Monthly Archives: October 2011

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The Satyajit Ray Quiz:

I conducted this Satyajit Ray Quiz for the group QuizCraft.

I am reproducing the questions and answers here.

Questions: Satyajit Ray Quiz

1. Easy one to start with: It started the India operations in the late 1920s. Later on it was taken over and became BOMAS which went on to become O&M after some more takeovers. Which organization?

2. Symbolic but exhaustive connect…

3. This is supposed to be Ray’s first screenplay. But he could never make the film during those times and went on to make Pather Pachali. But many decades later he revived and completed the film. He was apparently relieved that he did not make it earlier because he believed his original script was amateurish and too much influenced by western films. Which one?

4. What should come in place of the question mark and how does it connect to the theme?

5. Easy one connect

6. Connect again

7. Ray apparently did not like certain aspects of this filmmaker or his films and wrote in a newspaper criticizing one of his films. This led to a public war of words between both the filmmakers through letters in the newspaper. Who is the other filmmaker involved here?

8. Sitter: As a child prodigy he completed his graduation when he was 16 and then he went on to become a professor at 20. He lives in a town which literally means the land of hills. Who?

9. He was of Kashmiri Pandit ancestry and was born in modern day Pakistan. He wanted to be a painter and after meeting a nephew of Tagore he moved to Calcutta where he started working for commercial Bengali films until he got a chance to meet Eugene Lourie and assist him in a project. He would later work for people as diverse as Muzaffar Ali, Benegal and Basu Chatterjee but he remains known for his long and fruitful association with Ray. Who?

10. Connect

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Answers: Satyajit Ray Quiz

1. D J Keymer, the agency where Ray worked for more than a decade before making his first film.

2. It was a obscure and symbolic one but I was looking for the Roman typefaces/fonts created by Ray.
Daphnis
Holiday
Ray Roman
Ray Bizarre (The logo is that of Bizarre Media)

3. Ghare Baire (1984)

4. The River. These are the films adapted from Rumer Godden novels in a chronological manner starting with Black Narcissus and Enchantment. The River of course is the film where Ray met Renoir and got his final thrust to become a filmmaker.

5. For both Ashani Sanket & Hirak Rajar Deshe Ray got Best music direction National award

6. Documentaries by Ray on Tagore, Sikkim (Ryal emblem of erstwhile kingdom of Sikkim) and Benode Behari Mukherjee

7. Mrinal Sen

8. Prof Shanku

9. Bansi Chandra Gupta, Ray’s regular art director

10. Teen Kanya which comprised of three short stories by Tagore
Post master
Monihara (Lost jewels)
Samapti (The End/Fin/That’s All Folks)

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Cinephilia Quiz- Cycle 2: The Drunken Celluloid Quiz

Hi all,

I am starting the second cycle of Cinephilia quizzes. The cycle will consist of four quizzes and will try to make it an weekly affair.

Today is the Drunken Celluloid quiz. It may be about films where alcoholics are significant characters or about real personalities with liver issues themselves. I’ve always believed that the alcohol issues suffered by some of the brightest of our minds was not their problem but that of the society that was not evolved enough to accommodate them. So I’ll just quote one of the best lines to have come put of Indian music industry in the 21st century and start the quiz.

Rules:

Put your answers as comments.

They are being moderated and will be published only after the deadline.

You can make multiple attempts and in case of conflicts your last answer will be taken as final.

Every question is worth 10 points irrespective of difficulty level (for ease of calculation).

Prizes:

After a complete cycle, the top three cumulative score holders will win Flipkart Vouchers worth INR 300, 200 & 100.

Deadline:

Sunday Midnight.

The Drunken Celluloid Quiz

1. It is a film that has a unique achievement in the festival circuit. Adapted from a novel, it was apparently conceived by the director during a train ride when he purchased and read the novel during the journey. An unusual affair for its times, it also alarmed the lead actor and he was advised against taking up the role. But nevertheless, he went ahead and reaped benefits for the same. Identify the film.

2. He started his career with a prominent auteur of Indian cinema. He soon moved to Bollywood and played several insignificant roles in various Hindi films. But afterwards a certain talent of his got noticed and the same was utilized again and again by various filmmakers. Even till date he is remembered for these roles only.

3. He had an opportunity to sing a particular song that was penned almost 80 years ago. While playback facility was available, he chooses to sing it live and also act on the same, thus making it one of his most memorable performances. Who’s he and what was the song?

4. Apparently this Indian film has only one surviving copy, that too in another country. And even that copy is partially destroyed. Nevertheless, it remains a path breaking film in terms of technique and treatment in the early days of Indian cinema. Identify.

5.

Signs of profound melancholia and unmistakable, self-destructive alcoholism… whose lines are these?

6. X was one of the early directors of Bollywood who achieved significant commercial success early on his career, only to receive setbacks later. The leading roles in almost all of his films were played by the same actor. Y once worked under him in a film but later on achieved success on his own. It is believed that Y’s film Z is inspired by X’s life but one can also find uncanny resemblance of the film with Y’s own life. Identify X,Y,Z.

7. Some of his books were published posthumously after he killed himself. They were mostly completed by one of his relatives. . He even wrote an episode for an animated TV series but he is known for his debut novel published a few years before his death. Who’s he? How does he fit into this quiz?

8. Sitter: The poster of which upcoming film based on a semi-autobiographical novel?

9. Apparently he was never an alcoholic. But still he fits nicely into this quiz. At one point of time he became so popular that he acted in a film named after himself. Legend has it that once he arrived at the sets of a film, showed his acting prowess playing a drunkard and forced the writer/director to change the script to accommodate a new character for him. Who?

10. Deviating a bit… not exactly films… but the events shown here provided fodder for a lot of Hollywood movies. What is happening here or to be precise which era do they belong to?


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1. Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945). The Lost Weekend and Marty (1955) are the only films ever to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival.

2. Keshto Mukherjee

3. K L Saigal…. Babul Mora by Wazid Ali Shah

4. Pramathesh Barua’s Devdas… The only remaining copy is in Bangladesh film archives…

5. Meena Kumari of course. She also recited it and recorder an album called I Write, I Recite.

6. X=Gyan Mukherjee who gave arguably the 1st blockbuster of Bollywood, Kismet. Y=Guru Dutt, Z=Kagaz Ke Phool

7. John O’Brien who wrote Leaving Las Vegas.

8. Rum Diaries based on Hunter P Thomson…. Kinda follow up to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

9. Johnny Walker

10. The Prohibition Era… quite a few crime/gangster films have been based on this period… too many to name…

Thanks for Playing…