Jalsaghar

Infobox_Film
name =Jalsaghar (The Music Room)


imdb_id = 0051792
director =Satyajit Ray
producer =
music = Vilayat Khan
writer =Satyajit Ray, from a story by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay
starring =Chhabi Biswas,
Padma Devi,
Pinaki Sengupta,
Gangapada Basu,
Kali Sarkar, Ustad Bismillah Khan
distributor =Edward Harrison
original_music =Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar (score) ; various other musicians
released =1958
runtime =100 min
language =Bengali
budget =
awards =Nomination for Grand Prix at Moscow International Film Festival

"Jalsaghar" ( _bn. জলসাঘর) was released in 1958, sometimes released in the English-speaking world as "Jalsaghar: The Music Room", is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. Based on a novel of the same name by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, the film is a detailed dramatic study of the last days of a "zamindar" - a semi-feudal landlord in Bengal. Told with a detail and sense of empathy that typify Ray's films, "Jalsaghar" drew high praise internationally (e.g. Bosley Crowther in "The New York Times", Derek Malcolm in "The Guardian"), and is discussed in the second volume of Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" as a landmark film in global cinema.

The film features much excellent footage of Hindustani classical vocal and instrumental music, as well as classical dance. The musical score is by Vilayat Khan (although the credits for the Sony Pictures Classics video release mistakenly list Ravi Shankar as composer) and several major performers, including Begum Akhtar (first singer; sometimes credited as Akhtari Bai), Roshan Kumari ("kathak" dancer), Ustad Bismillah Khan and Company, Waheed Khan ("surbahar" player), and Salamat Ali Khan (second, "khyal" singer; sometimes credited as Salamat Khan) also appear in the film.

ources

*Roger Ebert: "The Great Movies II", 2005, Broadway Books.
*Andrew Robinson: "Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye", 2nd Ed., 2004, I.B. Tauris Books.

External links

* [http://www.satyajitray.org/films/jalsagh.htm Jalsaghar (SatyajitRay.org)]