FilmIndia (May-Dec 1938)

Dialogue -Writers or Street Pedlars? By PANDIT INDRA The film studios are supposed to have their "prize-fools" and this uncomplimentary title is generally awarded to the Munshis and Pandits who write the dialogues. By common consent almost every one tacitly believes this. But those who revel in the luxury of considering another as a prize fool ever hardly think what the other man must be thinking about them. The Munshi or the Pandit is a dialogue writer and naturally a man of letters. His education gives him the right to think more than the others and when a dialogue writer finds himself in a crowd of block-head directors and producers, he must surely think himself to be in the land of fools. In an atmosphere of this blissful mutual misunderstanding, the dialogue writer of our film starts his work with the directors and the producers, some of whom hardly have a nodding acquaintance even with any primary education. The directors and the producers always labour under an erroneous impression that the dialogue writer can never give anything new or original. The scenes of the story are therefore written in advance with "original" dialogues in Marathi, Gujrathi or English and these are submitted for a tame translation to the dialogue writer, never even giving him a chance to add anything or remove anything. This procedure is a great handicap to an intelligent writer who entertains a burning desire to give something new and original every time. But the tin gods of production hardly ever listen to any complaints from the dialogue writer and merely choose to bask in the poor sunshine of their generally plagiarist thoughts. Dialogue-Writing An Art Dialogue writing for the screen is an art as much as producing a picture is. In the days of the 'silents', before the screen was given a tongue, the dialogues were conspicuous by their absence and the subtle expressions on the human face and the emotions within, were often explained away In written sub-titles. Very often these sub-titles explained something which was never even expressed on the face. But with the talkies in vogue, speech and action has been so closely synchronised that the dialogues while being completely descriptive of the situation should also have an almost invisible space for the display of actions. Long and jaw breaking dialogues have often killed the emotional importance of a situation while a single word like "mother" delivered in a tense situation and with a correct pitch has often brought tears to the eyes of thousands. Therefore the inevitable gap of the unsaid words is infinitely more import, tnt than lines and lines o! impressive dialogues. And in this respect the dialogues of the screen differ materially from the dialogues of the stage. On the stage, the audience being a long distance from the players the dialogues have to rely a lot on their ear value and they are written to interpret the emotions of the situation. But not so with the screen, where big close-ups of the artistes bring emotions within the clo^sl eye range possible and the dialogues have merely to do the work of illustrating the emotions of the situations. It is hardly necessary to mention that these dialogues must be in tune with the spirit of the situation and the actions of the artistes. The Psychology of Writing This creates a necessity for understanding the psychology of the situations. This word "psychology" is an illusive quantity. The PANDIT INDRA As an excellent song writer Pandit Indra has achieved a unique distinction in our film industry. Some of his best pictures in dialogues and songs are "Chhaya", "Dharmaveer", "Jwala", "Begunah," "Bala Joban", "Premveer" and "Brahmachari". Panditji is now working for Sagar and Ranjit. word is so well known and is .30 commonly used in our film studios without ever being understood that every budding director, who is hardly a month old, uses "psychology" as an alibi for his lack of knowledge. It is worth while know'ng whether all those who use this word with such fatal effect even know how to spell it. And yet several unexplained foolish things are straightway put down as a result of "psychology". Very few directors and producers in my experience have ever cared to understand even the primary fundamentals of the basic psychology of film entertainment. I have said before that dialoguewriting is an art. I would go further and state that it is as well a science. The dialogue writer of a present day picture, should be both a writer and a businessman. He has to elevate art and serve commerce. If he writes a language that can be understood only by the highly educated intellectuals, the picture proves a commercial failure. In India the masses don't understand high flown literature, but demand the common colloquial language. To give the correct colloquial language is a science; to use It for (Continued on page 63) 45