Travails with the Alien Page 2

  These categories have existed almost ever since science fiction attained sophistication, around the early ’40s. But this genre of films has never been widely popular, except when done on a big scale with considerable fanfare—as with War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet and Disney’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Modest, imaginative films have been made alongside these, but their very scale has suggested that the makers had been aware of the risks involved.

  It seems, however, that a time has come at last when science fiction films will be looked upon as no bigger risks than, say, a “thriller”. Not only that, the genre has started attracting directors who could hardly be associated with frivolous pursuits. Truffaut and Godard in France, Joseph Losey and Stanley Kubrick in the USA are either making or have already made their first science fiction films. Kubrick’s film, called 2001: A Space Odyssey, is being shot in a British studio. I was able to watch a day’s work on it last July in the company of Arthur Clarke, astronomer, Kalinga Prize–winner and science fiction writer, who is the co-author of A Space Odyssey with Kubrick.

  The amount of research that has gone into the film is fantastic. Clarke has made sure that nothing goes into the film that is not scientifically accurate. Thousands of sketches, plans and diagrams of space suits, rockets, moon buses and satellite stations fill the shelves and drawers and strew the floors of the dozen or so offices of the MGM studio where the film is being shot. One large room is given over to models—of space ships, landing stations, and satellites. The systematic thoroughness of the whole undertaking has to be seen to be believed. Since the story involves a trip to the moon, a rocket constitutes one of its most important elements. I met the designer of the rocket. He turned out to be one of the top men in the field of actual rocket designing. In other words, the rocket used in the film was theoretically capable of making actual space flights, although it never had to leave the studio floor.

  When I arrived on the set, a shot was being taken of the control panel of the rocket. For this purpose, sixteen 16mm cameras had been set up behind the control board and were simultaneously projecting sixteen animated charts in colour to sixteen viewing panels on the board. And these are the panels which the 70mm camera was photographing. Clarke said that all those charts would make sense to a scientist.

  Both the meticulousness and the scale seemed to uphold the claim of the makers of A Space Odyssey: That this was going to be the biggest film ever made. And biggest naturally also means the costliest.

  As I left the studio that evening, I really had the feeling that science fiction was coming into its own at last; and that whatever else the future may hold for mankind, it certainly holds the promise of better and more serious science fiction films.

  KUBRICK, TRUFFAUT AND SF

  SATYAJIT RAY

  ASCHORJO MAGAZINE, OCTOBER–NOVEMBER 1966

  It is not very well known that films based on fantasy or science have been made since the early days of cinema. About sixty-five years ago, Georges Melies made A Trip to the Moon in France. It was a genuine fantasy film though satiric in mood. Since then, a large number of science fiction and fantasy films have been made abroad. I still remember The Shape of Things to Come, a film based on an H.G. Wells story, which was produced in 1932–33 in Britain by Alexander Korda.

  Such films have been steadily made in Hollywood since Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde released in 1922. It may not be wrong to say that there are some directors who have acquired special expertise in this particular genre. But those generally regarded as among the finest film-makers of the world have not tried their hands at this kind of films, until recently. Last year, the best film award at the Berlin Film Festival went to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville. No other science fiction film had ever received such an honour before. It is to the credit of the director of Alphaville that he presented a Paris of the future ruled by science by shooting his film not on artificial sets but in the streets, hotels, offices and other everyday places of today’s city of Paris and through a clever use of light and camera angles. I have no hesitation in saying that it is an unforgettable film for its technical excellence.

  We are familiar with the extraordinary talents of Francois Truffaut of France and Stanley Kubrick of the US through the French and American films they have made, respectively. Recently, they shot two films based on stories by two well-known science fiction writers on the floors of London’s Elstree Studios. The floors stood almost next to each other. Truffaut based his film on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It was at his request and with his cooperation that Kubrick made his film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, from an Arthur C. Clarke story.

  Thanks to the intervention of Arthur C. Clarke, I got an opportunity to visit Elstree Studios during my recent trip to London. I was told that Truffaut had finished his shoot but Kubrick was still working on his film. I was amazed to see the sets of the inside of a spaceship on the floor. I spoke to Kubrick for a couple of minutes and then struck up a conversation with the man who had planned the interiors of the rocket. I was surprised to learn that he was one of the world’s best rocket designers. A prototype of the rocket he had designed had already been lifted into space. I asked him why he was working for films. Smiling, he said he earned more working for films than designing real rockets.

  The makers of 2001: A Space Odyssey claimed that such a big science fiction film had never been made before, and that no other producer would dare make a film about space in the next ten years. Witnessing the enthusiasm of Kubrick and his colleagues and the scale they worked on, this could well be true and justified.

