Reeling off dreams

It’s been a momentous century for the film industry where multi-starrer musical extravaganzas and experimental cinema have both travelled hand-in-hand. Avant garde directors like Shyam Benegal, Shekhar Kapoor and Deepa Mehta have made their statements even as popular film-makers like Raj Kapoor, Ramesh Sippy and the Barjatiyas have thrived on out-and-out entertainers.... A review by Rashmi Kaw.

HOW times change. Over a century ago when the Lumiere Brothers’ Chinematographe screened silent films at Watson Hotel, Esplanade Mansion, Bombay on July 7,1896, people thought that Gods had descended on earth. In deference they broke coconuts and lay prostrate in front of the makeshift screen.

But do times really change? Not exactly, 103 years on, screen idols are treated no less than Gods! Fans in the south have actually made temples to worship their favourite stars.

Though the human psyche may have remained the same, technology has undergone a magical change in the last hundred years. Multiplexes are replacing ordinary cinema-halls. 3-D, laser beams, miniatures, multi-lens cameras and panasound machines have turned film-making into a science marvel.

The dawn of the new millennium is the megastar, megabudgets and megahype. The acting fee of some top names like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan has reportedly run into crores even as films become multi-star extravaganzas.

A far cry from 1899 when India’s pioneer film-maker Harishchandra Bhatvadekar shot two short films and exhibited them under Edison’s projecting kinetoscope. That really set the ball rolling for the first decade of the century with people like Hiralal Sen of Calcutta, F.B. Thanawalla, J.F. Madan and Abdullah Esoofally — all of Bombay — too made short films and exhibited them to an excited audience. Esoofally imported the bioscope from England and began making a fortune out of exhibiting overseas films.

The first silent feature film was made in 1912. N.G. Chitre and R.G. Torney produced Pundalik which had many sequences lifted directly from British cinema which was by now making confident strides into the realm of moviedom.

The pioneer: Dada Saheb Phalke

The era on the indigenous cinema came in 1913 when Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, better known today as Dada Saheb Phalke, produced the first totally indigenous silent feature film Raja Harishchandra which heralded the birth of the Indian film industry. The film had titles in Hindi and English and was released on May 3,1913 at the Coronation Cinema, Bombay. If things were happening in Bombay so were they in Bengal where creative interest converged on cinema and in 1917, the state made a debut in cinema with Satyabadi Raja Harishchandra produced by Elphinstone Bioscope company. Madras too was not far behind and in 1919 it released its first feature film Keechaka Vadham.

But it was Bombay which was fast becoming the hub of films. Thanks to talents like Suchet Singh who produced Shakuntala, Chandulal Shah who made Guna Sundari, apart from names like Ardeshir Israni, and V. Shantaram who were gaining immense popularity.

In fact it was Ardeshir Irani who made history by producing the first Indian talkie Alam Ara in 1931. Bengal and Madras followed with Jamai Shasthi and Kalidas respectively. The mythologies and historical epics soon gave way to social themes with film-makers taking on the mantle of reformers. V. Shantaram’s films like Duniya Na Mane, Aadmi and Padosi, Franz Osten’s Achut Kanya, Fatehlal’s Sant Tukaram, Mehboob Khan’s Watan, Ek hi Raasta and Aurat made a deep impact on the Indian psyche.

In the thirties another revolution was taking place in cinema in England. Colour technology was being tested successfully in laboratories and film-makers of the West started experimenting with the new medium. The technology did not take long to reach India which was then governed by the British. And it was again Ardeshir Irani who pioneered the colour era in 1937 with Kishen Kanhaiya.

By now all the states in India were galvanised by the new medium and regional cinema came to the fore. The first Marathi film Ayodhiyecha Raja was a huge hit. So was the Gujarati film Narasinh Mehta, the first Kannada film Dhurvkumar the first Oriya film Sita Bibaha, the first Assamese film Joymati the first Punjabi film Sheila and the first Malayalam film Balan.

Forties: A momentous decade

It was the decade of forties in which the Indian cinema came to its own. Film-making had matured into an art form and some of the most remarkable movies were made in the era. Shantharam’s Dr Kotnis ki Amar Kahani, Mehboob’s Roti, Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar, Uday Shanker’s Kalpana, K.A. Abbas’s Dharti Ke Lal, Sohrab Modi’s Sikander, Pukar and Prithvi Vallabh, J.B.H. Wadia’s Court Dancer, S.S. Vasan’s Chandralekha, Vijay Bhatt’s Bharat Milap and Ram Rajya, and to say of Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat and Aag.

A major recognition of the work being done by the film industry came fromHollywood when in 1952 it was decided to hold the first International Film Festival in India. This was the event which would mark the emergence of one of the greatest film-makers India has ever produced — Satyajit Ray who with his Pather Panchali made a mark not just in India but all over the world.

In Bombay, the epics soon gave way to the ground realities of post-independent India. Social themes ruled supreme and serious film-makers like Bimal Roy came up with Do Bigha Zamin, Devadas and Sujata. He was followed by V. Shantharam’s Do Aankhen Barah Haath, Raj Kapoor’s Jaagte Raho Mehboob Khan’s Mother India and Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa.

However, the late fifties brought with it a fast emerging star system. Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand formed the top three drawn followed by Rajendra Kumar, Sunil Dutt and Shammi Kapoor. The film industry also saw some of the most stunning women come to the fore in Nargis, Madhubala and Meena Kumari followed by Nutan, Waheeda Rehman and Vyjayanthimala.

If the fifties decade marked the confident strides Indian cinema was taking the sixties brought opulence, entertainment, colour and music. The decade was heralded with K.Asif’s partly coloured extravaganza, Mughal-E-Azam which broke all previous box-office records by running for over two years in Bombay’s Maratha Mandir. Raj Kapoor’s Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Dilip Kumar’s Gunga Jamna, Guru Dutt’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Subodh Mukherji’s Junglee, Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anari and Dev Anand’s Guide set the screens afire around the country.

