FilmIndia (1946)

music STOPS mOTION IN pictures M0on9t Sacrifice Story For Songs By: Professor KRISHNA GOPAL You may have heard of the judge who recognised the accused as the music-teacher ot his daughter, and gratefully increased the punishment to its maximum. Judged in this manner, most Indian film-musicians richly deserve a death-sentence. For, the gramophone, the radio, and the street-singer make some of their harrowing melodies omni-present by catching you napping even in the most lonely spot on earth. But it is not so much the cornetist, the violinist, and the pianist who make a sensitive hearer a pessimist. The chief credit for a.l this nauseating riot of music plugged into our ears goes to the music-director, about whose efforts a friend of mine said, he didn't know whether the Indian film-music was improving or the listeners were just getting more used to it. I daresay people might be found willing to pay these music-directors to save themselves the torture of this braying blare. Nonetheless, these music-makers are not the real culprits, for are they not just paid to inflict on us their tiresome wailing agony! And the producers pay them. One wonders why these long-eared producers should inflict not one or two but as many as eight or nine soul-searing songs in every picture. It may be inconceivable, some may think, to have a songless picture in a music-mad country like India. Yet, could not the producers reduce the number of songs in a picture, including just two or three truly musical melodies3 Indian producers are shrewd birds (no, not vultures!), and they want their pictures to satisfy every musical taste. They must have one or two 'Geets', a couple of 'Ghazals', one 'Qawwali', one romantic duet, one socialis ic song, one patriotic song, one comic song and you could add many other varieties. Well, what our producers desire is to increase the number of songs rather than decrease it. And their difficulty is not how to decrease but how to increase the number. The varieties of songs being so many and producers being keen on having every kind .io fine picture, it is not strange ifwith the amount of grey matter at their disposal, they find it difficult to choose half-a-dozen out of more than a dozen kinds of songs This, however, is by way of a prelude to the musical maladies of our Indian screen. The main issue is: Why should all kinds of pictures have songs, and almost the same number of songs? Whether it be a historical, a social, a biographical, a religious or any blessed kind of picture, the songs are there and never less than half a dozen. Indian producers are sedulous Damayanti Sahani a new comer, has a p'easant face to see in "Dur Chalen," a Durga picture. ly aping Hollywood, but they don't see that Hollywood thrillers have no songs, that Hollywood historicals and biographicals have none or just one. It is true that some Hollywood pictures have songs, but not all of them, and then not so many songs in one picture. THE THEATRICAL INFLUENCE Let me come ilown to brass tacks An Indian picture of the present length (eleven thousand feet) lasts for a little over two hours, and the songs take up about half an hour. This means that the real story has to be compressed within an hour and a half. And within this duration the characters are to be introduced and made alive, at least a couple of crises to be staged, some comic relief is to be provided, the sumptuous settings are to be displayed, a climax to be achieved and what not Shades of Agha Hashar Kashmiri! Why should Indian pictures still have the same number of songs as in a theatrical play of the past. The Indian theatrical play went on and on until the small hours, extending over some five hours, two-and-a-half times more than the present-day picture. It must be admitted that Indian talkie was born under the evil star of theatrical influence, and this has obsessed it up till now. Sohrab Modi, for instance, was a theatrical name, tread ing the boards and facing the limelight before he started as a picture maker. And his first few pictures were theatrical plays, pure and sim pie. It was only New Theatres which made songs a part of the drama, either to relieve the emotional tension or to intensify the feeling. Others simply stitched the songs to the story, super-imposed and superficial. In general, Indian talking pictures were in the beginning and to a large extent remain even now, not much dif ferent from the theatrical plays, except for the shifting scenes, and more realistic back-ground. It is high time, therefore, that Indian pictures get weaned from theatrical influence. Why should not some producer make a songless picture? I know it would need lots of guts and grit to start an innovation, and there are tremendous risks. For this reason, only a producer who can afford to gamble away a couple of lakhs, should have a stab at it. More than that, he should strain himself to make it a first-rate picture. For if the first songless picture runs upon the rocks, it would not merely mean individual loss but a set-back to Indian film. The failure of the first songless picture would prejudice the masses against other similar ventures at least for five years. The songless picture is, indeed, dangerous stuff and should be handled with kid gloves. Before I come to my final suggestion, let me indicate briefly what these songs do to most Indian pictures. Take for instance, the latest historical, Sohrab Modi's "Ek-Din-Ka-Sultan". 57