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INDEPENDENCE SPECIAL/ ENTERTAINMENT

FILM DIRECTOR SHYAM BENEGAL ON INDIAN CINEMA'S ENIGMATIC JOURNEY.

It is interesting to observe that in 1947, when India became independent, cinema in India was already 50 years old, having come along with the Lumiere Brothers in 1896.

The development of cinema always closely paralleled the development of the nationalist movement, and any Western attitudes in cinema, until independence, were denounced as an aspect of colonialisation; there was a constant tussle between tradition and Westernisation.

In 1947, many of the inequities that we had inherited from tradition had to be removed because we had decided we were going to be a democratic, egalitarian, secular nation.

Many of these ideas, highlighting the complexities of Indian society, began to find their way into cinema in the late '40s. Come the '50s, Guru Dutt's Pyaasa, Mehboob Studios' Mother India, Bimal Roy dealing with the caste system in a film like Sujata, and the likes, demonstrated the ideals young India was trying to live up to.

The 1960s were a troubled decade for independent India "" the Sino-Indian war, a pyrrhic victory over Pakistan, a famine, political instability.

There was discernible disillusionment among the community of artistes and what it gave rise to in the latter decade was completely escapist fare, the casual song and dance genre indifferent to a troubled society "" films like Kashmir ki Kali.

To counter this phase in the '70s, the government initiated certain remedial policies like creating a censor board, and a financing body to take away the speculative nature of filmmaking. Most films made during this period were funded by state governments and government bodies to establish a certain benchmark for quality cinema, free from the demands of the marketplace.

Basu Chatterjee, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopala-krishnan in Kerala, led the early '70s parallel cinema movement "" they came up with new ways of filmmaking with new stories to tell. So on one side you had the traditional escapist fare and then this new cinema that was marginal to the mainstream.

The '70s made another noteworthy contribution and that was to establish the almost immortal reputation of Amitabh Bachchan as an angry young man disillusioned by corruption and non-fulfilment of nationalistic ideals, a vigilante figure who stood for the right, yet was not averse to using some of the methods of his opponents. This icon of a Bollywood hero was to rule for the longest possible time, well into the '80s and early '90s.

For decades, entertainment had been defined by cinema. When television began to make itself felt after the '84 Asian Games, entertainment started to reach audiences well beyond the means of cinema. For the first time in the history of cinema, growth that had been a standard 6-7 per cent per annum started slowing down.

The '90s was the age of multistarrer blockbusters, seen as the remedy to Bollywood's failing fortunes.

With smaller cinemas getting wiped out, groundwork was beginning on the age of the multiplex, consumption patterns were changing and myriad forms of entertainment were competing for a share of eyeballs. The problems of the '90s laid the groundwork for the eventual organisation of cinema into an industry.

After a series of studies conducted by FICCI, the government decided in 2002 to consider films an "industry" "" which meant 100 per cent FDI in films, financial institutions lining up to derisk film making, corporates spotting a winning proposition in films and suddenly producers could afford to distance themselves from box office hits and misses.

Today the business is a lot cleaner.

Bollywood, more and more, has become synonymous with Indian cinema primarily because of its pan-Indian appeal.

Unfortunately, today most regional cinema, many of which have great cinematic traditions, have started to see Hindi cinema as the model to follow... in style, in aesthetics... While, there is no point making a value judgement on that, one can take hope in the fact that there will always be intellectual story tellers and filmmakers. I have great hope for the future of the Bengali film tradition with the talents of Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen, Anjan Dutta taking shape.

Parallel cinema is now loosely regarded as any kind of offbeat cinema. Efforts still continue to make these kind of films but they become very difficult to finance; that's the downside of looking at films purely as a business.

With all its paradoxes, cinema is still the only medium that creates larger-than-life stars. Amitabh Bachchan is the perfect example, so is Shah Rukh Khan. Despite the proliferation of media, only cinema can create such enormous brand value out of stars.