Jalsaghar (The Music Room). 1961. Directed by Satyajit Ray

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Jalsaghar (The Music Room). 1961. India. Directed by Satyajit Ray. Courtesy of Janus Films

Jalsaghar (The Music Room). 1961. India. Directed by Satyajit Ray. Written by Tarashankar Banerjee, Satyajit Ray, Santi P. Choudhury. With Chhabi Biswas, Roshan Kumari. In Bengali and English with English subtitles. DCP. 114 min.

Adrienne Mancia was instrumental in introducing filmmakers from beyond the Western canon to New York audiences. Among her most popular MoMA series was Film India, a four-month festival of Indian films dating back to 1912, organized with the Asia Society and India’s Directorate of Film Festivals, that kicked off with a complete retrospective of one of the country’s most celebrated filmmakers: Satyajit Ray. MoMA's 1981 press release states that Ray's films ‘rise above narrow regional boundaries in terms of human experience while remaining informative, compassionate, and essentially true to their setting.’ In The Music Room, Ray not only stays true to that description but hints at our attraction to sensorial bliss, filming a rich man who spends his fortune in dazzling musical and dance performances and a wonderful but perilous fantasy known to all film lovers: trading one’s life for the fantasy offered by moving images.

This film accompanies Modern Matinees: In Celebration of Adrienne Mancia.

Past events

Wed, Nov 8, 2023, 1:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Thu, Nov 2, 2023, 1:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

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