Cinema of Passion – The rebirth of cinema
With hundreds of films in making and a millions of souls in dreaming, Telugu Cinema is an ever growing industry. Telugu film industry is the largest in India in terms of the number of films produced annually. Although Bollywood or the Hindi film industry is synonymous with Indian cinema, it is the regional films such as Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam Kannada and other regional films that form the greater crux of it.Indian film industry has certainly come a long way. From the first Indian feature film Raja Harischandra in 1913 to another dozen films getting ready to hit the screens this Friday we came this far only to fall flat on our faces due to lack of good scripts, good actors, good producers and good directors.
Film is but a reflection of life. As we ape the West day by day in our life style, it’s quite natural that our films follow the Hollywood path of commercialization. Hollywood is mostly about money and commerce. Art generally doesn’t find a place in Hollywood and so is in Bollywood and all the Kolly,Molly, Tollywoods of Indian film industry. In all these woods its the same old beaten paths that people take and some come out winners and some failures. Week after week, when the audience eagerly wait in the darkness, to be transported in to a different world, all they get is ready mix of emotions packaged with a routine formula of 5 songs and 5 fights with an added comedy track.
The star system is very rampant in south India than any other state. Actors like Rajanikanth, Chiranjeevi have achieved the cult status of demi-gods purely by creating a mass appeal for themselves through the films . In Tamilnadu fans built temples to worship their favorite actresses. The biggest culprit for the degrading quality of Indian cinema is the star system. NT Ramarao in Andhrapradesh and MG Ramachandran in Tamilnadu used films as a tool to gain charisma, to easily reach the masses and mass hypnotize them through their roles in films. By this they gained not only fame, money and status but also paved their way to the highest positions of the state as chief ministers and political leaders. They made a mark for themselves by attaining God like statuses and their demise brought in much misery by causing a greater confusion in choosing their successors.In the mid 80s the game of survival created many stars, superstars and megastars and the struggle still continues among the sons, grandsons, cousins, nephews of these stars. This rat race has degraded the Telugu cinema , plaguing the cinema forever.
The wafer thin story lines ,logically challenged scripts , bad acting and tantrums fog the art that is cinema. For the men of money behind the screens, it is the cash that rolls in to the box office that decides the success or failure of a film. Friday after Friday the audience stand in long queues fighting scorching heat, walk into the chambers of darkness, wait in bated breath for a spectacle. Again and again it is them who get cheated.Isn’t it time for cinema to mean more to these hungry audience ?Isn’t it time to change , isn’t it time for a revolution ?
What shall this revolution be called? New wave? But what is this new wave? When did it began? Who started it? How did it began?
The answers are fairly simple and wellknown. Yes, it was started in the mid 50s in France, and of course Bazin, Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut, Rohmer and Rivette were the main forces behind it. But beyond these dates, and men there was ‘Cahiers du cinema’, a film magazine that brought all of these men together and provided a common platform for discussing, appreciating and criticizing film. But more than all the magazine served as a common ground in theorizing their ideas that came to develop into the famous ‘auteur’ theory.
Honestly Telugu cinema has already seen a new wave and what we need now is not just a wave ,we need a tsunami. The people who run the industry now have their roots deep into the system. With out these people, it appears that, it is almost impossible to make quality films in Telugu. With three generations of their clan in the film industry it has become a duty of the stars to protect their family and business interests. Now Telugu film industry is no more a platform for creativity but a platform for vested interests of selfish individuals. For some its the money, for some its the glamour and for most it is the politics. Telugu cinema is far away from art. Film-a culmination of 64 arts, is now a subject of ridicule, obscenity and vulgarity.
To washout such a mess, we need not one but a thousand tsunamis of creativity. Like Dogme95, we need a collective to counter the aforementioned tendencies. If ‘Cahiers du cinema’ had sown the seeds of ‘new wave’ it is very much possible for ‘Passion For Cinema’ to sow the seed of a new brand of Telugu cinema and there by Indian cinema.
It is not that Telugu cinema has never had the right filmmakers who went against the stream to make films of a higher quality. There was Vamsi who gave us ‘Sitara’, ‘Anweshana’, ‘Maharshi’, ‘April Okati vidudala’, ‘Ladies tailor’ and ‘Chettu kinda pleader’. There were Viswantath, Bapu and Jandhyala. Their films had a definite trademark of their creativity and they are the only few Telugu directors who can be called auteurs. Beyond these four directors there was Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, whose name was synonymous for innovation with films like , ‘Pushpak’ and ‘Apoorva Sahodaragal’. Of course there was Ram Gopal Varma, who revolutionized the Telugu Cinema with his debut film ‘Shiva’ and ‘Kshana kshanam’ but his style has been copied in another 100 films but nothing really changed with his films. Apart from these directors there are very few people who can be considered as serious filmmakers.
