INDIAN CINEMA & GOVT

 Moving Image – A Study of Indian Cinema – by Kishore Valecha

The importance of Phalke lies in the fact that he used purely Indian themes in his films and they had an immediate religious and emotional meaning for his audiences. The greatest appeal of the film for Indian audiences lay for a long time in a sense of wonder and in religious sentiment.

In many ways, the mythological story seems quite appropriate to the early silent films. The stories were sufficiently known and the absence of sound hardly made much difference. They captivated audiences not only by their religious meaning, but also by the scope for miraculous and spectacular elements. Audiences literally prostrated themselves when Rama appeared on the screen in ‘LankaDahan’.

Besides the mythological, two other kinds of films made their appearance. These were the hisotricals and the silent films.

The stunt film was born with the Imperial Film Co. when Ardeshir Irani made a thriller called ‘Wild Cats of Bombay’ in 1928. The actress Sulochana, played the key role in this film, a kind of female Robin hood.

The trend towards a purely Indian kind of film was reinforced by the new nationalistic spirit that appeared ‘Socialist’ movement of the time.

The other model for the Indian filmmakers was Hollywood cinema. From 1918 onwards to this day, the chief distribution system has dominated the success of film imports in India. The foreign film on the Indian screen has always been Hollywood made.

At the same time, it is interesting to compare the genesis of the Indian film with the European, where the earliest subjects tended to be secular and common place.

 

Government of Cinema / The economics – by KMG and Wo

By the time of the second world war, the film had a look of solidarity and self-respect and among the Indian industries, cinema occupied the eighth place in the early 40s.

World War II created a boom in the film which provided fertile ground for people. This led to the decline of the studio system, where the crew were employees; and the rise of the state system, with stars becoming free-lance artists who performed in more than one film at a time. consequently, the star, the music director, and the playback singer became the beneficiaries of the new order.

In 1960 the government establishment the Film Federal Corporation (FFC) and in the mid 1960s an information system of channelization of films through the State Corporation was introduced. Subsequently, the NFDC, the National Film Division Corporation replaced FFC, till 1992.

The governments casual approach to the film industry is evident from the fact that there are no radical data on the film industry in India. Very little has been carried out specially about the economic entertainment.

The Indian film business has never been office considered an industry, so raising money from film institution has always been problematic. This comes with the high rate of failures at the box office, making film financing very risky. It has been a very light time and gain that finance for films can largely come from a parallel economy lying outside sectors.

Movie moghuls of the earlier times however in the studio system; J. F. Madhan of Elphinstone Company, Chandulal Shah of Rajit Moviestone, B. N. Sircar, Devaki Bose, P. C. Barua, Nitin Bose of New Theatres, Daulat Fatehlal and Shantaram of Prabhat Studio and Himansu Rai of Bombay Talkies are some yester year movie moghuls.