The future of the Sinhalese film industry
Dr Lester James PERIES
What is to be the future of the Sinhalese Film Industry? What sort of
direction will our films take in the years to come? Will there be a
change or a deviation in the pattern of picture making already
established. These questions are difficult to answer with any kind of
certainty.
To answer them, one not only has to be a student of the local
industry and a critic but also a prophet.
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Dr Lester
James Peries |
One can say this however. The type of Sinhalese film we are going to
get will depend not on the talent (or lack of it) of our producers, our
directors and our writers but on their attitude to film making. If they
consider that making pictures is a business like the making of safety
matches or shoes then we can be pretty sure about the sort of films we
are going to produce. If the demand of the box office is to be their
sale consideration, our future will be a repetition of the past.
Box office
Of course picture making is big business. It costs plenty of money,
and time and the skill of a large number of people. Investments must be
protected, profits must be made. Producers can with justification point
out that all film making countries operate their business on the demands
of the box office. Take America, or India or Britain they would say.
They make pictures not for fun but for money. All very true. But there
is one big difference. Let us take Hollywood where film making is really
big business. The majority of Hollywood films are purely commercial,
fashioned deliberately to cater to the demands of the box office. No one
disputes that. Most Hollywood producers want profits. But some of them
have a sense of idealism too. Tey tackle occasionally a daring story,
some unusual theme. They introduce new techniques to the art of the
motion picture. They present controversial subjects. They even risk
their money by breaking every box office formula they themselves have
helped to establish; and what is the result? Each year from Hollywood we
get half a dozen first-rate pictures; and occasionally a masterpiece.
These men realise that profits alone, important though they are,
cannot ensure the future of the industry.
There must be experiment. Reasonable risks must be taken if only to
promote the interests of the industry. Above all I feel they have a
sense of obligation to the medium and the public they serve. For it must
be realised that the motion picture is a medium not merely of
entertainment but of instruction and persuasion. It cannot only debase
the public taste. It can elevate it too. It might be well for some of
our producers to realise that they are playing about with the most
powerful medium of our time.
Little credit
Now if we turn to our country what can we show? We have ten years of
picture making but little to our credit. A visiting American who once
conducted a survey of our industry is supposed to have remarked after
seeing three Sinhalese films that we probably make the worst pictures in
the world. It is not a very flattering comment on our industry.
It might be said in extenuation that ours is a young industry. This
is rubbish. Ten years is a long time, long enough for the Sinhalese film
to have grown up.
What of the technical standards of our films in the future? Will they
improve? They certainly won't if our producers take up the attitude that
anything is good enough for Ceylon.
Far more important for the future of our industry is for us directors
to master the language of the cinema. Our films tend to be photographed
stage plays. A story told through dialogue is not a film. It is a play.
It does not belong to the screen but to the stage. In cinema, the images
are supreme. If the picture does not talk, then our cinema as an art is
doomed.
“A picture is better than a thousand words” says an old Chinese
proverb. How they true this is when applied to a really good film.
Portraying people
Finally and most important of all is that the future of our industry
will depend on the extent to which we use the stories which are rooted
in our own soil; stories which portray our own people, their hopes,
their fears and aspirations and in our own beautiful landscapes and
settings. Our film can never be called truly Sinhalese until all the
pernicious foreign influences which have dominated them are ruthlessly
stamped out.
This would imply a revolution, in almost all departments of
picture-making, in acting, make up, costumes, sets and music. Will our
future films take this new direction? Here again our producers alone can
answer the question.
What of the future? At the moment the future looks bleak enough.
There are so many more problems not touched on in this article which
will beset us for many years.
There is the position of the independent producer who will be forced
to extinction unless a more equitable percentage of the box office
receipts is given to his product. Government help and interest is vital
at this stage if the industry is to be stable.
An alert press is indispensable and here one can pay a tribute to the
local press and critics who have never hesitated to expose the sham and
the humbug and have really paved the way for better films.
But in the last resort the future of our industry lies not with the
press who can only help and guide nor, I make bold to say, with the
public. It is with the producers who make our pictures. What is their
attitude going to be? Are they going to be perpetually bullied by the
demands of the Gallery? Will they give the public what it wants or what
is good for them? For on their answer to these questions will depend not
only the future of our industry but also the destiny of the Sinhala
Cinema.
(Reproduced from Piyasena Wickramage's book ‘Lester James Peries:
Collected Articles’ published by Bhadraji Foundation, Ratmalana: 2000.)
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