FilmIndia (Jan-Nov 1942)

FILMINDIA May 1942 is a powerful medium of popular instruction and in any rational scheme of national planning for a people's socio-economic prosperity and well being, the place of films would be of paramount importance." "Do you agree, therefore with what Sydney and Beatrice Webb have said in their books on Russia with special reference to the potentialities and achievements of Cinema? "I do. I regard those books as a very sympathetic and understanding study of post-revolutionary Russia. It does not say enough about the part cinema has played in the reconstruction programme, but its tribute to it is unmistakable. The cinema is part of the Soviet Commissariat of education. The following is a relevant extract from "Soviet Communism — A New Civilisation" by the Webbs: — "It is significant that the theatre, the opera, the ballet and the cinema are in every republic of the U.S.S.R. as much within the sphere of the Commissariat of education as the school itself. The theatre was of outstanding excellence in Czarist Russia but any educative influence it had was confined to a small class. To-day in the U.S.S.R. they appeal literally to millions. They are not limited to the great cities but exist in every town. Lenin said what we think of art is not important but what the millions say about art is important for Art commences only when its roots are spread broadly through the masses." FOLLOW RUSSIA "Will you mention some American or British films that you have particularly liked during the last few years with reference to the antiNazi character cf a good many of them?" "American studios have made some very good films like "The Mortal Storm", "Confessions of a Nazi Spy", "Four Sons" and others exposing Hitlerite methods of suppressing all civil liberties and making machines of men but I cannot think of more names off hand." "Will not an organisation, like the Films Division of the British Ministry of Information to control the cinema industry, contribute to its healthy growth under a national government? "A government can do anything it likes, provided it knows its own mind and has a well-defined policy." "Cannot the film be harnessed to cultural and educational purposes in a scheme of National planning to diffuse knowledge and information of social utility, to the illiterate millions of India?" "Most certainly. Follow Russia". Sir Stafford was quite right. Today in Russia the cinema is as much a part of any locality as a grocer's shop, a laundry or a church formerly used to be. A block of few buildings has a club and a cinema of its own as Pat Sloan writes in his "Russia Without Illusions". Describing thus a square in Gigant, a small town, Pat Sloan says "On one side several blocks of modern flats, on the other the administrative offices, a large department store and a great club, cinema and theatre for the entertainment of the workers. In the evening I attended the cinema with the youth of Gigant, and saw an amusing soviet comedy about a young worker with an invention, a bureaucrat determined to steal from him all credit and financial gain from the invention, a love interest that did not, as in a capitalist film, end happily ever after, and a good deal of happy knockabout fun." CINEMA IN A CHURCH In another place he says "the church today is a club for visitors, with a library, cinema stage and a grand piano". In a third place this author's services were demanded to play the part of a young Armenian peasant leader in a film of the civil war. He was required to play the role of an Indian soldier in a scene about the British intervention during the Russian civil war. Lastly I asked Sir Stafford: "The army in India has cornered all raw positive film and the Indian film industry is about to close its door in a few days if fresh supplies are not available. Cannot something be done to import Russian supplies across the North-West Frontier or Kashmere, to replace the British or American?" "Obviously it is for those concerned to take up the matter with the Government of India. It is a Government's duty to see that a prosperous and important industry is not allowed to die and is given adequate encouragement to hold its own in these troublous times." Motilal seems to be getting a lot of natural situations nowadays. Here is one in "Arman" in which the "glass" seems to help him to make up his mind about the other. 58