New Wave cinema

But it wasn’t as if the Indian cinema had lost its zeal to experiment. Avant garde film-makers still ventured into the realm of off-beat films. Sunil Dutt’s Mujhe Jeene Do and Yaadein, Bimal Roy’s Bandini and Basu Bhatta-charya’s Teesri Kasam kept the flame of art films burning.

But the tastes were chan-ging and changing fast. The audience wanted escapist fare and many producers who had their ear to the ground recognised the signals and quickly reaped in the mool-ah. Hrishi-kesh Pramod Chakra-vorthy’s Love In Tokyo, Raj Kapoor’s Sangam, Ramanand Sagar’s Arzoo and B.R. Chopra’s Waqt all catered to the growing demand for pure entertainers.

Thus by the time the seventies decade arrived, many leading names of Bombay had got their act together and started making waves at the box office. Manoj Kumar’s Upkaar, Shakti Samantha’s Aradhana and Raj Kapoor’s Bobby set the pace for some of the biggest blockbusters to come out of the Bombay film industry which was fast being renamed Bollywood.

Interestingly even as Bollywood was getting increasingly preoccupied with popular cinema, in other parts of the country serious cinema was taking a firm root. In Bengal Satyajit Ray was joined by Mrinal Sen and Ritwick Ghatak to form the ruling trinity of Tollygunge. Films like Apur Sansar, Charulata, Ajantrik, Bhuvan Shome and Ek Din Pratidin made India proud at international film festivals. From Kerala came Chemmeen and won its maker Ramu Kariat the President’s Gold Medal.

Bachchan phenomenon

But in Bombay the era of the big-budget multi-starrer was soon arriving. An obscure film, Saat Hindustani brought to the nation one of the biggest stars of the century...Amitabh Bachchan. The star was to grip the nation’s psyche for almost two decades. Movies like Zanjeer, Sholay, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Deewar, Amar Akbar Anthony and more re-wrote film history throughout the eighties.

But along with the Bachchan phenomenon, the parallel was kept alive and kicking by people like Shyam Benegal, Saeed Mirza, Muzzaffar Ali, Sai Pranjpaye, Govind Nihilani and Mani Kaul. Films like Nishant, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai, Sparsh and Gaman may not have made box office booty but they were making a statement of their own and were being appreciated by a serious global audience.

However, by the coming of the nineties their voices stood in danger of being lost in a crowd of entertainers which the came to personify. The new generation fed on a constant diet of Hollywood Kitsch and pop music wanted an out-and-out escapist fare where films were concerned.

For the first time the back-to-the-entertainers movement was engineered by not a hero but a heroine going by the name of Madhuri Dixit. In 1985, she dropped out of college and started making the rounds of studios. Her persistence paid off and she signed, Swati and Awaara Baap which too bombed leaving her shell-shocked. But then Tezaab happened. And with Ek do teen number Madhuri was an overnight sensation. Since then she never looked back and lorded over the film industry like a female Amitabh Bachchan.

Though her rule may be nearing an end and Madhuri may have slipped from the numero uno position, in the years to come she will be more remembered for her singular contribution of elevating the status of the heroines and proving that filmdom’s superstuds cannot make it without them.

Madhuri’s success has lured a second generation of actresses who have quickly made their mark and though they may take time to reach the star status, by breaching the male-dominated walls of tinseltown she has achieved what no actress had achieved before. Today, thanks to Madhuri, the roles have dramatically changed. From Tezaab to Dil To Pagal Hai Madhuri has shown that it is the heroine who is the prime mover who sells the tickets and sets the turnstiles ticking.

But in the nineties, the heroes too had their say. With the three Khans — Shah Rukh, Salman, and Aamir calling the shots supported by female stars like Kajol, Tabu, Urmila Matondkar and Karishma Kapoor, Bollywood began painting the town red with films like Maine Pyaar Kiya, Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Baazigar, Hum Apake Hai Koun, Rangeela, Dilwaale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and more recently Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Hum Saath Saath Hain. The decade also saw Amitabh Bachchan trying to make unsuccessful attempts at a comeback with flops like Mrityudaata, Lal Badshah and Major Sahib.

But it was the younger stars whom the audience wanted to see. Producers in desperate search of hits dug deep into their pockets for the steeply rising fees of top stars some of whom like Shah Rukh Khan reportedly ended up taking as much as Rs 5 crore a film [inclusive of territory rights]. And why not? It was they who are making the cash registers jingle and had an equal share in the fruits of their labour.

But as it happens with all trends, signs of a new wave are already evident with the emergence of a new crop of directors who are making a mark not just on the national scene but are being notice worldwide.

Shekhar Kapoor (Elizabeth) and Deepa Mehta (Fire and Earth), began making waves in international film festivals. Others of the genre include names like Dev Benegal (English August) Nagesh Kukoonur (Hyderabad Blues and Rockford), Kaizad Gustad (Bombay Boys) and Nishit Saran (Summer In My Veins). They may not be churning out mass appeal material but their films are being noticed worldwide for their content, relevance and a homegrown humour.

And even as Bollywood stands at the threshold of a new millennium it can take comfort in the fact that despite churning out the ubiquitous entertainers, its spirit of experimentation is alive and kicking. A new era seems to be dawning upon the world’s largest film production centre where Manoj Bajpayee’s intense histrionics in a dark real-to-life film like Shool can hold its own with multi-starrer musical extravaganza like Hum Saath Saath Hain. The magic of Indian cinema at its heady best.

— Newsmen Features