100 Years of Indian Cinema Essay

Tracing the history, birth and evolution of Indian abject picture is always an exhilarating check. According to historians, Harischandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar (Save Dada, 1868- 1958) and Hiralal Sen were among the pi hotshoters who puddled moving images in India for the primary time. Bhatvadekar was part of the consultation which attended Lumieres actuals privatenessed for the low gear time in India, at Watson Hotel in Bombay by Lumieres agent, Marius Sestier, in 1896.Bhatvadekar was so strike by the images he truism that he decided to take a leak them in India. He had approximately experience of capturing images as he owned a still photography studio. He had to mobilize alone his resources to import a photographic camera and shoot a wrestling match and then disseminate it to England for work outing. He finally tested it in 1901. This is how moving images what we now call movie house arrived in India. D. G. Phalke moving picture developed fast, and its popularity grew abundantly when image- depictrs started telling stories by dint of moving images.Even during the silent era (up to 1931) picture show make an immeasur subject come to finished its ability to reach the people in a king-size way. Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, (D. G. Phalke, 1870- 1944), was totally captivated by the effect of motion picture when he saw the silent consume, The Life of Christ, in 1910. Phalke, who had a short stint as a photographer and then as a printing iron out owner, decided to take up frivol awaymaking as his c beer. He travelled to capital of the United Kingdom to procure ingestmaking equipment and l recognise its process.After his return, he made Indias first feature film, Raja Hrischandra, and acquittanced it in 1913. He went on to make a series of other(a) films, fulfilling his ambition of showing Indian gods on the smooth screen. Thus, Phalke became the father of Indian photographic film. It is now one hundred years and time to celebrate. esthe tics of India Cinema Cinema by its actually nature is deceptive. This was evident until now out during the primordial stages of its emergence (1900-1903), when French illusionist Georges Melies utilise the camera to produce trick visual effects.Later when German Expressionist cinema insist itself during the silent era, films mainly dealt with horror, mental illness, basic emotions etc. They were presented on the screen in an artistic mood and studio sets were created with peculiar geometric designs, kindling and shadows that looked totally different from the straightforward narration used thus far. numerous films such(prenominal) as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), Last Laugh (1924), chief city (1927) were direct products of expressionism.It is interesting to note that period Hollywood filmmakers, particularly stalwarts such as Alfred Hitchcock and others who specialized in crime drama, were totally influenced by this style of filmmaking, Indian fil ms made during the silent era or even after(prenominal) it, never came under the influence of expressionist cinema. This is probably because Indian cinema, during its archean years (covering both the silent era and the first talkies) stuck mainly to the mythologic and the historical. These films were total replicas of the popular stage fruits of that time. As a result of this, Indian cinema maintained its own identity.The first Indian talkie, Alam Ara (1931), we are told, was a grownup success. It had so many an(prenominal) songs that people who had seen it say it was serene more of songs than of dialogue. What made Indian cinema distinctly different from other cinemas was this practice of using songs in films, a tradition which has persisted till get a line and probably impart continue forever. In the early decades during 1940s, 50s and 60s, known as the golden days of Hindi songs pioneering medication composers posted some heavy(p) achievements and made a rich contribu tion to the Seventh Art through songs that remain immortal.In the 40s, the famous clean Theatres Company from Calcutta promoted legendary composers such as R. C. Boral, Pankaj Mullick, Timir Baran, and many others, while celebrities such as Kundanlal Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, Kurshid, Parul Ghosh, Umadevi, Kannan Devi, Juthika Roy enriched film symphony with their melodious voices. Bombay Talkies, the film company of Bombay, also in like mannerk the cue from Calcutta, with Saraswathi Devi and Anil Biswas creating some outstanding tunes for films songs. It was in 1950s that Hindi cinema saw its finest point when the popularity of Hindi film songs reached its peak.The immortal voices of Lata Mangeshkar, Noor Jehan, Suraiya, Amir Bai Karnataki, Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle, Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mohammed, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar and Kishore Kumar captivated the police van of music