The Best of Satyajit Ray

"So with that in mind I thought it would be worth reading Satyajit Ray’s autobiography The Best of Satyajit Ray , because he painted, he devised fonts, he wrote children’s books, and he’s as important as a children’s writer in India as he is a filmmaker. I think he’s amazing, and because we have Hollywood as such a landmark, we forget that people in other parts of the world are able to be creative in lots of different ways – you don’t just get sucked into that industry. It contains interviews, essays, drawings, little bits of storyboard, stuff about his other writing, and it’s quite a chunky book. Ray is such an inspiring figure: he’s a proper artist – someone trying to say something rather than just trying to make another movie. They were crucial to him, but his children’s writing’s really important as well. He’s just someone who wants to tell a story, and some stories you tell like this and some stories you tell by inventing a new font. He did three fonts, and they’re all called ‘Something Ray’. Because a much more important thing is that he was a polymath, and actually making films is poly-creative; there are a lot of different disciplines involved. And you should be able to think in sound and pictures and in how to run meetings and how to deal with people and all that stuff. That whole auteur thing I hate – it’s like wanting to play football on your own, it’s just a completely meaningless thing, because a really good film comes out of the chaos of lots of people working together."