UNIT 24 THEATRE AND CINEMA (INDIAN)
Structures 24.0 Objectives 24.1 Theatre and Cinema: General 24.2 Indian Theatre: Then and Now 24.3 Indian Cinema Today: The Popular Strain 24.4 'Art' Cinema 24.5 Cinema's Social Function 24.6 Film Listing 24.7 Let Us Sum Up 24.8 Key Words 24.9 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
24.0 OBJECTIVES This unit leads with theatre and cinema in the Indian context. After going through this unit, you should be able to: familiariz yourself with a basic aspects of cinema and theatre; understand the genesis of Indian theatre and cinema, and analyse the social importance of cinema.
24.1 THEATRE AND CINEMA: GENERAL This brief unit will tell you a few basic things about theatre and cinema. This will be done keeping in mind the Indian context. The survey offered will be brief and introductory and will cover sufficient ground without clarning to be exhaustive. The angle offered on the field will be more historical than critical. In the unit on literature you were given some idea of British drama. Drama is different from poetry and the novel in that it is meant to be staged. In other words, it has a perfomative side to it, which is part of its essence. The same is true for cinema. A film is meant to be shown. This performative compulsion is common to theatre and cinema. Drama is shown or performed on a stage and has an immediate audience. Film is shown on screen and it also has an immediate audience. The stage experience and the movie-hall experience are finite in that there is a kind of time-limit in which the audience participates in a finite theatre or movie experience. Then one comes away from or outside that imaginative space and cames that experience and then you come away from it. Playing upon the audience's response and participation (within a relatively fdte time and space) is inbuilt into the experience being offered by the producer of the performance.
24.2 INDIAN THEATRE: THEN AND NOW Indian Theatre today is alive and kicking mostly in languages other than English.Indian- language theatre has a variety of traditions backing it up from the past. There is the classical Sanslait tradition of which dramatists like Kalidasa (the author of Abhigyan Shakuntaalam) are a part . Dramatists like Bhasa and Shudrak also belong here. Then there is the folk tradition. Within that there is theatre with a religious side to it and there is theatre which is secular in the sense or aiming only at entertainment (and often edification of a more or less secular kind). The element of satire is often an integral part of this kind of theatre experience.
'Jatra', 'Tamasha', 'Nautanki' etc. are all folk-forms with a lot of ingenuity and flexibility. They are 'mobile theatre' so to speak/ the mobility is part of their appeal Theatre and Cinema and their essence. There is great versatility and virtuosity in such forms. (Indian)
Most forms of theatre are backed up by dance forms because gestures, 'abhinaya' and dance-movements have been on integral part of the Indian theatre-tradition.
Today Indian-language drama is thriving in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada and almost all the other Indian languages. In recent times, big names have been Mohan Rakesh (Hindi), Badal Sarkar (Bangla), Vijay Tendulkar (Marathi), and Girish Kamad (Kannada). Plays like Aadhe Adhure (Mohan Rakesh), PagIa Ghoda (Badal Sarkar), Hayauadan (Girish Karnad), and Ghasiram KotwaI (Vijay Tendulkar) have left a tremendous impact and are getting staged from time to time. People like Habib Tanvir worked with folk forms mostly in Chhatisgarhi. Urdu theatre and English theatre are also entities by themselves.
Indian theatre has had some very good .directors and actors like lbrahim Alkazi, Sharnbhu Mitra, Rajinder Nath, Pratibhaa Agarwal, Vijaya Mehta, Satyadev Dubey, Usha Ganguli and others. Among the better actors was the late Manohar Singh. A number of film actors have kept up their association with the theatre. Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri are the names that come to mind. Check Your Progress 1 Note: 3 Use the space given below for your answers. n) Check your answers with those given at the end of the Unit.
I) Does India have a vibrant theatre? Is it restricted to one or two languages only?
24.3 INDIAN CINEMA TODAY: THE POPULAR STRAIN Indian cinema today is a massive industry. India is the biggest producer films in the words. Here we shall concentrate largely on Hindi cinema of this populat' variety. That, by and large, is symptomatic of popular cinema in other languages as well. The parallel variety (broadly identified as 'art cinema') will be given only a brief passing treatment.
Hindi cinema today revolves around the star-system. Big stars today (on the male side) are Amitabh Bachan, Shahrukh Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol, Salman Khan, Amir Khan, Ajay Devgan, Govinda etc. The era a little before the present one was dominated by the likes of Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Shatrughan Singha etc. and the era still before that was dominated by the trio of Dilip Kurnar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. Around this trio there were figures like Ashok Kurnar, Raaj Kurnar, Bharat Bhushan, Balraj Sahni, Prithviraj Kapoor etc. some of these belonged to the previous generations but their appeal continued into the period past their prime.
