Indian Cinema Today

Author(s): Chidananda Das Gupta

Source: Film Quarterly , Summer, 1969, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Summer, 1969), pp. 27-35
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1210307

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INDIAN CINEMA 27

ings, there was built a real and admirably afterwards without being intensely moved by
equipped 498-seat movie theater. All these pride and thankfulness. And, looking back now
years since, films have been thrown daily on to those days so long ago and far away, and
to its screen, as a tribute to the seventh art and in spite of or to explain a little grumbling, I
a continual source of pleasure and education. hear inwardly the words from an old hymn:
I nearly choked with excitement when the first "That such a light affliction should win so
program was given there and never stole down great a prize."

CHIDANANDA DAS GUPTA

Indian Cinema Today

The film industry of India is, depending u
statistics you emphasize, the second, third, or fourth lar
Moreover, films have been m
in India since the earliest decade of the ar
do we explain the fact that--aside from the films
Indian films have been unable to obtain attention
film scene? And what are the prospects, in the
that has been growing up since independence
for the curiously chaotic Indian film industry?
by a well-known Indian critic, film-society official, a
attempts to sketch answers to such qu

"We must put everything into the of

cinema," says
the possibilities of the cinema, bec
Jean-Luc Godard, the high priest of modern cinema.
cinema is a medium distilled out of previo
And his films leapfrog from real life of to painting,
expression synthesized by science. Yet, so
literature, advertising, science, politics-connecting
a tiny segment of India lives in the scienti
it all less and less by story links, and ence
moreofand more
the twentieth century; the rest is
by the unifying force of the film-maker's mind,
mous anachronism struggling to leap into
turning narrative, "objective" cinemaent. into a direct
personal communication between the film-maker
Those of us who would like to see Indian cinema
and his audience. But this "putting everything into
on the sophisticated level of films from the West (or
the cinema" is only made possible Japan)
by the film-
tend to forget that the forces weighing down
maker's awareness of the many pastIndian
forms both
cinema areofspecial and massive. Even the
cinema and of other arts, and his sense
mostof the cons-
avant-garde section of the Indian film industry
tantly developing interrelations of art, is
history, litera-
still subject to crushing pressures-from both
ture, science. Only this can give him
pastan
andawareness
present.

