REVIEWS financial or any other kind of support, he still succeeded in making eight major feature films and several brilliant short films. Among the few personal assets that did accrue in a life otherwise racked by frustration and uncertainty were the months in the Film Institute in Pune where lie built up a group of brilliant and devoted pupils who discussed the art of filmmaking and the special kind of commitment it demands of a filmmaker in modern India. It is not surprising, therefore, that Ritwik, who had devoted his rare art to the agony and the ecstasy of life in Bengal should find his first serious critic in a young journalist from Maharashtra. At the very outset, Rajadhyaksha lays his cards honestly on the table. His book will not try to ascertain the significance of Ritwik Ghatak's artistry in the manner of a neutral 'judge'; his objectivity will be a "radical objectivity5, "a statement of bias rather than a false neutrality'. As an artist Ritwik assiduously avoided the cold 'disinterested' objectivity of a liberal. It is only fitting that his passionate 'engagement' with the historical specificity of his time and with the enduring demands of his medium should be confronted with at least a comparable commitment in the critic. Such a commitment the young author of the book has brought to his task. However, a sense of commitment alone to an artist like Ritwik, whom Rajadhyaksha describes as "enormously relevant DO the present', does not safeguard a tricky venture like writing a book on him. In many existing tributes paid to the artist we have noticed the sad absence of a rigorous framework or even of viable tools of analysis without which the complex and rich artistry of Ritwik cannot be captured. There is a particularly deceptive quality of irreppressibility about Ritwik's art which has misled people. It has tended to hide the careful intellectual who has left a distinct and coherent corpus of work behind him. The present book has avoided! such a trap with refreshing vigour and sensitivity. One hopes this book will break new ground in modern film criticism by which film aesthetics will be strengthened by a corresponding awareness of the socio-historic situation chat gives rise to such an aesthetic. *'***** Central to the book is an exposition of the social reality which 82 April-June 1983