REFLECTIONS ON INDIAN CINEMA

Reflections on Indian Cinema – ed. Aruna Vasudev

It is said that the inspiration for Phalke came when he was watching the imported film – Life of Christ on Easter Sunday of 1911.

While struggling to familiarize himself with the intricacies of the operation of his imported camera, Phalke exposed single frames of a seed sprouting to a growing plant, show once a day, over a month – thus inadvertently introducing the concept of ‘time-lapse photography’ which resulted in the first indigenous instructional film – The Birth of a Pea Plant (1912). This Swadeshi Film came very handy in getting the financial backing to his first film venture.

Phalke fixed up a studio in Dadar Main Road, wrote the scenario, erected the sets and started actual shooting in the summer of 1912 and the film was released at the Coronation Cinema on 21^st April 1913 for special invitees and members of the press.

The films treatment is episodic, following the style of the Indian folk theatre and the primitive novel. The film has title cards in Hindi and English. Most of the camera set ups are static, with plenty of movements within the frame. The palace sets are so well designed and mounted that the visual impact is as striking and pleasing as the sets seen in latter-day films.

The bath tub sequence where Harishchandra comes to call his wife Taramati is indeed the finest bath-tub scene in Indian cinema. Only a fertile mind as that of Phalke could have incorporated such a sensuous scene in what is primarily a ‘religious subject’.

Phalke’s one-reel shot – ‘How Films are Prepared’ (1913) – a film record on the making of Raja Harishchandra – a study film designed to inform the audiences of the various technical aspects of filmmaking as an eloquent testimony to the vision of a man, a creative genius, who believed in the role of cinema to entertain inform and educate.

It is not just an accident that the first Indian film happened to be a ‘mythological’. Phalke, came from an orthodox Hindu household, a family of priests. It was natural for the Indian film pioneer to turn to his own ancient epics and puranas for source material. Moreover, the plot was very much close to the heart of each and every Indian. Another factor could be the intense religious ethos in the performing arts in the country.

The phenomenal success of Raja Harishchandra was kept up by Phalke with a series of mythologicals – Mohini Bhasmasur (1914), significant for introducing the first woman to act before the cameras – Kamalabai Gokhale.

The significant titles that followed included – Satyawan Savitri (1914), Lanka Dahan (1917), Sri Krishna Janma (1918) and Kaliya Mardan (1919).

Phalke winds up S. K. Janma with a talented presentation of devotees of different castes. Bing a nationalist, he was contributing to the patriotic cause by raising an entertainment medium like cinema to motivate people to higher values and tried to emphasize on the equality of mass. The opening section of Kaliya Mardan gives one the impression that the screen test Phalke took of his daughter Mandakini has been inadvertently added to the main film. However, this seems to be a very conscious decision, instead of another short film explaining the do’s and don’ts of action before a movie camera and a novel method of introducing his daughter to the audience.

To Phalke, God’s land is no different from man. Gods; are like ordinary people, picturized against familiar backdrops, behaving in a natural manner rather than imaginary, heavily made-up character coming out of fantasy world. There is no attempt to make them supernatural or larger than life.

‘Phalke films’ is the name of the company which Phalke started initially to realize his ambition of turning filmmaker. It was more of a cottage enterprise with borrowed money, personal mortgage and helped by well-wishers like Trymbak Telang. The first five films were made under this banner. Later he started another outfit as a corporate partnership in 1918 – Hindustan Film Company. Out of the 93 films made under the Hindustan banner, Phalke contributed over 40 films – all silent.

Kolhapur in Western Maharashtra was another centre of active film production in the 20’s, and the man who spearheaded here was Baburao K. Mistry – popularly known as Baburao Painter. In 1919, he formed the Maharashtra Film Co. because of his special interest in sets, costume design ad painting, he chose episodes from Maratha history for the new medium. His ‘historicals’ had a contemporary relevance to the people of a nation, who were fighting for liberation from a colonial oppressor.

Dhiren Ganguly’s – England Returned (1921) was presumably the first social satire on Indians obsessed with Western values and with that another genre of Indian cinema known as ‘the contemporary social’ slowly emerged. In Baburao Painter’s ‘Sarkari Pash’ (1925) an attempt was made at realistic treatment of the Indian peasant, exploited by the greedy moneylender. V. Sharma who started his career under Painter got his break as the ‘young peasant’ in this film.

Co productions:

Bengal born theatre enthusiast Himansu and playwright Niranjan Pal set up a partnership Pal got the German company Emelka to buy the European distribution rights and to contribute technical crew. Great Eastern Film Corporation invested in one third of the production. Thus, was made ‘The Light of Asia’(1925) directed by Franz Osten – the first significant international co-production. The Maharaja of Jaipur helped the making of this film, which was a travel film of India.

The Himansu Rai and Franz Osten team repeated the co-production exercise in ‘Shiraz’ (1928) based on the story of the Taj Mahal and the ‘Throne of Dice’ (1930) inspired by The Mahabharata.

Marthanda Varma (1931) got into a legal tangle and was withdrawn after the premiere.