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28 INDIAN CINEMA

The absorption of the twentieth-century disparate

mediumaspects of life is a constant source of vul-
garity in social manifestations and in so-called cul-
of the cinema, born and developed in industrially
advanced countries, into India's classical tural
and phenomena-the
folk vulgarity of synthetic, folksy
culture presents enormous problems. India art, is
of one
the garish painting of ancient temples, of the
country, but has over 800 "mother tongues"; harshness16 of naked fluorescent tube lights, of the
sons of 5-year-plan
languages with scripts of their own are recognized in contractors playing transistors
the constitution; the diversity in religions, races, cos-
under massive banyan trees, of dignified old peas-
tumes, customs, food habits, looks and outlooks, ants breaking
cul- into an ugly trot to cross city streets.
tural backgrounds is greater than within the entirety With Independence came the stimulation of in-
of Western civilization. The advanced middle class dustrial growth, the opening up of communications
is one of the most liberal-minded in the world. But (without a corresponding broadening of educa-
some tribal people still live in the neolithic age;tion), population pressures, rising prices: these ugly
other groups exist, as it were, in medieval times.features of a colonial subcivilization have, instead
Even the educated, once inside their homes, often goof diminishing, multiplied themselves. Independ-
back centuries, leaving the modern world in theence has lifted the cultural disciplines of anti-
office and the drawingroom; they use the products ofBritish politics and let loose many disparate cultural
science without allowing science itself to penetratetendencies. The cultural leadership of the country
their beings and change the structure of their minds.has been too inadequate to bring to the masses the
In India the industrial revolution began barely same synthesis between East and West which
twenty years ago; neither its pace nor its influence ispeople like Tagore and Nehru brought to the ad-
yet adequate to give the cinema-a product of sci-vanced middle class. The failure to absorb the cin-
ence and technology-a sense of belonging to theema into the Indian tradition is only a part of this
times. Yet an average of 300 full-length features werelarger failure.
produced and released in the last three years by 61 Yet the breakdown of folk culture, the rise of an
studios, 39 laboratories, 1,000 producers, and 1,200uneducated industrial working class coming into
distributors; films were shown in 6,000-odd theatersmoney, of middlemen who thrive on government
to an audience of more than two billion a year-thespending, the increasing outward conformity of the
fourth largest in the world. There are films for na- nouveaux riches to a vulgar pseudo-Western pattern
tionwide or "all-India" distribution made in Bom- (in the absence of any other pattern), the increased
bay and Madras (in Hindi or its variant Hindustani) mixing between men and women-all this has cre-
and there are regional films made in many states-of ated the need for an entertainment formula that can
which the most numerous are the Bengali, well- cater to an increasingly common set of denom-
known for Satyajit Ray. inators.
For more than a century, progress in India has The Hindi (i.e., all-India) film formula not only
been the outcome of a successful synthesis of Indian caters to these denominators, but also helps to cre-
tradition with a Western education in the sciences ate and consolidate them, giving its public certain
and the humanities. But this culture, brought about terms of reference for its cultural adjustment, no
by Tagore, Gandhi, and Nehru, is the culture of the matter how low the level of that culture and adjust-
advanced middle class; it still leaves out the over- ment may be. It thus supplies a kind of cultural
whelming majority of the population to whom the leadership, and reinforces some of the unifying ten-
twentieth century and its products are only a neces- dencies in our social and economic changes. It pro-
sary evil to be lamented. In the popular mind, you vides an inferior alternative to the valid cultural
resist this Kaliyuga (evil eon) by mentally with- leadership which has not emerged because of the
holding yourself from its contamination or you are hiatus between the intelligentsia, to which the lead-
corrupted and fall from grace as defined by tradi- ers belong, and the masses-many of them living in
tion.
remote corners of the country. One cold spring
Even the railway train and the radio are still un- morning in Manali (7,000 feet up in the northwest-
connected facts-things that exist and must be used, ern foothills of the Himalayas) I heard a woman's
but without any consciousness of where they came voice softly singing a Hindi film song outside my
from or how. Science has only confused the Indian window. I went out to investigate and met a family
villager's philosophy and his pattern of living. The which crosses the 14,000-foot Rohtang Pass every
products of science have only brought vulgarity into spring, from Lahaul Valley on the Tibet border, to
his existence. This lack of integration between the seek work on this side. Every spring they go to Kulu

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The All-India
film in
full
flower.

to the cinema there, and the wife was singing a period of superstition and isolationism, aided and
song from a film she had seen the previous year. For abetted by Christian missionary teaching of the
her, the experience of a Hindi film once a year was British period. They satisfy the common man's cur-
a tiny window on the world beyond the Rohtang iosity regarding the ways of the new times but do
Pass. not explain them. They not only do not try to make
The basic ingredients in the all-India film for thehim think; they do everything possible to stop him
laborer from Lahaul as well as the half-educated from thinking. Film landscapes change weirdly from
petty bourgeois comprise not only an operatic Bombay
as- to Tokyo or Delhi to Honolulu, airplanes
sembly of all possible spectacles, sentiments, melo-
land and big cars whiz past; the story has no logic,
drama, music and dancing, but a mix of these cal- but the songs are delectable, the heroines glamor-
culated to appeal to the righteous inertia of theous, the dances carry the viewer off his feet. Yet in
audience. In the absence of any other explanation the end he has not sinned himself; like the Code-
of technological phenomena, it is the Hindi film supervised American moviegoer of yore, he has
which holds forth: "Look at the Twentieth Century,merely inspected the sins of others before con-
full of night clubs and drinking, smoking, bikini-demning them. The hero with whom he identifies
has returned to his true love, the village belle, and
clad women sinfully enjoying themselves in fast cars
renounced the city siren. Sin belongs to the West;
and mixed parties; how right you are in condemning
them-in the end everyone must go back to the tra- virtue to India. Between the two Sharmila Tagores
ditional patterns of devotion to God, to parents,-one
to a cabaret dancer and the other a demurely
village life, or be damned forever." This answer Indian damsel-of Evening in Paris, no compromise,
does not try to explain; it merely echoes the natural
no middle tones are possible. The more the nou-
veaux riches rock and roll or twist and shake in blue
fear which traditional people have of anything new,
anything they do not understand. The films thusjeans, the deeper becomes the schizophrenia be-
give reassurance to the "family audience" whichtween
is modernity and tradition in the Indian cin-
the mainstay of the film industry. They panderema.
to The all-India film thus paradoxically becomes
the puritanism developed in the dark pre-British
the most effective obstacle against the development

