During November 1991, two legendary personalities of Hollywood – Martin Scorsese and Ismail Merchant – started a letter-campaign on their own for a Lifetime Achievement Oscar to Satyajit Ray. Scorsese is one of those directors who got the first lessons of filmmaking by watching Ray’s films in his youth. They viewed that Ray has cast an immense impact on present generation filmmakers.  Ray’s humanism, irony, humour, his villains and heroes and feeling for his characters – all these have a left deep impression on the works on all the young directors.

 

Scorsese and Merchant sent copies of their letter to many luminaries of Hollywood and requested them to join the campaign. All of them agreed to join the campaign and sent their consent to the Karl Malden - President of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.  Among the sixty three famous personalities who signed the campaign were George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sydney Lumet, Mike Nicholas, Jonathan Demme, Robert Redford, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall and many others.  Copies of these letters were sent to Ray family in Kolkata.

 

Due to ill health Ray could not be present in the Oscar ceremony. Instead a team from Hollywood came down to Kolkata in March 1991 to present the Oscar and record the acceptance speech. On 30th March evening in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Audrey Hepburn announced the name of Satyajit Ray as the recipient of Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.  He joined the prestigious league following Greta Grabo, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, James Stuart, Akira Kurosawa and Sophia Loren.

 

Acceptance speech of Satyajit Ray: Well, it's an extraordinary experience for me to be here tonight to receive this magnificent award; certainly the best achievement of my movie-making career. When I was a small, small school boy, I was terribly interested in the cinema. Became a film fan, wrote to Deanna Durbin. Got a reply, was delighted. Wrote to Ginger Rogers, didn't get a reply. Then of course, I got interested in the cinema as an art form, and I wrote a twelve-page letter to Billy Wilder after seeing "Double Indemnity." He didn't reply either. Well, there you are. I have learned everything I've learned about the craft of cinema from the making of American films. I've been watching American films very carefully over the years and I loved them for what they entertain, and then later loved them for what they taught. So, I express my gratitude to the American cinema, to the motion picture association who have given me this award and who have made me feel so proud. Thank you very, very much.