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The Chess Players 1977 MISC SUB ENG, ITA DVDRip x264

Year: 1977 Country: India Director: Satyajit Ray Cast: Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi, Farida Jalal IMBD: Link Language : Urdu, English, Hindi Subtitles : English, Italian The 1856 annexation of Awadh posed difficulties for the British that were different from the problems they faced in Bengal. In the case of Awadh the British had to justify why they had violated their own treaties of friendship with the nawabs of Awadh, why they had deposed a popular King and seized the territories of independent Awadh. In Awadh as in Bengal the East India Company was no longer satisfied with collecting part of the revenue and taxes as tribute, the Company wanted direct ownership of the land. In Awadh the Company wanted to exert direct control over its rich agricultural land and produce, including extensive land-areas and forests designated as wasteland, in order to generate further revenues for the East India Company. Ray’s film The Chess Players (1977) is a period film that re-creates the historical moment of the annexation of Awadh in 1856. On so doing Ray confronts the fact that Awadh and its last Muslim ruler Wajid Ali Shah are deeply inscribed sites of the expanded cultural critique in colonialist discourse. Nineteenth-century Awadh is the place of shame in nationalist discourses. Colonialist discourses foreclose and disallow the possibility of alternate understandings of the work/play binary, other than the binary of enterprise as work and native culture as unproductive play. By 1856, the year of Awadh’s takeover by the British, the colonialist expanded cultural critique evolved into a full-fledged discourse. The expanded cultural critique of Awadh was based on scholarship and hearsay by British administrator-scholars who did extensive research into Awadh, only in order to condemn various aspects of the culture such as dance, poetry, music, all forms of popular entertainments like kite flying, cock-fighting, gambling as well as Hindu and Muslim practices of dress, food, and religion. While we watch the common people of Awadh flying kites and fighting each other’s kites in the sky, the narrator informs us that the Awadhi aesthetes consider the expenditure of money their only job. The series of montage shots is followed by a shot of Wajid Ali Shah’s empty throne. The narrator informs us that in this realm full of aesthetes the ruler is Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, a king who has “other interests.” These other interests include dressing up as a Hindu god, beating the drum at Mohurrum and relaxing with his harem. Once in a while, the narrator states, Wajid also likes to grace his court. Ray’s montage characterizes all of the ruler’s interests as shauk or aesthetic pleasure. Even religious practices and prayer are characterized as shauk. The entire sequence in the prologue of The Chess Players establishes the colonialist and nationalist critique that the nobility, the commoners, and the king in nineteenth-century Awadh were exclusively involved in play. The narrator identifies this unproductive play with the Muslim culture of Awadh by referring to Awadh as the last bastion of Muslim culture. We are invited to associate Awadhi culture not with work, but with play. The absence of valued time in this culture is deliberately underlined in the case of Wajid through the close-up of the empty throne. It is noteworthy that Ray’s delineation of the colonialist critique of Awadhi culture and its passion for play is unlike nationalist representation principally because he goes on to show the binary opposite of that colonialist discourse in British enterprise. In the next scene he represents English enterprise via the character of General Outram (played by Sir Richard Attenborough). In an extended conversation with his aide Weston, Ray’s Outram demonstrates that British enterprise relies on extensive documentation and denigration of other cultures. In Ray’s screenplay Outram comments on Wajid’s work and play by