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 30 INDIAN CINEMA

of a positive attitude towards technological prog-

to reach up to the Lahaul Valley; the dances are
ress, towards a synthesis of tradition with modern- smartly executed, as in Anita; the girls are pretty
ity for a future pattern of living. (too many to name); the color is good, the sets well-
If India's course today is still being guided by the
designed, as in Palki (Palanquin); the locations
Tagore-Nehru dream of an East-West synthesis,well-selected
the (Sangam); the fights convincing, as
all-India film actively prevents the filtering down inofGunga Jumna (the names of two rivers); the
that dream from the advanced middle class to censor-deceiving
the sex-appeal cunningly contrived
wider base of the population. It is thus a conformist,
(Anita). The Hindi cinema has not only produced
reactionary film, out to prevent social revolution
a pop culture, but pop songs which are comparable
rather than to encourage it. In this conformism,in
the
rhythm, melody, and verve to those of any coun-
censorship helps. You can criticize the prime min- try: an effective concoction made of borrowings
ister in the Indian press but not in films. Occasion- from classical and folk backgrounds, even Tagore
ally when we see a corrupt policeman in a film,songs we and Western music. The dancing is similarly
are overjoyed by the liberality of the censors. It is from all conceivable styles but gells into the
culled
impossible in films to go openly against the basic sprightly form of Vaijayanthimala (a Southern
attitudes of the Establishment. Not only in prudery dancing star), leaving no dull moment to be dedi-
on sex but in hypocrisy on all possible things, cated the to thought. But in spite of its competence
cinema must conform. It therefore underminesand theits verve, it is neither Indian, nor cinema.
ideas of the Establishment indirectly, but effec- Yet with the erosion of the traditional forms of
tively. folk entertainment and the trek into the cities in
The form of this cinema follows its content. In search of employment, this cinema (in the absence
India film has largely been a receptacle for the mix- of television) quickly established itself as the only
ing together of other media, rather than a medium diversion of the public-fulfilling its diverse needs
in itself. Today's Hindi cinema lacks no acting tal- for drama, music, farce, dancing, escape into illu-
ent; but it is not meant to be used. What passes for sions of high living, into fantastic dreams of sin and
acting is a game between the director and the audi- modernity from which to return to the daily grind.
ence played with well-established types-the crying The sixties found the Hindi cinema spiralling up
mother, the doting father, the dancing, singing, in costs as it expanded in spectacle; diseases which
dewy-eyed heroine, the sad-faced or epileptic hero, had been inherent in the system since the war broke
the comic, the precocious child-in which a few out into a first-class crisis when 60 out of 70 Bom-
mannerisms of the actor are enough for the audience bay films, each costing over half a million dollars,
to take the details for granted, so that one can pro- failed at the box office in 1967. Well over 60% of
ceed quickly to the climax at which someone will the production costs went to meet the fees of the
burst into song or dance. It is not as if serious acting stars. With each star acting in several films at the
or storytelling is suddenly interrupted by a song; same time, the annual income of some of them (in a
the "action" is in fact merely a preparation for the country with an average per capita income of some
song. Similarly the situations are stock situations, $50 a year) is higher than that of the top Hollywood
with stock responses too readymade to require any stars. Since the money is "black" and mostly paid
exploration of why or how something has happened; under the counter, the Indian star's income-tax wor-
the sooner the rest of the action springing from a ries are rather less than those of his Hollywood
situation (in a night club, a swimming party, a counterpart. No wonder the films which are so aptly
sentimental scene between father and daughter) described by journalists as the "vehicles" of these
can be taken for granted, the better. The films are stars are unreal from start to finish.
long, as folk entertainment has always been; the "Black money" originated during the scarcities of
opposition between good and evil is sharp, as it has the wartime years, when the spoils of large-scale
always been in the epics and legends. Some of the profiteering stayed outside the banks; it has re-
traditional characteristics of folk entertainment have mained there ever since. An industry which costs
been cleverly exploited to promote the opposite of more in services than in goods offered an excellent
the harmony with the environment which such en- area for this unaccounted and untaxed wealth to
tertainment achieved.
hide and multiply. The moneybags offered fantastic
Today the songs are competently written, com-sums to the stars to wean them away from the stu-
posed, and sung, as in Sangam (or Union)-at in-dios, which were soon forced to close down. Since
tolerably high pitch for my ears but loudly enoughthen, Indian production has been completely "in-

