Filmindia (1941)

Shantaram Confesses His Hiuful Crime! What Plice ^<5x-0||."ce? B^*: V. SHANTARAM The other day I happened to pick up a film magazine. As I opened it mj eyes fell on a page which sported a splendid array of bleak, neat figures, figures piled upon figures. I thought I had made some mistake. Instead of picking up a cinema paper I had unwittingly run into the latest financial report of a profiteering business concern or perhaps a bulletin of some Chamber of Commerce. I blinked, rubbed my eyes and looked again. It was a film paper no doubt, for the cover was adorned by a charming young female star instead of a stiff necked business magnate. I scanned the deceptive page once more and the truth dawned on me. No it didn't contain anytlang I had imagined it did. It 3\ist gave a literal account of a certain film's glorious success at the box-office. The parade of figures represented the amounts collected at various stations. The parade ended with a chant of praise for the producer who had achieved the miiacle. It was a great achievenient. Was it? I began pondering over the matter. Here was a way of looking at things which had never occurred to me during my entire long film oreer. The telephone at my table rang incessantly. Our Story Department chief wanted to come over for another of our head-splitting discussions over the script of a forthcoming picture. But I asked him to wait, and went on with my deliberations. Is there any necessity, ti ought I, for achieving artistic perfection in films, for worrying yourself to death to give something different, something higher to the public, when you could produce a boxoffice hit in a shorter time and without so much slaving too? THE BOX OFFICE INGREDIENTS It was indeed an important ques f t.'on. I tried to figure out the ingredients that made the box-office cocktail; the usual boy-gets-the-girl stuff, indredible situations, out-ofplace humorous punches, and songs thicker than the relatives at the reading of a will. A rather disagreeable concoction for a man with the slightest pretence to aesthetic sense. He would refuse it even if he had lately gone through an era of prohibition, and rightly too. , I had myself danced to the boxoffice tune and had produced piclures which created box-office histoiy. But I had been disillusioned, for the gilded tune proved to be a pi(?ce of coarse jazz on closer examijiation. I wondered why some people extolled box-office hits and encouraged producers to run after such a thing. How could such a corporeal tune satisfy our incorporeal soul? I could not reconcile myself to the constantly repeated plea that the business of the screen was to entertain only because this meant that the producer's job was to make as ntuch money as possible out of the community and do it as little good as possible. Could he do such a thing in these days of trial and misery without feeling guilty? WHITHER HUMANITY World — ^upheaval, I continued tliinking, must shock our film industry into the realization of its duty to humanity. We have got to make pictures about something other than the struggles of boys to get girls. At any rate, this theme should not be indulged in to the exclusion of consideration for the welfare of society, nation and civilization as a whole. Mentally and materially the world is in a state of a muddle. Civilization is in a state of flux, and the human beings are heading toV ards disaster. People have acquired a wrong philosophy of life. 1 Mr. Shantaram, India's Greatest Director and Partner of Prabhat. their brains are diseased with the evil passions of hatred, strife, ciuelty and domination. Only Natiure is mockingly functioning as usual; flowers are blooming, birds are singing, brooks are babbling, as if there was nothing amiss. No creative artist, I believed, coi;ld fail to recognise what was g()ing around him and to reflect in his art something of the burning i'^sues of the day, something of the contemporary scene apart from pure entertainment. A study into the '/.orks of all great artists proved this. A film producer could not reasonably hesitate to take up a theme that deals with an economic or social condition obviously crying for adjustment and correction. I, however, realised that the mission of the screen was not to preach. It is a factual medium, not an argumentative one, a medium for making facts visual. But I also realised that no pen was so powerful, no voice so ek-quent as to match for impressiveness a message conveyed by visual i-nage. Wouldn't it be gross folly, thought I, to use this wonderful medium for cheap entertainment only? AN AWFUL CRIME? I didn't ignore the possibility that pictures with a definite purpose were likely to yield less profit and that 32