analysing a report submitted by his spies concerning an “hour-by-hour-account” of a day in Wajid’s life. In the pages of Indian history General Outram was the English Resident at the Awadh court; he is mainly remembered for annexing independent Awadh for the East India Company and deposing and exiling its ruler. The pressures facing Outram were considerable. The East India Company had to find grounds to justify the conquest of Oudh to a British press that was, to a large extent, critical of pro-annexation policies of the monopoly trading company. Awadh presented a discursive problem. As P. D. Reeves notes, the highest official of the East India Company, Lord Dalhousie, found that Awadh’s political loyalty gave him no cause for complaint. Therefore the Company could not change their policy from friendship treaties with a political ally to robbing the friend by annexing Awadh without appearing like an opportunist and rapacious trading company. From the standpoint of colonial discourses Awadh was a peculiarly difficult case because Awadh could not be characterized as cowardly and lacking in valour. The fact of the matter was that Awadh served as the largest recruiting ground for the Company’s bravest Indian sepoys. A number of British travelers had said of Lucknow that “this is in fact the most polished and splendid court at present in India” and “Lucknow has more resemblance to some of the smaller European capitals.” Thus East India Company ideologues had to contend with the fact that it was widely known in the British press and parliament that Awadh was not a primitive society but a highly evolved civilization. Moreover Awadh could not be condemned as a bigoted, fanatical Islamic regime. Awadhi culture was known as an extraordinarily secular culture, consequently the Company could not factionalize the populace and the ruling elites on sectarian lines. Nor could Company officials represent the province as insular and technologically backward. Awadh’s architecture showed technological innovation and many of its nawabs learnt English and commissioned the translation of rare and important books to promote cultural cross-fertilization. Instead of displaying signs of intellectual apathy and laziness, Awadh was in fact experiencing a cultural renaissance. The flowering of Awadhi culture is one of those paradoxes of cultural production in conditions of colonialism, Awadh’s cultural renaissance was in spite the fact that its land, revenue, and military capacity had been stripped by the Company. In Ray’s The Chess Players we witness the discursive strategies by which a sophisticated, tolerant, brave and innovative indigenous culture is damned by British empire-builders. General Outram’s opening remarks in the film characterize the unfit ruler of Awadh in terms of “an hour-by-hour account of the King’s activities.” In effect this is a scene of Orientalist scholarship at the service of empire. Ray sets up the scene as a lengthy dialogue between Outram and Weston. Weston is the Oriental scholar who translates, and provides Outram with cultural information regarding Awadh. Ray’s screenplay outlines how colonial discourse permits a narrow range of terms and disallows true inquiry. Throughout the scene Outram asks Weston a series of questions about the activities and passions of Wajid. However, Weston’s culturally informed answers are rejected by Outram as dissatisfactory. It is gradually borne out that Outram knows the answers to his own questions. In fact he deliberately phrases his questions in such a fashion as to pre-determine the answer. Ray’s Weston is a somewhat naive and ardent student of the native culture and language, for this reason he is unable to fully follow Outram’s conversational lead. Outram has then perforce to articulate for Weston’s benefit the premises and rules of colonial enterprise and the expanded cultural critique. (Reena Dube) [ About file ] Name: The Chess Players.Satyajit Ray.1977.DVDRip.mkv Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2025 18:37:35 +0200 Size: 1,798,313,489 bytes (1715.005387 MiB) [ Magic ] File type: Matroska data File type: EBML file, creator matroska [ Generic infos ] Duration: 02:00:11 (7211.424 s) Container: matroska Production date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 19:59:58 +0200 Total tracks: 4 Track nr. 1: video (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC) {eng} Track nr. 2: audio (A_AC3) {und} Track nr. 3: subtitle (S_VOBSUB) {eng} Track nr. 4: subtitle (S_TEXT/UTF8) {und} Muxing library: libebml v1.3.1 + libmatroska v1.4.2 Writing application: mkvmerge v7.7.0 ('Six Voices') 32bit built on Feb 28 2015 23:23:00 [ Relevant data ] Resolution: 702 x 576 Width: multiple of 2 Height: multiple of 32 Average DRF: 22.566128 Standard deviation: 2.825774 Std. dev. weighted mean: 2.683805 [ Video track ] Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Resolution: 702 x 576 Display resolution: 765 x 576 (pixels) Frame aspect ratio: 39:32 = 1.21875 Pixel aspect ratio: 85:78 = 1.089744 Display aspect ratio: 85:64 = 1.328125 (~4:3) Framerate: 24.000001 fps Stream size: 1,622,362,544 bytes (1547.20549 MiB) Duration (bs): 02:00:11 (7211.416378 s) Bitrate (bs): 1799.771317 kbps Qf: 0.185458 [ Audio track ] Codec ID: A_AC3 Sampling frequency: 48000 Hz Channels: 2 Stream size: 173,074,176 bytes (165.056396 MiB) Bitstream type (bs): AC3 Frames (bs): 225,357 Duration (bs): 02:00:11 (7211.424 s) Chunk-aligned (bs): Yes Bitrate (bs): 192 kbps CBR Sampling frequency (bs): 48000 Hz Mode (bs): stereo [ Video bitstream ] Bitstream type: MPEG-4 Part 10 User data: x264 | core 146 r2538 121396c | H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec User data: Copyleft 2003-2015 | http://www.videolan.org/x264.html | cabac=1 User data: ref=8 | deblock=1:-3:-3 | analyse=0x3:0x133 | me=umh | subme=9 User data: psy=1 | psy_rd=1.00:0.15 | mixed_ref=1 | me_range=30 | chroma_me=1 User data: trellis=2 | 8x8dct=1 | cqm=0 | deadzone=21,11 | fast_pskip=0 User data: chroma_qp_offset=-3 | threads=3 | lookahead_threads=1 User data: sliced_threads=0 | nr=0 | decimate=0 | interlaced=0 User data: bluray_compat=0 | constrained_intra=0 | bframes=16 | b_pyramid=2 User data: b_adapt=2 | b_bias=0 | direct=3 | weightb=1 | open_gop=0 | weightp=2 User data: keyint=240 | keyint_min=24 | scenecut=40 | intra_refresh=0 User data: rc_lookahead=240 | rc=2pass | mbtree=1 | bitrate=1800 | ratetol=3.0 User data: qcomp=0.70 | qpmin=0 | qpmax=69 | qpstep=4 | cplxblur=20.0 User data: qblur=0.5 | vbv_maxrate=14000 | vbv_bufsize=14000 | nal_hrd=none User data: filler=0 | ip_ratio=1.40 | aq=1:1.00 SPS id: 0 Profile: [email protected] Num ref frames: 8 Aspect ratio: 12:11 (4:3 PAL pixel shape) Chroma format: YUV 4:2:0 PPS id: 0 (SPS: 0) Entropy coding type: CABAC Weighted prediction: P slices - explicit weighted prediction Weighted bipred idc: B slices - implicit weighted prediction 8x8dct: Yes Total frames: 173,074 Drop/delay frames: 0 Corrupt frames: 0 P-slices: 40279 ( 23.273 %) ##### B-slices: 131659 ( 76.071 %) ############### I-slices: 1136 ( 0.656 %) SP-slices: 0 ( 0.000 %) SI-slices: 0 ( 0.000 %) [ DRF analysis ] average DRF: 22.566128 standard deviation: 2.825774 max DRF: 31 DRF<7: 0 ( 0.000 %) DRF=7: 6 ( 0.003 %) DRF=8: 17 ( 0.010 %) DRF=9: 35 ( 0.020 %) DRF=10: 21 ( 0.012 %) DRF=11: 26 ( 0.015 %) DRF=12: 57 ( 0.033 %) DRF=13: 107 ( 0.062 %) DRF=14: 225 ( 0.130 %) DRF=15: 398 ( 0.230 %) DRF=16: 1249 ( 0.722 %) DRF=17: 3699 ( 2.137 %) DRF=18: 7267 ( 4.199 %) # DRF=19: 11878 ( 6.863 %) # DRF=20: 13705 ( 7.919 %) ## DRF=21: 19499 ( 11.266 %) ## DRF=22: 26386 ( 15.246 %) ### DRF=23: 29213 ( 16.879 %) ### DRF=24: 18149 ( 10.486 %) ## DRF=25: 13446 ( 7.769 %) ## DRF=26: 12272 ( 7.091 %) # DRF=27: 8552 ( 4.941 %) # DRF=28: 4154 ( 2.400 %) DRF=29: 1749 ( 1.011 %) DRF=30: 518 ( 0.299 %) DRF=31: 446 ( 0.258 %) DRF>31: 0 ( 0.000 %) P-slices average DRF: 21.161846 P-slices std. deviation: 2.201633 P-slices max DRF: 30 B-slices average DRF: 23.027252 B-slices std. deviation: 2.836293 B-slices max DRF: 31 I-slices average DRF: 18.914613 I-slices std. deviation: 2.107314 I-slices max DRF: 26 This report was created by AVInaptic (01-11-2020) on 29-07-2025 03:16:29