  Translated from the Bengali by ARUP K. DE

  ALL INDIA RADIO INTERVIEW ON SF

  AIR INTERVIEW WITH SATYAJIT RAY, 1982

  PROLOGUE

  A lifelong aficionado of science fiction, Satyajit Ray’s deep and abiding interest in this genre is evident from his novels, short stories and articles. Ray was president of the Sci-Fi Cine Club set up in 1966—the first of its kind in the world. He also played a major role in selecting the films for the club’s film shows. In 1961, Ray created the unique scientist-inventor character of Professor Shonku, who, in Ray’s words, “may be said to be a mild-mannered version of Professor Challenger, where the love of adventure takes him to remote corners of the globe”. Through his writings, Ray tried to inculcate a sense of wonder and imagination in the young reader’s mind. His science fiction works often dwelled upon the fantastic and the supernatural, for which he had a special fascination. He once remarked, “Some of the stories I have written reflect my love of Verne and Wells and Conan Doyle, whose works I read as a schoolboy.” But the quantum of enthusiasm and discussion on Ray’s science fiction is regrettably meagre when compared to his detective fiction and films. That is why this interview on science fiction by All India Radio Kolkata is a valuable document. Recorded in 1982, Ray expressed his views openly on many aspects in a rare and candid conversation with noted science fiction author Sankarshan Roy, and psychologist Dr Amit Chakraborty. We have tried to capture the spirit of this discussion as closely as possible in this English translation.

  SANKARSHAN: Science in literature, or science-based literature, has been a topic of discussion for quite some time, and science fiction is nowadays practised seriously by many. But I feel that literature, if it is not scientific, is not fruitful. What is your take on that?

  SATYAJIT: Well, yes, one would think so. Science fiction or science fantasy, whatever you call it, is a separate genre of writing altogether. But when you are writing about human beings too, you delve into the science of psychology, which is often reflected in my films. In my films, my stories, you will always find a human psychological interplay. We always try to reach for that inner truth, be it in their relationships, or behaviour…

  SANKARSHAN: Truth should always be scientific.

  SATYAJIT: Whatever is written about the everyday experience of human life, or about foreign lands, or cities, or village life, or writing about people from different social strata—in all of these, you will find an inherent scientific approach. As I said, psychology is always present as a dominant factor, even if you are not well read on it as a science subject. But a writer must have that ability to find the truth through his observations.

  AMIT: This power of observation that you mentioned—even that is a scientific method, isn’t it?

  SATYAJIT: Yes, it is.

  AMIT: It has its own science in it.

  SATYAJIT: It does, but we are not always aware of it. One possibly cannot label it as a separate science and write a book on it—although even that happens sometimes with language—language has its own science. The difference in the conversations of people from various social classes, milieu, situations; everything now falls within the domain of linguistics. For that matter, any element of your story can be linked to one scientific aspect, and if you are faithful in your approach towards it, that shows your scientific temper.

  AMIT: So, can it be said that all writers should possess that scientific temper? Or that they should be scientifically aware of the global phenomena taking place in everyday life? Otherwise, it seems that even the works of writers who are not writing science fiction would not be fruitful enough.

  SATYAJIT: Well, that can be said, more or less. But that does not mean you should be up-to-date about all the latest scientific experiments or inventions. That much is not required, and if you follow the trend today, the research periphery of different sciences—be it astronomy, or biology, or microbiology—is expanding. They are discussed in such depth that it is not possible for any writer to be well-informed about it.

  AMIT: Let alone writers, it is even very difficult for a scientist of one specific field to be aware of the current research in another scientific domain.

  SATYAJIT: Extremely difficult.

/>   AMIT: It is becoming so diverse.

  SATYAJIT: Tremendously diverse.

  AMIT: One can say in a general sense that we should have that scientific awareness, and one cannot possibly survive without it.

  SATYAJIT: One is aware of these things, even if only from newspapers; one need not read voluminous science textbooks or the latest journals for that. So, the general learned people, or those whom we refer to as writers, should be aware—many already are—and those who are not, their creations will surely be enriched by the knowledge.

  AMIT: A little while ago, you mentioned both science fiction and science fantasy as scientific writings. But sometimes these are referred to as different genres, aren’t they? Can you elaborate on that?

  SATYAJIT: Well, there is a certain kind of story … let me give one example. If one has to write a story about a man taking a voyage to the moon, like Jules Verne had written long ago in Journey to the Moon, about voyages to the moon or other planets—I can especially recall the film 2001: A Space Odyssey—these should have scientific details that are technically valid and correct in the eyes of even a scientist. As everybody knows what is humanly possible and impossible in science, one has to be well-read, thorough and technically flawless about the scientific details in them. But there is another type of story, which I had written once and planned to make a film out of, but it fell through eventually. Anyway, I had written a screenplay called The Alien, where the plot is about an alien creature from outer space coming to Earth. Now, the science and technology shown in this kind of spaceship is something beyond our knowledge, and there I had to depend on imagination to a large extent. There it is impossible for anybody to validate the scientific details, because one doesn’t really know what’s possible for them and what’s not! Their planet is technologically far superior to us, and so we don’t have a clue about their achievements and possibilities. So, there we can depend a lot on our imagination. There you can dwell on the realm of philosophy, or on the world of poetry. But when one is showing a man doing some kind of activity—even if it is fifty years down the line—one has to describe the setting while always keeping in mind the present state of technology.

