Satyajit Ray is known not only in India but also a Best Movie Directors of the world. Many top directors like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese and millions of cinema lovers around the world are fans of Satyajit Ray’s films and their direction. Satyajit Ray directed a total of 36 films.
Pather Panchali was Satyajit Ray’s first film to win 11 International Awards. This classic film has become a part of every educational course related to cinema and is considered a masterpiece of cinema history.
You may know all these things, but do you know that in 1967, Satyajit Ray not only tried to make a film The Alien but also worked hard. Seeing the lack of proper resources in India at that time, Satyajit Ray wanted to make this film with the help of Hollywood.
The script of this film was written by Satyajit Ray himself. The film was to be produced under Hollywood Studio Columbia Pictures, but this plan was never be possible.
Why did this happen? There are many rumors and stories behind this…
The script of the film was based on a story called Bankubabur Bandhu (friend of Banku Babu). This science fiction story was written by Satyajit Ray in 1962 for a Bengali magazine which became very popular. At that time, while the story of all the films related to Alien was related to the attack on the earth of Alien, Satyajit’s story was in contrast the story of friendship of Alien and a village boy.
Bankubabur Bandhu’s Story:
An alien spaceship lands in a pond in a rural area of Bengal. The villagers start worshiping him as a temple emerging from the earth. There is also an alien in the spaceship, who is named Mr. Ang in the story. Mr. Ang makes contact with a boy named Haba of the village through a dream and they become friends. In Bengali, the word Haba means dim intelligence. This alien also does many mischief with the villagers during their short stay on earth. The other main characters of the story were an Indian businessman, a journalist from Calcutta and an American engineer.
The main characters of the film were Hollywood’s top actors at that time, Marlon Brando, Peter Sellers and James Kubarn. When Satyajit Ray reached Hollywood to make this film, he met producer Mike Wilson who showed great interest in this story and asked Satyajit to write the film Script. Problem started when the film’s script was copyrighted by Mike Wilson in the name of himself and Satyajit Ray.
Wilson was also named as a contributor in the copyright rights, but a few days later, when Satyajit Ray went to Hollywood, he found out that Wilson had distributed copies of his script at various places. Perhaps Wilson’s idea was to direct this story to an American director. Wilson violated copyright and cheated Satyajit Ray. Satyajit understood that his dream would no longer be fulfilled.
In 1982, when Steven Spielberg’s film Extra-Terrestrial was released, many Hollywood people, including Satyajit Ray, noticed that Satyajit Ray’s film The Alien and The Extra-Terrestrial script had many similarities.
Although Steven Spielberg has always denied this, in 2010 top Hollywood director Martin Scorsese also openly stated that Steven’s film was inspired by the script of Satyajit.
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