Government and Cinema

Government’s first intervention in the Cinema industry took place in 1918 when appalled by the deplorable conditions in which the public were watching films and also the indiscriminate growth of crime and sex especially in imported films, it passed the Indian Cinematograph bet, which made compulsory the licensing of cinemas and introduced censorship of films.

Soon following the idea of a bureaucrat, West Bengal entertainment tax was started in 1927.

In 1928, the Indian Cinematograph Committee was set up under the Chairmanship of Diwan Bahadur T. Rangachariar. Being a true nationalist, he used the opportunity to study the condition of the Indian Film Industry and suggested ways and means for its improvement. The Committee launched a major investigation resulting in the one volume – ‘Report of the Indian Cinematograph’ and five volumes of ‘Evidence’ – a rich storehouse of information on the first two decades of Indian cinema. The ICC report unfortunately disappeared into the dusty corridors of bureaucracy.

According to the censor records available with the National Film Archives of India (NFAI) since 18, a total of 1268 silent features have been made in this country. Unfortunately, most of them finished long long ago. The NFAI could preserve only 10 or 12 titles and the majority of them are incomplete. It is a pity neither the filmmakers nor the authorities concerned took the trouble of preserving the country’s silent cinema heritage.

Phalke and his contemporaries were conscious of the immense potentialities of the new medium of cinema, not only as a vehicle for escapist entertainment, but also for purposes of education, information and motivation. Practically every film company of the silent era saw the necessity of diverting part of their resources for recording the Indian actuality of people, events and places. They deemed it their moral responsibility to show this to paying audiences side by side with their pictorial entertainment.

It is rather ironic that a film making process which grew out of such enlightened consciousness came to be looked down upon with suspicion when the national government got installed – so much so that they took it for granted that only a government agency could fulfill the task of production and distribution of news sheets and documentaries.

It is helpful to the understanding of Indian Cinema to analyze six forces that have had a profound impact on its growth.

1.       The Epics – The Ramayana and The Mahabharata – Their influence can be analysed at four levels, themes narrative, ideology and communication. The very first Indian film, Raja Harishchandra (1913) was based on the Ramayana. In addition, certain topics associated with motherhood, patrimony and revenge, for e.g., in films such as Mother India (1957), Awaara (1951), Zanjeer (1947) are directly traced to these epics.

The narrative structure in terms of the art of story telling in Indian films with plots show the influence of the epics.

Indian popular cinema is / has been committed to the maintenance of the status quo in terms of ideology and it legitimizes its own existence by subscribing to these two epics.

Being at the core of Indian culture, the epics found articulation in a variety of ways and forms. Indian popular cinema with its basic text can be understood in relation to these diverse performances of the epics.

 

2.       Classical Indian Theatre: Sanskrit plays were highly spectacular dance – dramas as opposed to the tightly – organized realistic plays of the West. Classical theatre exercised a formative influence on the sensibility of Indian filmmakers and one can find similar traits in both.

 

3.       Folk Theatre – The Yatra of Bengal, Ramleela and Krishna Lila of Uttar Pradesh, Tamasha of Maharashtra, Nautanki of Rajasthan, Bhavai of Gujarat, Terukkutta of Tamilnadu, Vithinatakam of Andhra and Yakshagana of Karnataka are perhaps the most prominent regional folk dramas. In the use of song and dance, humor, the structure of narrative, the informing melodramatic imagination, these folk plays had far reaching impact on the sensibility of Indian popular film makers.

 

4.       Parsi Theatre: During the nineteenth century, the Parsis, who had gained a wide reputation as talented playwrights and skillful technicians, influenced the theatre of both north and south India. The Parsi Theatre drew upon both Western and Indian forms of entertainment, constituted an effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator. These plays bear a strong resemblance to the generality of Indian films of the popular type. A close analysis would bring to light the remarkable similarities in terms of themes, narratives, generation of emotion and styles of presentation. Indeed, one of the greatest Indian filmmakers was the Parsi Sohrab Modi, whose Jhansi ki Rani was India’s first technicolor film.

 

5.       Hollywood: Indian filmmakers were fascinated by the technical inventiveness of their Hollywood counterparts and tried to emulate them. The glamour of the stage system and the commercial advantageousness of the studio system were quickly adopted.

On many occasions, story lines, characters and sequences were lifted bodily from Hollywood. For instance, Raj Kapoor succeeded in indigenizing Chaplin in a way that would attract a vast mass of film goers.

Although, Indian filmmakers drew heavily upon Hollywood musicals, there are points of difference between the two forms of mass entertainment. Hollywood maintained the façade of reality by legitimizing the singing and dancing; whereas Indian filmmakers created the impression that songs and dances are the natural and logical mode of expression of emotions in a given situation.

 

6.       Music Television (MTV): The impact of MTV is very evident in Indian popular films made in the late 1980s and 1990s. The pace of the films, the quick cutting dance sequences, camera angles that one associates with modern music television find clear analogies in modern Indian films. For e.g. in the work of filmmaker Mani Ratnam.