<p>India's preeminent film director, Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) came to public attention in 1955 with <i>Pather Panchali</i>, the first installment of what became known as the Apu trilogy. It was the motion picture that introduced Indian cinema to the West. Initially critics considered Ray a poetic chronicler of Bengali village life, but soon he showed himself adept at making movies that incorporate contemporary urban life (<i>Branches of the Tree</i>), Indian history (<i>The Lonely Wife</i>), comedy (<i>The Philosopher's Stone</i>), musical fantasy (<i>Kingdom of Diamonds</i>), children's subjects (<i>The Golden Fortress</i>), and even documentary elements (<i>Rabindranath Tagore</i>). <p><i>Satyajit Ray: Interviews</i> reveals a genial, generous, unpre-tentious, immensely knowledgeable man who, for all his fame, remained to the end amusedly indifferent to movie-world glamour. <p>Scripting, casting, directing, music-scoring, camera-operating, working closely on art direction and editing, even designing his own credit titles and publicity material--Ray did it all almost from the start of his career. His films come close to being wholly personal expressions yet achieve a global resonance. <p>Bert Cardullo is professor of American culture and literature at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey. He lives on the island of Chios.