lovers. as eminent were the lyricists Kavi Pradip, Prem Dhawan, D. N. Madhok, Kidar Sharma, Shailen dra, Hasarat Jaipuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakil Badayuni, Kamar Jalalabadi, Bharat Vyas, Gulzar and many others. A galaxy of music composers Khemchand Prakash, Husnlal Bhagatram, Naushad, C. Ramchandra, S. D. Burman, Hemant Kumar, Roshan and Madan Mohan created some memorable tunes for these songs.All of this perhaps explains why Indian cinema has successfully resisted Hollywoods domination, unlike in other split of the beingness, including Europe, where Hollywood controls 70 to 80 % of occupancy in the theatres. Our Hindi cinema, or Bollywood, which laid its foundations in the 50s, adopted its own formula, different from the one Hollywood had established in early 1930s. Hollywood hired talented filmmakers to make films with a story embodying dramatic elements, hero, heroine, love and comminute, a bit of religion, appointment sequences, etc and a treatment with a universal appeal in order to attract a global audience.This strategy has been successful in tumi d measure. Indian Bollywood, on the other hand, adopted a formula which include a hero with multi-dimensional talent who could accomplish absolutely anything, a heroine with a noble character, who was also a devoted life partner, and ready to bear any suffering in life for the cause of her familys welfare, their romance enhanced by songs, a villain or a fabricate who torment the couple, sentimental melodrama, a fight, the end of the villain and ultimately all ends intumesce. Sometimes the film may be a tragedy too in which the hero or heroine becomes a martyr.This perceived formula percolated muckle to the regional cinema fabrication as well, successfully attracting mass audiences to cinema. Hollywood cinema, on the other hand, failed to bring in a large public, keep out in a few urban pockets. It was hindered as much by the language barrier as by the fierce competition from local films which provided bust entertainment. Economically speaking, it is gratifying to know that we have our own very large, independent and rapidly growing film industry. There is, of course, degeneration in quality, but that is a matter for other platterussion.D. G. Phalke probably never imagined that the Indian feature film industry, whose foundation he had laid, would become the largest film industry in the world, churning out, against innumerable odds, more than a thousand films annually. Hollywood is now thinking of capturing the Indian market by dubbing its films in the regional languages and pushing them through T. V. channels and local theatres. Arrival of the New Cinema India had its first International Film Festival in Bombay in 1952, and the Neo-realism films screened at that place made a big impact on our filmmakers.This marked the beginning of the New Cinema movement, engendered by the release of Do Bigha Zameen (1953) and Pather Panchali (1955). The well established formula of Bollywood films with music and dance was dispensed with here and low-budget films, particularly in the regional languages, started making their presence felt in a big way, both nationally and internationally. However, while many of the parvenue cinema productions do win awards and laurels, they are yet to establish their sparing viability by reaching people through regular commercial releases.The approaching of Technology Basically, cinema is a gift of science to art, an art which is mixed in nature. Its growth, in terms of both technology and art, has been phenomenal, and its development particularly in its technology and format has been incredibly fast, making it exceedingly effortful for its practitioners to keep up the pace. It all began with the loading of celluloid films onto a camera and dig the action as per the screenplay. In its technology, cinema, absorbed many innovations. sound recording and dialogue entered in a big way in the early 30s, then it got its images painted in pleasing colours, and innovations in camera made it possible to work wonde rs in the field of special effects. However, despite these innovations, cinema remained basically in the celluloid format with 24 frames per second, with action universe captured on film reel and stored in deposes. Today, this concept is undergoing a ocean change. The new digital technology has arrived, with a potential so immense that it has totally revolutionized both the production and the projection arrangements.To put it simply, digital cinema involves storing a film in a record book, like the hard disc of a electronic computing machine, similar to DVDs, and projecting it on the screen by a digital projector. Astonishingly enough, it enjoys the great advantage of satellite projection from one centre to other centres. The quality of the image depends on the resolution, now usually known as 2K file, which, in turn, depends on the kind of camera used. question and development are continuous and relentless, with many innovations entering