Cinema comes of age

As the country gears up for a new government I reflect on when cinema came of age in India. If Indian cinema was experimental in the 50s, enthusiastic in the 60s and artistic in the 70s, in the 80s people had stopped going to the cinema halls and preferred watching films on the video. The 90s was a terrible phase when rubbish films were being churned out in the name of entertainment. Cinema according to me changed drastically in 2000 and primarily because the audience changed.

Many years ago Shashi Kapoor said there is nothing like an art or a commercial film. “It is either a good film or a bad film.”

It has taken us so many years to understand the enormity of Kapoor’s thought but today we have finally reached a point where cinema is being judged on quality not on genre/ star cast or other factors like music/ location/ dance numbers.

The wheel in my opinion turned again with Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Dil Chahta Hain’ 2001 a new age film about three friends in pursuit of their dreams. Producer Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan just out of college combined force to launch ‘Excel Films’ and present a real world of make believe characters. The reason the film touched an emotional chord with old and the young were because ‘Dil Chahta Hain’ was as much about the new age parents as about their children.

It was the year that gave us ‘Chandani Bar’, ‘Lagaan’, ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ and introduced us to two Diaspora films made by two women filmmakers-Mira Nair’s ‘Monsoon Wedding’ and Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Bend it like Beckham’ and both were box-office runaways that spoke volumes about the changing taste of audience.

Hindi films were suddenly looking and sounding global and this is because people behind the scenes were changing. Technicians and actors from affluent, educated background were attracted to the profession. They reflected a global perspective and maintained high standards in production and discipline. Unlike the olden days when producers first announced projects and then went hunting for scripts, the current bunch of filmmakers diligently worked on scripts and only when 100 percent confident of the word flow, went on the sets.

There was greater passion and higher ambitions. Every one aspired for quality successful cinema. While the big budget films sought realism, small budget films refrained from becoming pedantic and best examples of them were Aparna Sen’s ‘Mr& Mrs Iyer’ and Shaad Ali’s ‘Saathiyaan’ or Mahesh Manjrekar’s ‘Astitva’ and Jagmohan Mundhra’s ‘Bawandar’. This was the decade when foreign productions came into India and renowned banners turned corporate. Gone were the days when filmmakers submitted failure of their films to destiny. Today, everybody wanted a winner and they left nothing to chance.

If in the olden days distributors insisted on a cabaret dance in a film. Now they asked for a raunchy item number. The new audience was clued in and ready for any genre of movies as long as it was engaging. They had long gotten over with the old formula stories and looked for films that diminished lines between the art and the commercial. They were as involved in the back stories because technology made information easily accessible. It wasn’t like the olden days when actors retained the same hairstyle in film after film for decades, never worked on their bodies, never visited a health club. They knew everything that had to be known about the current crop of actors, their changing body/ hair/ speech/mood depending on the character they played. It is because of the reformed audience that the image of a star today is no more sacrosanct, nor is his price. Today, actors/ filmmakers juggle many hats. Preity Zinta is on IPL and also on small screen. Rani Mukherjee is married and also working in films. Today Amitabh Bachchan is 72 and still plays the protagonist.

History has proved that every time big change occurred in performing medium two players carve a major role: the audience and the writer! Remember how Salim Javed hijacked the box-office during 60s to 80s with their brand of films? Today, a host of new actors, writers, directors, lyricists and music composers, some from villages, some from small towns and some from big cities, have collectively altered Indian cinema and transformed the taste of film viewers.

Many years ago, Shekhar Kapoor once said that a time will come when the face behind the mask of ‘Superman’ will not be a Hollywood star but a Hrithik Roshan. I think that time has come. This is easily the best times for Indian cinema or should I say now is the best time for India as a country as well?

- Bhawana Somaaya / Tweets @bhawanasomaaya