On the side of great actresses there was first the generation (if we restrict ourselves to the period aqer Independence) represented by Nargis, Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Vyajyanti Mala, Mala Sinha, Gita Bali, Kamini Kaushal, Nalini Jaywant etc. A little later there were great actresses like Waheeda Rehman. Sadhna belonged to this era as did Asha Parekh and many others. Then we had Rakhee followed by Rekha, Shabana hi,Jaya Bhaduri and Smita Patil. One of the more recent stars has Arts and Aesthetics On the male side there have been remarkable character actors in the past. If we include those who mostly had 'villainous' roles then the list'will include Ajit, Pran, K.N. Singh, madan Puri etc. from the past, Amjad Khan, Ranjeet etc. from the middle period and Amrish Puri and Om Puri etc. from recent times. There have been great actors like Motilal in the past and Naseeruddin Shah and Nana Patekar in the present who have impressed everybody. Shashi Kapoor has fitted into a great variety of roles. Some notable comedians have been Om Prakash, Johnny Walker, Mehmood, I.S. Johar, Kishore Kumar etc.
Hindi cinema has had a string of remarkable directors. Here let us tell you a little about how a film usually gets made. There is a preliminary 'story'. Which gets converted into a screenplay. Actors and actresses are chosen. Mostly some songs are added which involves a music direcior, a lyric-writer and some playback singers. Our stars mostly do not actually sing the songs. The actual singing is done by playback singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle (in case of women). Great playback singers of the recent era were Mohammod Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mehmood and Kishore Kumar. All are dead now. The man from their generations who survives is Manna Dey. There is today a good crop of younger playback singers and ghazal singers.
The most important man is the director of the film. Great Indian directors (Hindi) have been V. Shantaram, Mahboob Khan, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Chetan hand, vijay Anand, B.R. Chopm, Yash Chopra, Rammanand Sagar, Raj Khosla, Manmohan Desai, G.P. Sippy, O.P. Ralhan, Basu Bhattacharya, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani etc. Here we are mixing 'commercial' and 'art' categories.
Great music directors have been Naushad, S.D. Burman, Shankar Jaikishan (a team), Jaidev. Among music-director teams Laxmilcant Pyarelal and Kalyanji Anandji have been good too.
Among notable lyricists were Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shailendra, Kaifi Azmi, Shakeel Badaayuni, Hasrat Japuri, Indivar and hand Bakshi. In the field of script-writing the Salim-Javed team made a big splash with Sholay. Check Your Progress 2 1) Does Hindi cinema revolve around the star-system? If so, who are the present big stars? (see 24.3)
...... 2) What role does music play in Hindi films?
24.4 'ART' CINEMA There has been a parallel cinema in Hindi kept going by the likes of Govind Nihalani, Shyam Bengal etc. Bimal Roy, Guru Datt, K.A. Abbas, M.S. Sathyu (and many others) have all contributed in their own way. 1 The best 'art' film directors have been Shyam Bengal, Ritik Ghatak, Adoor Theatre and Cinema d Gopalalaishnan etc. the international celebrity has of course been Satyajit Ray, the (Indian) i maker of classic like Pather Panchali. There is also Mrinal Sen and a number of others. In hindi good efforts have recently come from some women directors such as Kalpana Lajmi. In recent times terms such as art cinema and parallel cinema have been abandoned. Instead we have a range of films that go from big budget mainstream ones to small budget cinema. The small budget independent films have found occasional box offices successes.the art cinema or parallel cinema, as it is called sometimes strove to create films which depected social reality in all its aspects. Many of three movies tried to communicate a social message or offer a critique of society. They however were not always commercially successfull. Though in terms of critical expression they were far beyond the mainstream cinema-be it Hindi or other regional languages.
24.5 CINEMA'S SOCIAL FUNCTION Cinema often has a message but most of the time it offers entertainment first 'Masala' films (songs, drama, action, dance formula) sell better mostly as does tear-jerking stuff of the sentimental variety. In that sense cinema is part fantasy, part therapy. It offers a catharses (purgation) of sorts to its audiences. Film makers are also dream-mechants arid sell romance. Cinema has a massive appeal in South India. People like M.G. Ramachandran, N.T. Rama Rao,Shivaaji Ganeshan, Raj Kumar have had a great mass appeal and the same is true of Kamal Hasan and Rajnikant.
24.6 FILM LISTING The most notable 50 films from the last five decades (roughly) are:
Do Bigha Zameen, Mother India, Jagte Raho, Awara, Dev Das (Bimal Roy), Pyasa, Sahib Biwi Ghulam, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Bahti Hai, Roti Kapda Aur Makan, Waqt, Ankhein, Guide, Teesri Kasam, Phool Aur Pathar, Shuhar Aur Sapne, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (Comedy), Garm Hawa, Satyaka, Sholay, Pyaar Kiye Ja (Comedy), Padoson (Comedy), Ganga Jamuna, Barsat Ki Raat, Dhool Ka Phool, Kanoon, Sujata, Bandhini, Mughal-e-Azam, Johny Mera Naam, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Mujhe Jeena Do, Reshma Aur Shera, Bobby, Deewar, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Hum Apke Hain Kaun, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Comedy), ~hatranjKe Khiladi.
24.7 LET US SUM UP In this unit we have tried to capture some main aspects of both theatre and cinema in the Indian context. Both these forms of art are ever evolving and are going ' through continuous transformation and influences. What we have presented here is a very brief introduction.
24.8 KEY WORDS
Satire : A critical form of theatre in which critique is achieved through humour, wit and ridicule. Character Actors : Actors who play a short role in a film depicting typical casts such as villains, relatives or comics.