India
has a long tradition of performing arts in music,
dance and theatre. It also has strong regional folk
art culture. Hence, it is no wonder that the medium
of cinema took firm root here because movies were
developed to be an extension of traditional entertainment.
Films drew heavily from local environment. This
article seeks to trace the outlines of development
of two prominent centers of movies in India –
Madras (now Chennai) and Bombay (now Mumbai). |
Madras was the cultural and commercial center
in South India before independence. The composition
of the population to this day reflects the multicultural
heritage of the city. Hence, movie makers in the
early days belonged to diverse backgrounds and
most of the wealthy studio owners produced movies
with universal themes drawn from Hindu mythology.
Since Telugu had a strong musical tradition, many
movies were made in this language. Producers made
films in Tamil but as remake versions of Telugu.
With the rise of Modern Theatres and AVM, films
began to have a contemporary flavour and Tamil
slowly gained ground. After the linguistic reorganization
of states, Hyderabad became the capital of Andhra
Pradesh. The Telugu movie industry shifted base
there and launched its own set of stars. Tamil
industry began to break new ground and Sivaji,
MGR, Gemini and many others scaled cinematic peaks.
On the technical
|
|
| aspects
also, huge investment in infrastructure saw the
creation of world-class facilities. Chennai is still
the hub for post-production in other languages.
Bombay
was the commercial center during the British rule.
Hence, there were several entrepreneurs especially
from Punjab, Sindh (now in Pakistan) and Iran. Before
the Partition of the country, movies had a religious
flavour like in the South. As the film makers liked
to woo the local audience, most of the films were
made in Marathi or Bengali. Marathi also has a strong
spiritual element like Tamil. The early films from
Bombay were in Marathi. After the refugee exodus
during Partition, many Punjabis settled down in
Bombay. Hindi became the link language and slowly
films began to be made in Hindi also. Till then
there were no notable films because Hindi was not
popular outside the Northern belt. It was only after
political recognition of Hindi as the national language
did it gains a pan-Indian appeal. The rest as they
say is history. Today, Bollywood churns out the
maximum number of films outside of the English language.
Let
us do a comparative study of the two industries.
There is a similarity between the two that they
had slow initial growth, but once they found mass
appeal, they have shown steady progress. Both have
produced superstars who had hysteric following.
There has been a symbiotic relationship between
the two. Artistes from South have migrated to Hindi
while many talented technicians from Mumbai have
worked in Tamil films especially in the early days.
There are some differences. Tamil industry has shown
organic growth because it has offered immense scope
for several talented people from ordinary backgrounds
to work on the artistic or technical departments.
In contrast, the Hindi industry is still to a great
extent disorganized and only a few names dominate
the scenario. People who work in Tamil are bound
by strict rules. There is greater supervision and
productivity is high. Professional associations
ensure smooth working. Such a strong work ethic
is lacking in Hindi. Production schedules suffer
constant time and cost overruns. But it is able
to survive because of the strong overseas market
for Hindi films. There is no dearth of creative
people in Tamil and Hindi but there are fewer and
fewer takers because film making has become a commercial
venture and no one is willing to take risks. That
is the only sore point. Let us hope that the new
millennium will bring people who can correct some
of the lacunae.
|
