Films Me and Montage

Films  Me and Montage

My first recollection of a movie is 

“Hum Panchhi Ek Daal Ke” with the title song with same words. This film was released in 1957. Another movie was Bhabhi also released in 1957 with famous song “Chal ud jaa re Panchhi”. The songs are now also dear to me. That was Bombay. We lived in Jogeshwari and most of the film stars used to pass the road in front of our building.

My father, a Police officer was transferred to Nashirabad in East Khandesh district now Jalgaon. It was a village and there was no entertainment other than a movie theatre. Electricity was not there and Gas batti was the brightest light source. That was a time when families of government officials were not expected to mingle with local population. Father was  busy so mother would take us to watch movie in the only theatre there. One song from Kaali topi laal rumal “Lagi chhute naa ab to sanam” is still vivid in my memory. Kanoon was another movie from that period. It was billed as first movie without a song.

No tickets were required and prime seats would be always kept vacant and reserved for the families of government officials in all shows across the state. 

If the movie was new and not seen by us, the owner would stop the show and restart for our convenience whenever we reached the venue. If the movie was liked, we would see the movie many times but now only the portion we liked. 

Marathi movies Jagachya paathivar, Shyamchi Aai and Pedgaonche Shahane were memorable movies from that period.

Later we lived in many places and due to the other avenues of entertainment available, films lost their importance. But still we would go to a movie anytime and watch it. Many times we would be late by nearly an hour, but that was not a problem. We watched the movie to the end and watched the next show till such time that we had missed the portion. Imagine watching 'Woh  kaun thi’ where the suspense of gate opening is explained and later watch first part of the movie. 

In 1967 my father was transferred to Vidarbha and mother took us to Sangli for completing school and college studies. Sangli an erstwhile Princely state is known for Vishnudas Bhave and Kolhatkar,the famous writers of Marathi drama. Every new play would be staged in Sangli. We were fortunate to attend famous plays in the theatres and also musical evenings in the palace.

Until 1980, there used to be morning show and matinee show that used to screen old movies. We were able to watch favourite movies of our parents from their college days. Now no theatre screens old movies. 

After graduating I landed in Tiruchirapalli a place I had to locate on map in Atlas to book railway ticket. It's a place in the heart of Tamil Nadu. We were staying in BHEL Township. Our Officer's club used to screen movies on Friday with 16mm projector. To cater to all segments of population movies in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, English and Hindi were screened. There were no subtitles. There we understood that films are not bound by language. One can appreciate and enjoy a good movie without understanding the dialogues. Our friends would tell us the general plot to make us comfortable.

Indian cinema has always revolved around the following topics:

1 Love story and Love triangle

2 Love story and family feud

3 Love story with Rich/ poor or caste or religion divide

4 Family drama with lots of tears

5 Dacoits related

6 Lost and found 

7 Revenge

8 Suspense or Horror

9 Remakes of Foreign or regional movies and many times earlier Hindi movies

All the earlier movies had following constituents

Songs in picturesque location

Some tear-jerker scenes

A cabaret dance

Comedy scenes

A rape scene

Fight between Hero and villain

South based studios like AVM, Gemini were masters in making these movies and made them in all languages. Many Marathi and Bengali movies were also made in Hindi. The regional films are always Richer in content than Hindi movies. They cover many aspects of life not touched by Hindi movies.

We were fortunate to get an opportunity to compare the original roles played by Kamal Hasan, MGR and Sivaji Ganesan with Hindi version roles played by Jitendra, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh. Even today many Hindi movies are Remakes of popular regional movies.

I am going to dwell upon some aspects of Indian cinema and its influence on people.

First the impact on fashion – In the earlier movies,  heroines had blouses with collar, sleeves covering elbow and the length up to the top of Sari. This didn't include the heroins donning Western outfits. Slowly the sleeves and length of blouses shortened and the neckline also deepened. The hairstyle also changed. Birdnests from the Head of heroins disappeared. Sari of heroins used to be trademarked by the name of movie like Gharana Sari.

Male fashion followed Hollywood. Sideburns of Elvis had impact on a whole generation. When Amitabh became popular his hairstyle of step cut was copied by many. Earlier Dev Anand was role model for many fashion conscious males.

Dress Sense- In movies before 1960, we are able to see characters wearing coat or suit and hats. Even characters that didn't have money to eat one square meal donned suit irrespective of the local weather conditions. Same is the case of denim jacket. From Sanjay and Firoz Khan every other hero donned denim jacket in early 1970s. It was intriguing to watch a Tamil hero wearing all white dress including belt and shoes. Later in Hindi also we were able to see gaudy coloured attire. Why the villain and his gang has to wear outlandish dresses is a mystery. 

Disguise- Most of the earlier movies had a scene where hero wore a Sherwani with fur cap, rimless glasses and flowing beard. With a stick in hand he would claim to be old maulavi. Otherwise he would become a jogi. Heroin sprinkling some white powder on hair and wearing glasses would become old woman. Other than director and artists everybody could recognize the hero or heroin in disguise. By wearing a wig, glasses and moustache only Hindi movie believes that the heroin does not recognize her spouse. Same is the case with Hero also as shown in Satyam Shivam Sundaram.

One can not miss the influence of Eli Wallach character in the Good, the bad and the ugly on Gabbar in Sholay. 

Music and dialogues were mainstay of all successful movies. Many movies we recollect only because of the songs. Many actors owe their success to some dialogues or scenes audience liked. Sholay made history by selling audio cassettes of its dialogues.

Indian movies have no relation to reality. We believe in piracy and saving money by hook or crook. We don't buy original books or music albums. Though we don't have popular singing stars like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston we make so many movies on success of a singer or Poet.

