Film Appreciation:
The birth of silent cinema in Tamil
K S Sivakumaran
Serious students of Cinema in this part of the world especially
should know something about the South Indian Cinema, particularly Tamil
Cinema because of its wide viewing not only in Tamil Nadu or Lanka but
also world wide. Tamil Cinema of India (I am not speaking of Lankan
Tamil Cinema). It is linked with the Nationalist Politics and the
Entertainment Media.
In fact, there is an excellent book on the subject covering the
period 18880-1945 by S Theodore Baskaran titled The Message Bearers. The
book published 30 years ago by Cre-A in Chennai is yet a valuable source
book on the subject.
In this week’s column I am freely borrowing some of his observations
on the subject.
Says the scholar: Tamil Cinema “ by-passed the need for literacy on
the part of the audience and opened up a new world of vicarious
experience to larger masses of people whose span of experience was
severely limited by poverty and by restriction on physical travel. In
that way, films influenced public opinion in Tamil Nadu on matters
relating to war, social reforms and nationalism in a manner that no
other medium had done. This process set in motion during the silent days
of Tamil cinema continues to the present day in a much more ramified
form.”
How true even today. S T B’s observation on another topic should also
be noted: “Popular songs and popular theatricals did not affect the
South Indian Cinema to any great extent until the coming of sound in
1980s.in its infancy.
“Continuing, the author talks about the Features of the early film
industry.
Films were shot in an enclosed area. No artificial lighting. Natural
lighting aided by reflectors. Some studios had glass roofs. Some other
studios controlled lighting with white and blue perforated cloths spread
overhead to diffuse the light and reduce the glare. No sets. Scenes were
shot in outdoor locales. Films were processed by the hand-washing
method. Hand colouring was used. Women were reluctant to act in films.
“The belief that exposure to the camera lens would impair one’s
health was strong enough to keep women away from the cinema in the first
few years.”
Anglo-Indians later took the lead.
Another moot point that Baskaran makes is applicable even today. Says
the scholar: “Since the audience was mainly illiterate, particularly in
the rural areas, every cinema house engaged a narrator who read the
title cards aloud for the benefit of the audience, spoke the lines for
the main characters, and gave a running commentary on the happenings on
the screen. Very often the performance of the narrator itself acquired
an independent value and films which would have otherwise been
unsuccessful were often saved by the narrators.”
Thus you see why the South Indian films do not make a mark in
international film festivals. As pointed out the literacy rate in most
Indian states including the South in India is not great when compared
with Bengal and Kerala and Sri Lanka.
The tradition of running commentaries by some unrefined spectators
during the screening of Tamil films particularly is an obstacle and
annoyance to elite cinegoers.
In Lanka it is minimal. However Kodambakkam (in Chennai) has of late
right now in a process of change due to educated and trained people
entering the film world. A few Tamil films of late cater not only to the
tastes of the educated middle class but also to the rural poorer classes
with the advent of ultra modern electronic devices.
In India, both Bollywood (Mumbai) and Kollywood (Chennai) and even
Tollywood (Hyderabad) stand out as the regions that produce most number
of films while the Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada, Marati, Assamese, Oriya
and other states that produce fewer films concentrate on individual
cultural traits in their films although the audiences in these regions
are still enamoured by the Hindi and Tamil and Telugu films.
Why the Indian films are more or less American influenced than
European was due to the fact that the audiences were accustomed to the
style of American films which were shown before the blossoming of Indian
Cinema.
Theodore Baskaran informs that “Film - making had begun much earlier
in Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkatta) and these two film-producing
centres in the country also influenced and aided the growth of cinema in
South India. Another observation by Baskaran deserves notice when he
says: “It is in the silent phase of the cinema that cinematic vocabulary
is established. In the absence of sound, the film-maker gas to depend
entirely on visual communication.”
The films made in the silent era were mostly mythological. This was
because the audiences were familiar with all mythological episodes. The
Mahabaratha, Ramayana and other Indian epics and even the major and
miner epics in Tamil were productively exploited in Tamil films.
“H R Desai’s Bhaya Chakara (1932) was the last silent film to be made
in South India and it marked the end of an era in the history of Indian
Cinema’, concludes Theodore Baskaran.
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