the market every(prenominal) day.Di gital Cinema Production Digital cinema production reasonable needs a Digital video camera, recording tapes to record the images and computer and software to edit them. The biggest advantage of digital video is the equal-benefit. Shooting on the conventional film reel is cumbersome and hundreds of times more expensive. Equally important is the easier digital editing process. Digital editing is abundantly used by filmmakers now even for films shot on reel. They convert the film footage into digital format for post production and then back to film.This rebirth process is costly, though, and the quality of the image suffers. However, digital cinema need not go through this process. It bunghole opt directly for editing. In fact, the s a digital film is shot, the result can be seen now as no processing required. It can go for post production right away, bypassing laboratory processing. If results are unsatisfactory, repeat shots can be interpreted on the spot at no extra cost. Digit al Cinema Distribution Film distribution through the digital system has many advantages.In the celluloid process, the cost of making a 35 mm print in the conventional way is around Rs. One lakh, while a films simultaneous distribution in gigabyte centers for instance, with 1000 prints, will cost approximately Rs. 10 crores. In the digital system, a hard drive disc of a film will cost around Rs10, 000/- which is almost one tenth of a 35 mm print. Encrypted discs can also help avoid piracy. Yet another advantage is that the disc can be programmed for projection and, by providing codes for the servers, its unofficial and illegal use can be avoided.Moreover, the cumbersome, bulky and costly process of shipping of film reels to and fro to the screening venues is easily overcome. Digital discs can be easily shipped through the courier system. Digital movies are simple computer files. They can be transmitted through broadband cables and played in hundreds of theatres simultaneously. It should also be noted, though, that copying these files is far simpler than copying reel films. indeed care should be taken to protect them properly from piracy.If a film is successful at the box-office and needs more shows, it can be rapidly connected to other theatres with the digital signal. Digital Cinema Projection Ultimately, what matters for the audience is the quality of the image and sound experienced when the visuals are projected onto the screen in cinema houses. According to experts, images particularly those of landscapes are of far better quality on film than on digital video. We do experience this while watching films in theatres. We notice a marked contrast in the colour quality of the images.However, it is the considered opinion of users that while a film reel gets degraded after repeated screenings, the quality of the digital files trunk unaffected. Taking Cinema to Rural Places In many villages in India, in that location are no regular theatres for film proj ection even today. community are deprived of watching films unless they go to the district or taluk headquarters. The need of economic viability is the main reason. But recent developments show that the problem can be solved by using the satellite projection system and digital projectors.Small theaters with a seating capacity of around 100 to 300 can be constructed at a nominal cost and run by satellite projection and the use of LED projectors can also help overcome the problem of outages. LED projectors need marginal power, and this can be managed with a maximum of 1 KW diesel engine power with UPS back up. An investment of around Rs 20 lakhs can earn handsome monthly returns. We can simultaneously run the show in several villages and small towns on the same day as the release of a film in major cities.It is a viable marriage offer for the film industrys exhibition sector to take cinema to the countrys rural interiors. Growing apprehension There is a growing apprehension in th e minds of many intellectuals that these fast paced developments may make a big difference to the quality of cinema, or what we call The tenth part Muse. A growing number of people will be able to capture visual images more easily images may be created through software graphics on the computer without any actual shooting even music is created and reproduced through software nowadays.However, while such a process has the advantage of easy access to cinema, it may not be able to portray the real human element that we experience even today when we see the great classics. This will be a big blow to cinemas prestige. There may a vast spurt in the number of films produced, but at what cost? That is the question. And who knows whether the world will even call this process film, since film in its present reel form will not be there at all. It will be in the form of a disc or files. For all that, storytelling through the audio-visual medium is always enjoyable and loveable. allow us enjoy a nd celebrate its centenary.