Ray adapted this from a story by modern Bengali writer Premendra Mitra, pairing it with another short, The Holy Man/Mahapurush (1965), based on a story by Rajshekhar 'Parashuram' Basu, considered the greatest Bengali humorist of the 20th century.
The Coward has more in common with two earlier Ray films than it does with its theatrical companion. It tells the story of a scriptwriter, a modern man of the big city, whose car breaks down near a tea estate managed by a garrulous, bored man whose somewhat neglected wife turns out to have been the writer's ex-girlfriend. Through flashbacks we learn the young woman was willing to endure the disapproval of her family to be with the writer, but his fear of commitment and family difficulties lead him to end the relationship. In the present, he attempts too late to make up for his regrettable decision.
It has been suggested that this work perhaps forms a trilogy with Ray's two preceding films in their focus on a married woman's juggling of self-assertion and the behavior expected of her within India's social restrictions. As in this film, the woman in The Big City/Mahanagar (1963) and The Lonely Wife/Charulata (1964) is played by Madhabi Mukherjee, a remarkably nuanced and sensuous actress who was something of a muse (and rumored lover) to Ray in this period.
Mukherjee was not the only frequent Ray collaborator involved in this production. Soumitra Chatterjee, who plays the scriptwriter, is considered one of the country's finest actors and appeared in 14 of Ray's films, beginning with Chatterjee's film debut in The World of Apu and continuing through the later films that once again found an international audience, among them Days and Nights in the Forest (1970), Distant Thunder (1973), and The Home and the World (1984).
The longest connection in this production - about two dozen pictures - is that between Ray and cinematographer Soumendu Roy, a multiple award winner and subject of two respected documentaries focused on his work. Roy began as an assistant cameraman on Pather Panchali and collaborated with Ray for the last time on The Home and the World .
The Coward made its debut at the Venice International Film Festival in 1965, where it was nominated for a Golden Lion but failed to make much of a mark beyond its screening there. For many years, it was not released theatrically beyond its home country. In India, it ran on the double bill with The Holy Man and, in a first for any of Ray's films, which were produced in the Bengali language, was shown in some parts of the country in a dubbed Hindi version. Ray's original cut of the film featured songs, heard on the radio and hummed by characters, by the great Bengali dramatist, novelist, poet, and composer Rabindranath Tagore, the subject of Ray's 1961 documentary. Those snatches of music were replaced by Hindi songs, and the revised version of the film even had a different ending, all of which disappointed the director greatly.
"These are twin films I have considerable affection for," he said in the 1980s. "I have a pretty high opinion of Kapurush myself, and I was disappointed by the response."
Ray said the conflict of conscience among city-bred people at the heart of the picture offers insight into "a certain type of cowardice and a certain selfishness, which seem to be concomitants of modern middle-class sophistication. The stress of modern living, and the uncertainty of getting a foothold and retaining it, are important causes of these complexes."
In addition to the Tagore song bits, the film's original score was composed by Ray himself. It is the only one of his film compositions to feature a saxophone. He composed for the instrument a kind of blues that he hoped would capture the "very special kind of mood in a tea plantation - the languor and life of the planters, very western. I don't know how I got hold of it, but I loved that piece of music."
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive preserved The Coward/Kapurush in 2005.
Director: Satyajit Ray
Producer: R.D. Bansal
Screenplay: Satyajit Ray, based on the story "Janaiko Kapurusher Kahini" by Premendra Mitra
Cinematography: Soumendu Roy
Editing: Dulal Dutta
Production Design: Bansi Chandragupta
Music: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Sounitra Chatterjee (Amitabha Roy), Madhabi Mukherjee (Karuna Gupta), Haradhan Bannerjee (Bimal Gupta)
By Rob Nixon
