“Handling Shakespeare and Psychiatry With Equal Facility”: On the Notion of the “Uncanny” in Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (1966) and Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) Anwesha Ghosh College

Ranjan Bandopadhyay, in the eighth chapter of his book Bishoy Satyajit, makes a comparative study between Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957) and Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (1966) and puts forward his proposition that the role that Bergman’s Wild Strawberries play in the formation of Ray’s Nayak should very well provide a fertile ground for research in the near future. (28). The basic plot lines of both the movies remain the same. The protagonists of both the movies undertake a long journey to travel from one place to another in order to receive a prestigious award honouring their work in their respective fields. How they introspect into their own lives on the way provides a brilliant framework for the manifestation of Sigmund Freud’s notion of the ‘uncanny’ in the two movies. Andrea Sabbadini has already pointed out how the notion of the ‘uncanny’ is brilliantly portrayed in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries:

I shall also mention here the famous dream in the opening scene of Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället, 1957). It is a compassionate portrait of an elderly man, Professor Isak Borg, coming to terms with the sorrows of an emotionally cold life. The night before embarking on a car journey to his old university...