Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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56 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS Indian Cinema: KEY TO UNDERSTANDING by K. Ahmad Abbas one of the first things a foreigner notices about Indian films is that they are too long — though no Indian film has yet beaten the record of Gone With The Wind in this respect, and since the wartime shortage of raw stock, there is a general tendency to reduce the footage, supported by a ruling of the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association fixing 12,000 feet maximum for the product of its members. On the other hand, both in Britain and in Hollywood films of quite inordinate length are being produced. It is true, however, that the tempo of story development in an Indian film is slower than in its counterpart from Hollywood. So, to a foreigner, it seems longer. This criticism applies not only to film making but to a whole way of life. The Indian films are slow because the tempo of Indian life is slow, and as a mirror of this life, they unconsciously and inevitably, tend to acquire this tempo. Indian life is still slow because, artificially arrested by historical and political causes, it is still largely in the feudal stage. The Indian films will acquire the nervous tension and mounting tempo of a Hollywood thriller only when the impact of industrialism has created the same psychological atmosphere in this country as in England and America. Human Relations The Indian films are produced for people steeped in traditions of long and patient suffering. Here time stands still and a couple of thousand feet more of a film is a drop in the ocean of eternity. We are a patient people, brought up on religion and literary epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, Shahanama and Easana-i-Azad. We are used to religious song festivals like qawwalis and kirtans that go on for the whole night, and are not likely to be bored by a two-hour movie. For climatic and socio-historic reasons, we are a sentimental people and take human relations not so casually as the sophisticated and blase characters of the average Hollywood picture. The family tie is still strong in India and the modern youth has yet to fight for and win his or her rights to happiness and freedom as an individual. Having been acquainted with suffering on a mass scale for too long — famines, pestilence, tyrannies, the indignities of foreign rule, the frustrations of too rigid a social system, and violent internal strife — we are perhaps a little morbidly fascinated by tragedy. We have an unhealthy desire to see not only martyrdom but even frustration sublimated on the screen. It is interesting to mention in this connection that, unlike the experience of Hollywood, the Indian movie-producer generally finds films with tragic themes more paying at the box-office than flippant musicals or comedies. Besides films of religious appeal or those dealing with emotional frustration, social justice and the struggle for freedom and the realization of democratic ideals provide some of the most popular themes to the Indian producers. Sentimental stories sympathetic to the poor, the dispossessed, the Untouchables, and attacking the rich and the powerful, are always popular. Being people in an historically transitional stage —from medievalism to modernism, from feudalism to industrialism, from foreign rule to freedom — we are, consciously or subconsciously, preoccupied with all sorts of political, social, economic and emotional problems. The problem of caste and untouchability, the problem of widow remarriage, the problem of parental interference with young people's lives and love, the problem of unemployment, famines and the economic ruination of the peasantry; all these and many more have been dealt with by the writers and directors of the Indian screen. Indeed, there is almost not a single popular Indian film which has not had a serious social or emotional subject or theme. Entertainment But, shrewd businessmen as they are, the Indian producers have learnt to mix this serious content of the picture with 'entertainment'. They know the people are starved of romance and glamour in their personal lives. So they have supplied these ingredients in plenty in their films, invariably at the cost of realism and integrity. Box-office analysis reveals that, barring an occasional cycle of boy-meets-girl films, it is the triple combination of sentimental appeal, contemporary social relevance of theme, and good 'catchy' songs, which provides the formula of success. Of these, the songs perhaps are the most important — as otherwise average films like Khazanchi (1940), a plagiarization of The Way of All Flesh, and Rattan (1945), a variation on the frustrated love theme, became hits only on the strength of their popular songs. Religion The Indians are perhaps the most (and also perhaps the last) religious people in the world. The early films, therefore, had religious or mythological themes. Since then some of the best and the greatest of our movie hits have been in this category. Films based on the lives of popular saints have been most successful and it is interesting to observe a progressive humanitarian sub-motif being introduced in these stories of the Men of God. This has been partly due to the fact that many a saint in India (as doubtless elsewhere — the -most eminent example being Jesus of Nazareth) has been a Man of the People, too, but also in response to the latent urge of the people for reinterpretation of religion in terms of humanity. Thus Tukaram, an inexpensively produced Marathi film, achieved almost a world record by running continuously for over sixty weeks in Bombay City alone, not merely because of its religious appeal, but because the writer and director had stressed the human rather than the spiritual qualities of the saint which endeared him to his people in his own times, and to millions, centuries later, through the screen. As in all countries which have a present fraught with discontent and misery, we in India too have been unduly fascinated by romanticized versions of the 'Glorious Past'. 'Ancient Indian in all its pristine glory' is a frequently used catch-line to advertise these so-called 'costume' films which offer escape from the problems of today into a mood of proud contemplation of the past. Not a single king, queen, hero or knight-errant of history has escaped the attention of the filmproducers, and, even today, other qualities being, equal, a spectacular historical film can be more popular than a modern 'social'. But here, too, one can see the tendency to re-interpret the past in terms of the needs of today. Many an historical theme has been used as an allegory on burning contemporary issues like Freedom and Unity. And even in the worst days of strict British censorship, the censors have been powerless to ban anti-imperialist propaganda when presented in the garb of an historical film or even a mythological fantasy. Even ordinary 'stunt thrillers' (Indians counterparts of the Westerns) in which a lot of riding and shooting goes on against the Ruritanian background of political intrigue in an imaginary feudal State, have sentiments of patriotism and democracy worked into their rough and crude drama patterns. An amusing sidelight is provided by the fact that when the British Government forced Indian producers to make war propaganda pictures, anti-imperialist ideas were cleverly presented through officiallypassed 'anti-Fascist' and morale-building pictures. To give one example: In a social picture called Kismat (1943), a song number was introduced in a stage sequence, with the refrain: Dur hato, ave duniva walo, Hindustan hamara hai (Step back, step back, you foreigners — India belongs to us, the Indian). In the context of the war, the Government censors liked it because it seemed good anti-Fascist propaganda, a warning to Germany and Japan. But in the cities and towns and villages, the picturegoers who applauded it meant it to be a warning to the Imperialists to 'Quit India'! The preponderance of songs in an Indian film has been its most exasperating feature for westerners (and westernized Indians) who are used to expect song^ only in musicals, and no songs whatever in all other non-musical films. In India there are no non-musical films. Songs are an inevitable and integral part of every one of the