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INDIAN CINEMA

dependent" everywhere except the South. "Inde-

pendents" dependent on stars are hardly likely to
be able to hold their own against them. Now the
inevitable has happened. The economics of the
blockbuster have over-reached the economic po-
tential of the single formula, however perfect. In
imitating Hollywood, the mass film in India has
landed itself in a star system without studio control,
formula film-making without Hollywood's variety
of formulas, an annual investment of some 85 mil-
lion dollars without Hollywood's audience research
or other organizational safeguards.
The trouble with the Hindi cinema is not that it
is commercial; all film industries in the world, in- Village India as portrayed in the all-India film.
cluding the state-owned ones, are commercial be- Ramu Kariat's CHEMMEEN.
cause they cannot go on throwing away money on
films which people do not want to see. The troublethat they are in love with the same girl. Tradition-
is that other film industries do two things that theally, narrative literature has asked for the suspension
Hindi cinema does not (for the simple reason thatof disbelief; the Kapoorian phantasmagoria demands
it is incapable): produce films at many levels rang-the total surrender of the rational part of man, leav-
ing from pure art to pure commerce, and occasion- ing the animal staring dumbly at helicopters and
ally bowl over the art critic and the box office withlocations in Europe. The problem is not one of free-
the same film. Diligently, the Hindi cinema hasdom; it is one of cynicism, ignorance, and cultural
perfected its one and only formula. It has had no underdevelopment. That is why, when it decides to
John Ford turning out Westerns, no Milestone mak-be good or tries to be "art," Hindi cinema is dread-
ing memorable war films, no Hitchcock to hold usfully self-conscious, didactic, and pretentious.
in thrall, no Minnelli, no Donen to make it by music The regional film, as we shall see, has its roots,
alone. It has no genres. It is impossible to make, inits sense of identity; it tends to underplay the com-
our national cinema, anything like Judgment atmon factors arising in the country and stresses ele-
Nuremberg or Advise and Consent or The Best Manments of regional tradition with some pride and
although our guru has been Hollywood. It makesnostalgia. In the all-India film, no male character
no adult films for the literate middle class. It is idle except the villain can wear Indian costume; in the
to draw much comfort from Basu Bhattacharya's regional film almost the opposite is true. The re-
Teesri Kasam (The Third Vow) or Uski Kahani (Hergional film likewise shows more of rural and urban
Tale) or Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anupama (namelower-middle-class life. The all-India film, anxious
of a girl); in any case these films are significantto avoid pronouncedly regional characteristics in its
only in the context of the Hindi cinema. All that search for wide acceptability, avoids these and
they may mean in the end is the reappearance of weaves its fancies round high-income brackets
some sort of middle-class film on the Hindi market. where Westernized uniformity is more easily avail-
Even with the fullest freedom, what was the net able. There is thus a greater sense of reality and
achievement of such stalwart directors as Shantaram cultural integrity in the regional film; it is Indian,
or Bimal Roy? Shantaram had some honest inten-even when it is not cinema. Its main concerns are
tions, some cinematic gimmicks wrapped up in ex-with social problems, as in literature.
ecrable taste; his Jhanak Jhanak (Ankle Bells Tin- The position was much the same with the Hindi
kle) and Shakuntala (heroine of a Sanskrit play)film until the war. In the days of Bombay talkies
have done as much harm to Indian cinema as Robi and films like Achut Kanya (Untouchable Girl) or
Barmas's naturalism did to Indian painting. Bimal Jivan Prabhat (The Dawn of Life), the attitudes of
Roy, except in the first half of Do Bigha Zamin the Bombay film (or the Madras Hindi film) and
(Two Acres of Land) stayed with melodrama and the Bengali film from Calcutta were more or less
the same. They shared the social reformist zeal of
sentimentality in slightly better taste. In Raj Ka-
the advanced middle class of those times, as much
poor's Sangam the audience is asked to believe that
two adult men, whose dedication to friendship is as literature or journalism. The evils of caste, the
almost pathological, take twenty reels to find outright to love before marriage, the tragic taboo

