Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for The World of Apu (1959) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty, Swapan Mukherjee, Sefalika Devi, Belarani Devi DIRECTOR: Satyajit Ray CINEMATOGRAPHY: Subrata Mitra MUSIC: Ravi Shankar PRODUCTION: Satyajit Ray Productions

Box Office Performance

The World of Apu earned $134,241 in worldwide box office revenue.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

Franchise: The World of Apu is part of the Apu Collection.

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

Soumitra Chatterjee, a radio announcer and stage actor, had auditioned, along with doyen of Bengali theatre Sisir Bhaduri, for the role of the adolescent Apu in Aparajito (1956). Though Ray thought Chatterjee had the right look, he found the actor too old for the part in that film, but he remembered Chatterjee when casting the role of adult Apu in The World of Apu two years later. Chatterjee, unaware that he had been selected for the role, was invited to visit the set of Ray's fourth film, Jalsaghar, to watch the shoot, and, as he was leaving, Ray revealed the casting choice by calling Chatterjee over and introducing him to actor Chhabi Biswas with the words: "This is Soumitra Chattopadhyay; he's playing Apu in my next film ". Despite being selected to play the lead role in his first film, Chatterjee was unsure of his career choice, and especially his looks, as he did not consider himself photogenic. However, on 9 August 1958, when the first shot of the film was given an okay in one take, he realized he had found his vocation.

Ray had a tough time finding the right actress to play Aparna. He even placed an ad in a local daily asking for photographs from girls between the ages of 15 and 17, and, although there were over a thousand responses, he did not find any of the girls worth auditioning. Then, Ray became aware of a girl, Sharmila Tagore, who had recently performed at a dance recital at Children's Little Theatre (CLT) in Kolkata. A relative of Rabindranath Tagore, she subsequently auditioned and was selected for the role.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Awards Won: ★ National Film Award for Best Feature Film

Nominations: ○ International Submission to the Academy Awards

CRITICAL RECEPTION

At the Indian box office, the film earned a profit of for the distributors. It was chosen as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 32nd Academy Awards, but was not selected as one of the final nominees.

On Rotten Tomatoes, The World of Apu has a 96% fresh rating based on a 27 reviews, with an average score of 9.04/10. Its critics' consensus reads: "Achingly poignant, beautifully shot, and evocatively atmospheric, The World of Apu closes out Satyajit Ray's classic trilogy on a high note." In 1992, Sight & Sound (the British Film Institute's film magazine) ranked The Apu Trilogy at #88 in its Critics' Poll list of all-time greatest films. The World of Apu appeared in the 1982 Sight & Sound poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ranked at #42. In 2002, a combined list of Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll results ranked The World of Apu at #93. In 1998, the Asian film magazine Cinemaya's critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked The Apu Trilogy at #7. In 1999, The Village Voice ranked The Apu Trilogy at #54 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics.

In 1996, The World of Apu was included in Movieline magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films". In 2001, film critic Roger Ebert included The Apu Trilogy in his list of "Great Movies". In 2002, The World of Apu featured in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was included in Time magazine's All-Time 100 best movies list. In 2012, the film was ranked #235 in the "Sight & Sound Top 250 Films" list.

The World of Apu has been influential across the world. In Gregory Nava's 1995 film My Family, the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of . The film's influence can also be seen in several films by Philip Kaufman and Jean-Luc Godard, and, in Paul Auster's 2008 novel Man in the Dark, two characters have a discussion about the film.