aunt.

Umaprasad must return to Calcutta to study for his English exams which will complete his education.  They discuss moving away, perhaps abroad, after he passes.  Neither know how Umaprasad’s father will live without his daughter-in-law.

While Umaprasad is away, his father has a dream that Doyamoyee is the incarnation of Kali.  He begins to host devotions to Doyamoyee as if she were the goddess, to which the confused young woman passively assents.  The poor begin to show up with their ailing relatives seeking cures.  Umaprasad rushes home.  I don’t want to spoil the rest of the plot.

I thought Ray left it to the audience’s imagination as to what many of the characters actually believed as to the divinity of the wife.  The very ending also seemed ambiguous to me as well.  I watched the ending twice and still could not make up my own mind.  If anyone has seen this film, I would love to discuss it.  As always with Ray, the imagery is very striking.  The print available on FilmStruck didn’t do it justice.  Recommended to lovers of religious/psychological mysteries.

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Sunrise at Campobello
Directed by Vincent J. Donehue
Written by Dore Schary
1960/USA
Dore Schary Productions
First viewing/YouTube rental

[box] Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Caution, my friend, is the refuge of cowards.[/box]

Ralph Bellamy is fantastic in this solid bio-pic about FDR’s battle with polio.

It is 1921.  Franklin (Bellamy) and Eleanor Roosevelt (Greer Garson) are enjoying an idyllic summer vacation with their five children on Campobello island.  Franklin feels a bit puny. By morning he cannot walk.  His close friend and political advisor Louis Howe (Hume Cronyn) comes to help out while the doctors puzzle over his condition.  Soon enough, infantile paralysis (polio) is diagnosed.  FDR’s prognosis is uncertain.  Howe and Eleanor nurse him tenderly

Before long, things are complicated enormously by the arrival of Franklin’s mother Sarah, who is the very definition of a stubborn, “difficult” person.  Sarah detests the asthmatic Howe, whom she constantly refers to as a “vulgar little man” and so, in truth, do most of FDR’s children.  It is Howe, however, that gives FDR the will to carry on by holding out the carrot of a political future.  Sarah would rather have him retire permanently to the family home at Hyde Park.

Eleanor is the “heart” of the family and gives FDR loving support.  She becomes a political asset when she reluctantly takes over speech-making duties.  The rest of the film follows FDR’s efforts to recover leading up to the 20 steps he must take to reach the platform where he is to deliver the Democratic Convention speech nominating Al Smith.  The rest is history.  With Jean Hagen as FDR’s secretary.

Garson snagged the Oscar nomination but a dental prosthesis was not sufficient to make the gorgeous redhead resemble Eleanor Roosevelt in the slightest and her speech patterns also seemed off.  Bellamy on the other hand is absolutely believable and was robbed at Oscar time.  Hume Cronyn is fantastic as well.  Recommended if the subject matter appeals.

Sunrise at Campobello was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; and Best Sound.

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