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 INDIAN CINEMA

away from social zeal to a cynical-conformist for

mula of Westernized sin-parade ending in the tri
umph of tradition.
Inevitably, due to the economics of scale and th
spread of new "all-India" denominators, the region-
al cinemas receded before the impact of the Hind
film. Color filming has become virtually impossible
in Bengal, for instance. Even Satyajit Ray was
forced to drop his color plans and mnake his lates
film Goopi Gain Bagha Bain (based on a fantasy
by his grandfather) in black and white. But the
film audience in Bengal has remained basically mid-
dle class and by and large educated. This is mor
Mrinal Sen's PUNASCHA, with Soumitra Chatterjee.
or less true of all regional cinemas, and gives them
against widow remarriage, ideas of individualism,
greater artistic potential than the all-India field, as
secularism, and democracy provided the subject
we have seen in the break-through of Satyajit Ray
who reflected a resolution of our cultural dilemmas
matter of most films whether in regional languages
or in Hindi. The form was by no means cinematic not in terms of its lowest common denominators
but the content was definitely Indian. It wasbut much
its highest. Ray translated the value world of
closer to the ideals of the country's leadershipTagore
than into the content and technique of advanced
today. cinema and tried to extend it to contemporary, post
The shortages of the war not only brought about Tagore situations as well. This he was able to do
"black money," high star fees, and the end of studio with success, not because the Western world could
production, but initiated a profound change in the recognize in it the signposts of India's evolution in-
character of the audience of the Hindi cinema. to the modern world, but because he was able t
With the war-time emphasis on production began attract an audience-a fairly sophisticated middle-
class audience-on his home ground in Bengal. Her
the rise of the industrial working class. In independ-
ent India the process was further emphasized was withthe Tagore-Nehru dream of a new Indian
labor legislation and encouragement of trade union-
identity-enshrined in the law and official goals of
ism. But industry made progress out of all propor-the country yet repudiated by the mass cinema-
tion to education, whose standards have in fact at de-
its best.
clined with the population pressure. In comparison But Ray's position in India is not just unique; it
to the landless laborer whose name is legion,is the one of splendid isolation. Although his genius is
industrial working class became a privileged minor-recognized not only by intellectuals but by the
ity. In this it became bracketed with other nouveauaverage audience in Bengal and by the film indus-
riche sections of society, such as those that bagtrytheall over the country, his influence, in relation to
contracts and subcontracts of the massive five-yearhis reputation, must be considered negligible. In
plans. To these were added, in the sixties, the adeal-
characteristically Indian way, film-makers have
ers in food grains and the big and the middle farm-put him on a pedestal for admiration from a safe
ers who made killings during the food shortages. In
distance. He is an exception, a phenomenon, an
other words, the Hindi cinema after the war found object of pride for India like the Konarak temple or
itself forced to address its appeal to a culturallyBenares
im- textiles. Film-makers think of modelling
poverished nouveau riche audience, increasingly their work on his no more than they think of build-
disoriented from the cultural ambitions of new ing Indiaa Taj Mahal to live in. The juggernaut of Indian
and falling back on a schizophrenic solution ofcinemabe- grinds on.
ing extremely conservative inside and outwardly The Marathi cinema, the only other considerable
ultramodern. The educated minority in the Hindi- regional cinema outside the South, was fatally
speaking areas accepted this cinema as much asweakened
the by the expanding Hindi film audience;
masses, in the absence of an alternative. Withifthis it still exists today, it is not due to its inherent
change in the nature of the audience, the Hindi
strength but to governmental oxygen which keeps
cinema emerged as the all-India cinema by virtue
it breathing.
of the position of Hindi as the lingua franca of the
It is only at the level of art that the regional film
country; and the get-rich-quick financiers turned
can survive, as the Bengali film has done so far. If