There are people around the world waiting to be a part of this new brand of cinema. A collective consciousness has to be created. Its not a distant dream that we are dreaming. The revelation should come from the educated and literate people. Technology is booming and now everyone can make their own films. Like a book, a film can be made with the effort of a single individual. But such a venture has its own limitations. We must work together and we need to frame a manifesto for the new generation of cinema – ‘cinema of passion’.
Manifesto for ‘Cinema of passion’
1)One must understand that the Stars who are ruling the film industry are not artists any more. They are there to protect their money, status and keep their family in the business as long as possible. When you know this you find no reason to worship them. One must realize that ‘Cinema of passion’ offers no place for them.
2)At one side of the coin, film is a medium of entertainment but on the other side of the coin it is an art form. It should be a conscious struggle of every filmmaker to make films beyond the star system and to respect film as an art form. ‘Cinema of passion’ balances art with entertainment and portray life in films close to reality.
3)One must understand that film making is not an easy task. Every filmmaker must try to equip himself with all the important aspects of film making. ‘Cinema of passion’ must be a collaboration of such hardworking professionals.
4)One must focus on the script and try to develop the characters with character. It is a crime to develop a script keeping the existing stars in mind.
5)New technicians, new artists must be featured in the ‘Cinema of passion’.
6)’Cinema of passion’ should avoid using songs, where ever possible.
7)’Cinema of passion’ should never help in the growth of star system and if possible should try to curb this star dominated system.
8)Support and respect your fellow ‘Cinema of passion’ filmmakers.
9)’Cinema of passion’ must tell the stories of people from every walk of life. We should never deviate from the characters of real life to the characters from fantasy world.
10)Our conscience must be our censoring system and we should strive not to include scenes that might ignite false and superficial emotions in the audience.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
ehmigod..!! great write up bro…!! a mirrored revelation..
let it keep comin….!!
I don’t care if its Telugu Cinema, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi or mainstream Hindi Cinema… the change *only* going to happen when the AUDIENCE forces it to happen.
You talk about how the audience “gets cheated” when they go to watch a masala film. Everyone knows that the fate of most Indian films, even in their first week, relies heavily on word of mouth.
As long as audiences are entertained they will continue to patronize certain kinds of films. As long as that happens, Producers/Directors/Stars will continue making those kinds of films.
It’s all about the $$$$! The day audiences refuse to go watch certain films, they will flop and less and less makers will be interested in creating that kind of cinema.
The opposite holds true. The more “intelligent” and “non-gimmicky” cinema is appreciated, teh more of it will be encouraged and made.
At least with mainstream cinema the trends are promising. Let’s just give it some time…
Venkat great write up but how much ever we might rant about the cinematic greats and SENSIBLE CINEMA…I still would just love going to the cinema hall to watch a RAJNI film….in fact I am counting days/hours/minutes for SHIVAJI….The Star System cannot be abolished…then in similar manner…abolish all junk food and have only salads…only health food…need to find a way to co-exist…And about eliminating songs….I just cannot imagine a Rajni film with out the Opening SPB entry song…..Find a way to co-exist than just abolish one medium
Vasan, Tony I totally agree with you.I am not saying that we stick to a manifesto. But a chnage must happen somewhere, can’t just keep wondering :-?, chicken or egg? Audience or Filmmakers?
I also agree that I am confused more than anybody about mainstream vs offbeat, minimalism vs overt stylism, but….I dont know…I am not a filmmaker yet…lets wait and see what I will make!
all the best Venkat….good, bad, great cinema comes much later….i feel one can easily see thru the truth/honesty in the effort…whatever you make am sure the honesty will come thru. GOOD LUCK
venkat,
it is true that lot many people feel the way you feel. We need a change but some how this chnage is not getting to say the light. they say change is the only constant thing but I dont see that rule getting applied for Indian cinema. I can see the passion in your article but laying down rules will only make things rigid…I feel there must be freedom in creativity.
I wish you all the best in your future feature filmmaking and I hope you wont disppoint the audience.
al d points make lot f sense..!! keep up d passionate work ppl..!!