When we talk about reality we must look at the way the prostitutes, Tawaifs, dance girls are glamorized by Hindi movies. This is true for Devdas, Pyaasa, Umaraojan, Pakiza or Amarprem and other movies. Even the so called art films don't fare better.

Another aspect is the haircut. All stars don't bother to have short hair when they portray a police officer or army officer. They wear ceremonial uniforms on normal days. Even in the latest movie Uri the hero is with beard even in North block. No government officer ever drives a government vehicle. They have drivers for that. But when you copy a Hollywood movie where the hero drives his own vehicle and chases someone alone, Indian movies overlook this aspect.

Role of Comedian- Who can forget roles of Johnny Walker in Pyaasa singing Sar Jo tera chakaraye or Jangal me mor naacha in Madhumati or leading his many children in Chori Chori. Similarly trio of Mehmood, Shubha Khote and Dhumal was unbeatable. They overshadowed the lead pairs and garnered best songs in the movies. IS Johar, Rajendranath, Asrani, Mukri, Asit Seen, Keshto and many others were typecast and could not come to the level of Johnny Walker and Mehmood.

Comedians are not limited to Hindi cinema alone. Marathi cinema had it's share of star comedians. Tamil movies also had star comedians like Nagesh, Tenga Srinivasan and others. There is a popular Tamil TV channel dedicated to Comedy shots from movies.

People getting Type cast – This is another phenomenon of Indian cinema. Omprakash, Anupam Kher were cast in elderly roles in their young age itself. Rohini Hattangadi and Reema Lagu acted as a mother at young age. If Amitabh played a drunkard in one movie, all subsequent movies made him repeat similar shots. No villain was allowed to play an ordinary person.

Period movies- Our movie makers are very bad in making period movies. All the directors claim that lots of research was carried out for making the movie. We were shown Vaastupurush movie which relates to a period of 1960s. The bus has a number plate of 1990s. The bus was not red in 1960s. In all movies the fabric never relates to the period.

Movies and Festivals - In black and white era Rakhi and Diwali were favourite festivals of movies. If the story had Muslim family, Eid was shown. Holi became number one festival and other than Ganesh puja no other festivals are seen in movies now.

Movies as a tool for social engineering- Movies are expected to deliver some message to the audience and make them think. Tamil movies employed this in a big way and reaped political harvest. From Annadurai to Jayalalitha every chief minister was associated with films.

Mafia also used movies to create terror in the minds of people and financed many movies for this purpose.

It's said that Movies are made for an audience in the age group of 10 years to 30 years. The age group when one dreams and fantasies a lot. After all movie makers are dream merchants.

Movies try to address the likes, prejudices, aspirations, fictions and beliefs of their targetted audience. In the process the actual facts are glossed over. All of us have watched war movies covering various wars. We have also watched sci-fi movies. In how many movies one can recollect an Indian character other than in Matrix. Yes Kabir Bedi and Vijay Amritraj acted in some movies. 48 Indian soldiers won Victoria cross, the highest gallantry award by British from 1890 to 1945. There is a war memorial in France for Indian soldiers who died in WWI. Whether it is Lawrence of Arabia or Bridge on River Qwai or any movie on North Africa war no Indian soldiers are seen but African Americans are seen. Even now when India is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping force, one will hardly see them in any movie.

We should look at the impact of digital revolution on Film making. Till 1980 only Metro cities had black and white TV. For Asian games colour transmission started and colour TV sets were assembled on mass scale. Satellite based transmission started. This gave an alternative to movie going. All over India Video parlours mushroomed. This affected the footfall in movie theatres. Naturally movies needed some element that would bring back the audience to theatres. Something that would make watching the movie in a theatre an unique experience that can not be experienced in home. Be it Dolby sound system or extravagant sets, it made audience go back to cinemas with high ticket rates.

Film is an art form through which a director expresses himself. Everyone wants an appreciation for the efforts put in. No Film Maker can claim that he makes movies for his own satisfaction. Great artists like Picasso, Michelangelo are known to people because someone commissioned them or pays millions for their painting.  

Film critics in India talk about  Art films or parallel cinema, as against Commercial or Masala films. But in reality there are only good films and bad films. Just because the movie crew and actors have graduated from Film institute or NSD doesn't make a film good. Generally it is observed that by filming Poverty, suffering and exploitation the chances of getting award increase.

I am a mechanical engineer. My interaction with Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Lord Tennyson, Wordsworth and others ended with SSC. In our working culture, there was no time or patience for pondering “ To be or not to be”. It was always has to be. Yes during college days we came across Ayan Rand, PG Woodehouse and many Russian authors. 

Work pressure and office timings didn't allow us to indulge into leisurely cultural activities. For many years we hardly went to a movie.  It's surprising that I was neighbour to Mr Tayde for 2 years but hardly had any interaction with him.

The discussion can not conclude with understanding the word Montage.

Montage is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. The term has been used in various contexts. It was introduced to cinema primarily by Sergei Eisenstein, and early Soviet directors used it as a synonym for creative editing. In French the word "montage" applied to cinema simply denotes editing.

The montage sequence is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory.

We were interested in watching world cinema, but the opportunities were not there. Our association with Cine Montage started due Mr Prashant Joshi. We appreciate the efforts put in by many members in collecting copies of good cinema and screening. We are in an age bracket where camera angle, lighting effects, type of editing are no more of interest. We are interested in watching a clean good movie. This also gives us an opportunity to compare the conditions, aspirations and traditions existing in other countries with those in our country.

Thanks for listening