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INDIAN CINEMA

Satyajit Ray and other new film-makers did not

emerge, the Bengali film would go the way of the
Marathi. The only other and somewhat doubtful
prescription, which is being tried by some today, is
to rouse regional passions and summon them to the
aid of the local film. Even this, like the govern-
mental rescue operation, can at best be temporary
and partial aid in the recovery. The average Ben-
gali, or any other regional film imitating the all-
India pattern or being nostalgic in a heavy-handed,
namby-pamby way, is becoming as unbearable to
the average audience as it has always been to the
sophisticated. In fact the Bengali film enjoys an un- Ritwik Ghatak's KOMAL GANDHAR.
deservedly high reputation because of a few artistic
box-office foundations or the escape route of art.
successes; the average Bengali film remains a dread-
fully dull opiate for a sleepy middle class. ForThetheOriya audience completely rejected Mrinal
more contemporary-minded viewer, some films Sen's do
Matira Manisha-imaginative, sensitively pho-
keep appearing which reflect his restlessness, tographed
but and acted, and directed with a big heart
the difference between these and the rest seems -because it does not conform to its source, a novel;
obviously the Oriyas are not yet ready for the
unbridgeable. The films of Ritwik Ghatak, who has
not done anything since Subarnarekha (the name of
sophistications of the film medium, and must stick
a river in West Bengal), Mrinal Sen, whose Akashto the copy book of the filmed theater. I have no
doubt that they will rediscover the film after ten
Kusum (Up in the Clouds) was a box-office failure
and made him seek distinction in Oriya in his bril-
years of industrial development.
liant Matira Manisha (Child of the Earth), not toMadras made its dent into Bombay's monopoly
speak of Satyajit Ray who made the latest of of
a the Hindi market as early as 1948 with S. S.
series of masterpiece and near-masterpieces withVasan's Chandralekha (a woman's name); although
Charulata, are far removed from the average Ben-South India provides a large enough audience to
sustain a regional cinema, it has made regular forays
gali product. Directors like Tapan Sinha and Tarun
Majumdar (also to a lesser extent Arup Guha Tha-outside its natural boundaries and Southern films
kurta and Hari Sadhan Das Gupta) have brought still appear on the all-India screen. The "common"
factors are developing here too, enabling many
good taste and competent story-telling to present-
day Bengali cinema, whereas others have faded Tamil films to come out in Hindi versions to com-
pete-often successfully-with the all-India film.
away after brief spells of "experiment" whose pur-
pose has in some cases been vague even to them- The fact that South India has something of a unity
selves-notably Rajen Tarafder in Ganga, Barinof its own, despite the existence of many languages,
Saha in Tero Nadir Parey (Beyond Thirteen Rivers), has given its regional film a wider audience than the
Purnendu Patrea in Swapna Niye (Of Man's Oriya, Assamese, or Bengali film whose audience is
Dreams). Pushed to the wall, the Bengali cinema virtually
is confined to its own linguistic area. Telegu
(state of Andhra, middle south-East) actors appear
fighting back hard, trying to find in box office-cum-
art what it cannot in terms of the lavishness and often in Tamil (state of Madras, deep South-East),
sprightliness of Hindi film. In Tarun Majumdar'sMalayalam (state of Kerala, deep South-West)
Balika Bodhu (Child Bride) or Arundhati Devi'sfilms get easily shown in Madras, the Kanarese
Chhuti (Vacation) it has absorbed something of the(state of Mysore, middle middle South) film is
creative techniques of Ray, Ghatak and Sen, and more easily understood in Andhra than is the case
with films in the North Indian languages. Binding
turned it into the routine of mediocre poets and the
stuff of the box office. The leadership of culturethem together, however, is the formula of song-
which- lay for some ten years in the domain of thedance-melodrama in which reality is of little con-
cinema is fast moving into the amateur theater, sequence. This formula precludes the cinema of
which now provides greater freedom to the artist. narrative illusion; it is unabashed spectacle, vul-
The states of Assam and Orissa have not yet donegarized but closer to traditions of popular variety
anything to save themselves from the future pres-shows than to literature or drama. Even its music
sures of the all-India film either in terms of solid and dance are breaking out of the tradition of the

