The Music Room (1958)

 Satyajit Ray's "The Music Room"

After the failure of his 1956 film "Aparajito," Satyajit Ray desperately needed a box office success. To achieve this, he decided to adapt a popular piece of literature, the short story "Jalsaghar" by Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay. Ray's adaptation, 1958's "The Music Room" tells the story of a Bengali landlord, Biswambhar Roy, who loves to spend his days listening to music and arranging public performances, even to the detriment of his duties as landlord. A rich commoner begins to develop wealth and power through modern enterprise, which not only challenges Roy's own wealth and power, but challenges the foundations of systematic pedigree that Roy stands upon. Roy spends the rest of the film sacrificing his family jewels, his palace, and even his own family to hold tightly to his self-delusions. 

The story and themes of "The Music Room" are not hard to grasp. A wealthy landlord slowly loses his control over his continued power, as one of the members of his estate becomes entrepreneurial in this new 20th century mode of wealth accumulation. As the commoner grows in power, Roy shrinks. Visually and thematically, Ray demonstrates this through the disintegration of the palace and the continued loss of abundance around Roy. Roy wants to hold tightly to his delusions of power and he does so through putting on public performances. He becomes obsessed with his open displays of abundance. So much so that he risks his family's safety to have them come to the New Year's performance in order to upstage the commoner. After his family's death, he slowly starts to disintegrate completely.

What is completely unique and complex about the film is HOW this abundance and wealth are demonstrated. Sure, the visual story aids in this, but it is through sound that our story's true epicenter lies. The very fabric of the story and themes rests upon the interwoven intricacies of sound and music within the picture. Film critic Mary Seton noted the film "challenged the whole convention of songs and dances in India cinema. Audiences...conditioned to the introduction of songs and dances as entertainment interludes and [as] dramatic and romantic stresses, had never before been confronted with...classical singing and dancing as integral focal points of realistic sequences."  The whole film revolves around music and sound, which becomes integrated into the delusional necessity of our protagonist to hold on to whatever bit of power and stability he has. He becomes obsessed with music and sounds and feels the need to control and conduct sound itself. Which is why he becomes so displeased when he hears his tenant's electric machine pulsating from a distance. It becomes a symbol of the creeping modernity that threatens his stability through the representation of a sound beyond his control or desire.

The film itself went on to be another critical failure for Ray in India. However, globally, it amounted to great success, much to Ray's surprise. The eloquence of the film's music and sound, paired with the Renoir-esque mise-en-scene of its visual imagery captured critics globally. Many hailed "The Music Room" as Ray's best work and some even consider it a masterpiece.