  AMIT: I remember reading one of Mr Ray’s articles some time ago about science fiction or science fantasy. Writing about H.G. Wells, you mentioned that he had described the time machine in an absurdly simple manner—push the button, and you’re there. But even in The Alien project that you just mentioned, surely one has to retain some relevant scientific details to establish it in a believable manner.

  SATYAJIT: Yes, obviously, because there cannot be anything without the remotest connection to Earth. It is difficult to imagine such a creature or a planet. If you study the origin of life at the very basic level of amino acids and other things, it seems to be identical everywhere, primarily all over Earth; and till now it is hypothesized that even if there is extraplanetary life somewhere, the fundamental elements of life would possibly be the same.

  SANKARSHAN: I would state another related aspect here. We have also seen in many cases that the author’s imagination has surpassed the scientist’s imagination. Jules Verne’s imagination at that time was not matched by any scientist. I have a feeling that in many cases scientists have followed science fiction writers, haven’t they?

  SATYAJIT: They have. Now, it is a fact that most of the great names of science fiction are also scientists themselves. Take, for example, Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke had written about satellites thirty years ago, long before today’s age of INSAT satellites.

  AMIT: One can also say the same about Asimov and others. They wrote about the dropping of the atom bomb in 1940, when nobody knew about the Manhattan Project. They brought out these ideas in their stories. One can find such concepts in contemporary science fiction magazines.

  SATYAJIT: Definitely. For that matter, if you go back five hundred years or so, you will find Leonardo da Vinci doing what not! He had shown so many futuristic things during a period that can be called the formative years of science. A whole lot of things like the aeroplane, helicopter, gramophone, etc., came into his imagination. So, you see, human imagination is unbound, and although the science lags behind, it gradually tries to catch up if there is the slightest technological possibility within it, and one day it becomes a reality.

  SANKARSHAN: There are similar stories about the Puranas.

  SATYAJIT: Oh, yes. I have heard one such anecdote, probably true, regarding our shastras. Some Sanskrit scriptures on warfare were found in Hitler’s war office. Germany always had a lot of Indologists and Sanskrit scholars, and one hears that the idea of a missile actually germinated from these! (laughs)

  SANKARSHAN: Now, we would like to discuss your literary creations. You have been writing these science fiction stories and novels for quite some time now. How did you start writing them?

  AMIT: If I may add, we have seen Premendra Mitra and a few others writing science fiction stories in Bengal in the 1920s and 1930s. But a scientist character like Professor Shonku was the first of its kind in the 1960s. We would like to know how you introduced such a unique character.

  SATYAJIT: To be honest, I had no literary bent at all, and never thought I might one day write stories. I was working for an advertising agency, then left the job and started my film-making career. Then one day my poet-friend Subhash Mukhopadhyay suggested the idea of reviving our family magazine, Sandesh. The idea struck me and within six months, we brought out Sandesh with a new look, in 1961. Subhash and I were joint editors. With the publishing of Sandesh, naturally I thought of writing something, primarily to feed Sandesh. My very first story, “Bonkubabur Bandhu”, can be said to be science fiction, but it was not a Professor Shonku story. This was my first Bengali story,* and it was this story that served as the basis for the science fiction film I had once planned. Anyway, after “Bonkubabur Bandhu”, I wrote some ghost stories and a couple of other stories, and then I thought of creating a character like Professor Shonku. I had in mind the diary form of writing, and perhaps there was a subconscious influence of “Heshoram Hoshiar’s Diary”, my father’s story, which I like immensely. This was a parody of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, where he created some absurd prehistoric creatures with weird names and habits, who have absolutely no resemblance with the real world.

  AMIT: The whole idea was to make fun.

  Professor Shonku with his first invention—a snuff gun

  SATYAJIT: Completely to make fun, to mock and pull some legs. It was a take-off on The Lost World, shall we say. My first Shonku story, “Byomjatrir Diary”, also reflects that mood. On the surface, Shonku may appear to be a serious person, he keeps a diary, but his first invention, Nasyastra, a snuff gun, makes one sneeze fifty-six times non-stop (laughs), and things like that. But gradually, Shonku became serious. He became serious because after this story, I avidly started reading science books, magazines and journals. Then it became a passion, reading voraciously the works of famous science fiction authors like Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, and others. And there are certain major themes that every science fiction author has used some time or the other. It may be the concept of longevity, invisibility, the brain, an alien coming from the outside, or man undertaking a space mission—these may be said to be the staples of science fiction, and I started using them one after another through Shonku. Also, we have a tremendous fascination with some locations—Egypt, some areas of Africa, deserts, some ancient civilizations—many of which still puzzle us with unsolved mysteries. Take, for example, the building of pyramids itself—so unique a concept. I have a special attraction towards these ancient civilizations, things which are still mysterious to the modern world.