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 INDIAN CINEMA

late P. C. Barua in Bengal and of Shantaram i

Maharastra as geniuses of the cinema-as if th
work was comparable to that of Eisenstein or Dre
er, Ford or Renoir.
The fact is that although some of these directo
and films have borne a slight stamp of individuali
an ardor for a good cause, snatches of realism
touches of cinema, even some emotional pow
within their own notions of drama, they never re
left the framework of the filmed theater and the
variety show; at best they groped towards the lan-
guage of the cinema. Discussing nine South Indian
social films of 1964 which received regional awards
from the Government of India, S. Krishnaswamy
wrote: "In nearly all the nine films, the climax is
developed with illness, death or accident. Five have
hospital scenes, one has a scene of chronic illness
building up to a climax, and the three others feature
suicide, murder and death by accident. The doctor
is a favorite character. Disputes are resolved by
offering blood to the dying, sympathy created by
being in bed."
Of the background music he says: "You hear the
same set of notes in similar situations on the screen,
as though a common track is used from a music
library." And finally of D. Jayakantan's Unnaipol
Oruvan (In the Jeweler's Balance): "It is conceived
more as a drama than as a screenplay. It conveys
Satyajit Ray's CHARULATA. less by vision than by words. Except for one, the
performances are superb, the material surroundings
Carnatic system and picking up the postures are
of the
much less convincing than the people them-
Hindi cinema of Bombay. It is only in superficial-
selves. The art direction is unimaginative, photog-
ities that it maintains some semblance of regional-
raphy uneven, and editing poorly conceived . . .
ism.
Jayakanthan has not produced an outstanding film,
There have been minor exceptions to this; D.is a milestone in southern film history."
but it
("Madras
Jayakantan has shown a superior sensibility for lit- Letter," Indian Film Culture, No. 6)
erary-dramatic values (more than cinematic ones)
I believe that in terms of box-office economics,
in Unnaipol Oruvan (In the Jeweler's Balance). The of the regional film, perhaps sooner else-
the fate
Malayali cinema, always of a more literary where
nature than in the South, is sealed. It is only in
than the Tamil, has thrown up over-rated, but
terms of art that the Bengali cinema, the Oriya or
above-the-local-average films like Neelakuvil, joint-
the Assamese, or the newly identity-proud Gujrati
ly directed by Ramu Kariat and P. Bhaskaran, on
and Konkani film, will survive in the end, bolstered
untouchability and unmarried motherhood. Thestate finances or art theaters or whatever
up by
Malayali cinema, like the Bengali and Marathi, has we eventually arrive at for making it
mechanics
remained occupied with social problems-a concern
possible to have artistic films for a minority audi-
which the Tamil cinema abandoned longence. ago (In
in a country like India, even a minority is
order to catch up with the all-India box office.
largeThe
enough to contend with-it may surpass the
work of the mildly interesting South Indianpopulation
direc- of Scandinavia.)
And there is no doubt that a minority audience
tors has sometimes been praised beyond all propor-
tion because of its rarity and because of the general
is fast coming into being, thanks to the international
lack of understanding of the film mediumfilmor its
festivals, film societies, film institutes, formid-
able
achievements in other countries and periods. new forces in the documentary (which has
The
malaise here is worse than the hero worshipthrown
of theup a number of good films in the last three

