Antiquity OfIndian Cinema
India has many assets & it has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world. In 1913 the very first film received a public screening ‘Raja Harishchandra”, It was directed by
Dadasaheb Phalke. During that period, it was difficult to cast female actors, however male actors used to portray female characters. The studio system began to emerge in the early 1930s, when many other film-makers started working in several Indian languages. Also, the Prabhat Film Company was established by V. G. Damle, Shantaram, S. Fatehlal, and two other men in 1929. The first most successful film of Indian Cinema was Devdas (1935), whose director, P.C. Barua also appeared in the
lead role. Also Damle and Fatehlal’s Sant Tukaram (1936), made in Marathi was the first Indian film to gain international recognition.
The social films of V. Shantaram, paved the way for an entire set of directors who took it upon themselves to interrogate not only the institutions of marriage, dowry and widowhood, but the grave inequities created by caste and class distinctions. Some of the social problems received their most unequivocal expression in Achhut Kanya (“Untouchable Girl”, 1936), a film directed by Himanshu Rai of Bombay Talkies. The film portrays the travails of a Harijan girl, played by Devika Rani, and a Brahmin boy, played by Ashok Kumar.
The next noteworthy phase of Indian cinema is associated with personalities such as Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, and Guru Dutt. The son of Prithviraj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor created some of the most admired and memorable films in Indian cinema. Awaara (The Vagabond, 1951), Shri 420 (1955), and Jagte Raho (1957) were both successful, commercial and critica. Bimal Roy’s “Do Bigha Zamin”, which shows the influence of Italian neo-realism, explored the hard life of the rural peasantry under the hardest conditions. In the meantime, the Indian cinema had seen the rise of its first acknowledged genius, Guru Dutt. From Barua’s Devdas (1935) to Guru Dutt’s Sahib, Bibi aur Gulam, the motif of “predestined love” looms large: to many opponents, a mawkish sentimentality characterizes even the best of the Hindi cinema before the arrival of the new or alternative Indian cinema in the 1970s.
Also there w as a strong influence of Bengali film-makers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen that also began to take a somewhat different turn in the 1970s against the tide of commercial cinema, characterized by song-and-dance routines, insignificant plots and family dramas. Ritwik Ghatak went on to serve as Director of the Film and Television School at Pune, from where the first generation of a new breed of Indian film-makers and actors – Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil and Om Puri among the latter was to emerge.The Indian film industry, famously known as Bollywood, is the largest in the world and has major film studios
in Mumbai (Bombay), Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Between them, they turn out more than 1000 films a year to hugely appreciative audiences in the world. For nearly 50 years, the Indian cinema has been the central form of entertainment in India and with its increased visibility and success abroad, it won’t be long until the Indian film industry will be well thoughtout to be its western counterpart-Hollywood. Mainstream commercial releases, however, continue to dominate the market, and not only in India, but wherever Indian cinema has a large following, whether in much of the British Caribbean, Fiji, East and South Africa, the U.K., United States, Canada or the Middle East.
Indian Art Cinema
India is well known for its commercial cinema, better known as Bollywood. In addition to commercial cinema, there is also Indian art cinema, known to film critics as “New Indian Cinema” or sometimes “the Indian New Wave”. Many people in India plainly call such films as “Art Films” as opposed to mainstream commercial cinema. From the 1960s, the art film or the parallel cinema was usually government-aided cinema.
Indian Commercial Cinema
Commercial cinema is the most popular form of cinema in India. Commercial films, in whatever languages they are made, tend to be quite long (approx.. three hours), with an interval. Another important feature of commercial cinema in India is Music. Ever since its inception the commercial Indian movies have seen huge following. Commercial or popular cinema is made not only in Hindi but also in many other regional languages of East and South India.
Regional Cinema India
India is home to one of the largest film industries in the world. Every year thousands of movies are produced in India. Indian film industry comprises Hindi films, Regional Films and Art Films. The Indian film industry is supported mainly by a vast film-going
Indian public, though Indian films have been gaining increasing popularity in the rest of the world, especially in countries with large numbers of emigrant Indians. The History of Indian Cinema is blooming , it is creating history & will make HISTORY.
By Karuna Sharma