FilmIndia (1939)

This Producer Dares To Say: no no RE 17,000 FEET EPIGS! Let Us Cut Down Length Of Pictures And Produce Educative And Interesting ' Shorts \ By Baburao Pendharkar (Jti the following article we present Producer-Actor Baburao Pendharkar in his most timely and commendable role the role of a I rational producer who makes a rational plea to his colleagues. — Editor. Filmindia) . One day while travelling in the train. I was introduced to a big Government official. Knowing that I belonged to an Indian Film company, he casually talked to me about the present condition of Indian films and remarked that the intelligentia is not interested in the Indian pictures for several reasons one of which is the tiresome length of our Indian pictures and also the absence Of any side reels. This talk made me think over this matter. After contemplation of the pros and cons of shorter pictures I propose to put forth a suggestion, which may, at the face of it. seem impracticable, but in reality is most definitely possible and welcome too ! It is an indisputable fact that the general public has come to be tired with inordinate length of our films which makes them dragging ana monotonous. So long as a talkie was more or less a novelty and the sense of tempo was not developed, the public tolerated the tiresome length and they even appreciated an actor standing static and singing — rather vomitting tunes after tunes. Those days have gone. And a time has come, when the public at large is ready to appreciate and demand the real charm of brevity and briskness. I have never fully understood those who. often refer to a film as epic. Its conception on its psychic side may be so. But in the general get up and the singularity of effect, it is more akin to a lyric — or a short ftory. It is a drama but not Elizabethan. The age of the one-act play has come to stay. I quite un derstand that there may be certain themes which may require a wider canvass. Just like the saga in a novel. For instance Victor Hugo's •Les Miserables' or Tolstoy s "Anna Karennina' or Romanin Rolland's Jean Christophe' or in our history, the life of a Moghal Emperor or the sage of Buddha, these subjects, because of their special nature, can claim the present length. But in general, many a theme that we today handle could be more effectively, charmingly put forth, if the length were cut down. Love has been the ruling subject of many of our social pictures. Where is the necessity of presenting it with full and confusing complexity and interplay of diverse colours It is never done for the theme's spke. It is always done to lengthen the picture. Love and its various reactions, affection and its subtle shades, sacrifice and its divine intensity — all these are lyrical in soul, lyrical in appearance. They must be also lyrical in dimensions. It is very easy to get this 'cut down'. More than often, superflous songs add to the footage. An average film, rightly accommodates at the most three or four songs. But we have all the while supposed that at least ten songs is a fundamental necessity. The producers go still further. They make the number of songs a feature in advertisements. This is stupid and unhealthy. Songs must be outburst of an intense feeling— at its white-heat point. Just like the crucial situation from dramatic view-point, the mental intensity is expressed in songs. How many intense spots (which have to be only sung out) can there be in one picture ? Mr. Baburao Pendharker, Director of Navyug Chitrapat Ltd.. and partner of Huns Pictures. With no offence to my fellow producers I am writing this. I can say that many of my producer friends could easily cut down their pictures to the length of 8,000 feet and that too with no harm to the general effect of the production. This brevity in length will wipe out the general evil of monotony, the usual grievance of 'drag' and will make Indian pictures "Smart". Many authors, because of the substantial length before them, unnecessarily make complexity more complex. They inter-mix more than two or three problems. And then our photoplays gravely suffer from artificiality — a made-up instead of a spontaneous and homogeneous creation. A screen-play is in essence and must be — a lyric in light and shade. It is a poem not an epic running in books. I propose that the length must not generally exceed eight thousand feet. This limitation will give an unlimited scope to many new things. The removal of this strain of unnecessary length will enrich by new 19