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FILM REVIEWS 35

years), film archives, serious film magazines, state ulace, but will find sufficient buyers to break out
recognition for good films, state finance, and a wider into art theaters and the film-club circuit (now con-
spread of import sources. These forces, despite oc- sisting of about a hundred groups). Under its pres-
casional signs of defeat, are in fact gathering some sures, even the commercial cinema may have to
strength; more people are beginning to get a taste undergo at least superficial changes in form, al-
of real cinema and becoming impatient to try their though perhaps not in spirit. The trail blazed by
hand at the medium, to hold their doors wide open the Bengalis is already being followed by other re-
to influences and examples from all over the world. gions who might also find paths of their own; and
Their dissatisfactions and creative urges are bound the total impact of India's regional films-like the
to find expression, sooner or later, in a kind of cin- best of the Bengali-may yet be memorable in
ema which may or may not cater to the vast pop- world cinema.

Film Reviews
MARKETA LAZAROVA vakia, is without a doubt the best historical film
Director: Frantisek Vlacil. Script: Frantisek Pavlicek and ever
VIa- made anywhere-not that it has much
cil, from the novel by Vladislav Vancura. Camera: Bedrich serious competition. Its only rivals are those
Batka. Score: Zdenek Liska. Ceskoslovensky Film; no U.S.
distributor as yet.
elegantly formal (and actually time-less)
masterpieces, The Passion of Joan of Arc and
The historical film generally has a very bad Alexander Nevsky. It is like some archaeologi-
name--and richly deserved. "Costume pic- cal record that has suddenly become animated;
tures" from DeMille onward have been synony- it makes you feel as if you've been plunged in-
mous with the worst in movie excesses: the gro- to some widescreen time-capsule. (The only
tesqueries of The Scarlet Empress with Dietrich recent film footage at all relevant to it is the
as Catherine the Great, Laughton deliciously "Lang" fragments in Godard's LeMdpris, where
and atrociously hamming it up as Henry VIII, strange painted Greeks climb out of the sea.)
the kimono-swishing revenges of Chushingura, There is virtually no trace in it of modem man;
Burt Lancaster sleepwalking through Visconti's a character played by Charlton Heston would
static landscapes in The Leopard-actor and be as out of place in it as a hairy mastodon in
set-designer films gone adrift in overblown Rockefeller Plaza.
fantasies of a melodramatic past. The historical Generally the makers of historical films en-
picture has lately taken a theatrical turn with gage in a simpleminded substitution game: they
modestly filmed plays such as A Man for All put comfortably contemporary characters into
Seasons and Lion in Winter, but these are fresh wigs and costumes, and ask us to imagine
hardly movies at all, much less good movies; they are Napoleon or Toulouse-Lautrec-but
the plot machinery and the thinking of the
they have the advantage of attracting fine stage
performers, but they do not even broach the characters are unutterably and unredeemably
real (and interesting) problems of relating film modern. There is not a character and not a
and theater, and simply allow their actors to situation in Marketa Lazarova which could
march about declaiming lines and confronting have been imagined by a Hollywood script-
one another. In Virginia Woolf, Marat/Sade, writer. Nothing in it is charming or picturesque.
and The Brig we have had intriguing experi- Hair is matted, filth is routine; none of the liv-
ments in theatricalized film, but what we have ing arrangements are at all familiar.
had from the historical film is mostly romances, Partly as a result of this, and partly from its
battles, escapes, and lots of cleavage. complex structure, the film is initially as confus-
Marketa Lazarova, which takes place in the ing as it would be to actually arrive in such an
thirteenth-century in what is now Czechoslo- alien culture. We don't at first have the faintest

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