![]() The second talkie film released in India was Shirin Farhaad, on 30th May 1931. It was produced by Madan Theatres, Kolkata and directed by its owner Mr. J.J. Madan. It had 18 songs. Indra Sabha which was released in 1932 had as much as 69 songs in it! It was produced by Madan Theatre, Calcutta and directed by J.J. Madan. The film starred Master Nissar, Jahan Aara, Kazzam, Miss Silvasia and others. The first ever color film made in India was Kissan Kanhaiya produced by Imperial Film Co. This film was released in 1973. Moti B. Gidwani directed it, and its music was composed by Ram Gopal Pandey. The film had 10 songs, which were released by Gramophone Records. In that year, 27 films were made in four languages - Hindi language, Bengali language, Tamil language and Telugu language. The introduction of sound generated ever-increasing emphasis on music and song. The phenomenal success of Alam Ara inspired many other directors to follow in its footsteps. Music and fantasy came to be seen as vital elements of the filmy experience. At times, the emphasis on music was overdone. However it is significant that music came to be regarded as a defining element in Indian cinema. ![]() The interplay between tradition and modernity in its various guises began to interest Indian filmmakers more and more, as evident in films like Maya (1936) and Manzil (1936).Western influences, however, still loomed large in at least one dimension of the Indian popular cinema in the late 1930s. India's most exciting daredevil from the 1930s to the 1950s was Nadia, daughter of a British father and Greek mother. Billed as fearless, Nadia, her story has recently been told by her grand nephew, Rijad Vinci Wadia (1993) in Fearless: The Hunterwali Story, a 75-minute film documentary. By the 1940s, however, a winning formula for success at the box office had been forged, consisting of song, dance, spectacle, rhetoric and fantasy. A close and significant relationship between the epic consciousness and the art of cinema had been established. Moreover, film was increasingly being recognized as a vital instrument of social criticism. It was against this background that film directors like V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy had chosen to make their films, films that were to generate not only national but also international interest. ![]() While the popular tradition of Indian filmmaking was developing with undiminished vigour, by the mid 1950s, a distinctly 'artistic' cinema took shape, thanks to the pioneering efforts of the Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray. His Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) of 1955 won for Indian cinema great international recognition and critical acclaim. It was given the 'best human document' award at the 1956 Cannes film festival and went on to win awards at film festivals in San Francisco, Vancouver, Ontario and elsewhere. Pather Panchali, based on a well-known Bengali novel, realistically and sensitively chronicles the privations and hardships encountered by a Brahmin family at the beginning of the present century. If Indian popular filmmakers looked towards Hollywood musicals for inspiration, Satyajit Ray's cinematic imagination was stirred by the work of French director Renoir and the Italian neo-realists. Pather Panchali along with Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959) - generally referred to as the Apu Trilogy - are regarded as masterpieces of world cinema. After making the trilogy, Satyajit Ray went on to create such outstanding works of cinema as Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964), Devi (Goddess, 1960) and Jalsaghar (Music Room, 1958). Ray's cinema with its emphasis on realism, psychological probing, visual poetry, outdoor rather than studio shooting, and the use of non-professional actors was in sharp contrast to the practices of Indian popular cinema. Before his death, Ray was awarded the Lifetime Award by Hollywood and was the only Indian director to be singularly honoured by President Mitterand of France, who flew to Kolkata to bestow on him the Legion of Honour. Satyajit Ray was largely responsible for the creation of an internationally recognized artistic cinema in India. ![]() |