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Cinema: A reflection of society

Cinema has been one of the greatest influences in our modern life, particularlyin India, home of biggest cinema industry in the world. Right from DadasahebPhalke to Farhan Akhtar, Bollywood has come a long way.

A name that needs no introduction, an individual that has more surnames andadjectives than noun itself, Amitabh Bachchan was a struggling no-face when

he started his film career during the early 1970s. At the same time, the youngIndian society was in a state of unrest; unhappy with - governance, risingprices, corruption and food-scarcity, and was going through the motions.Brimming with energy and positive aggression, the common man, particularlythe youth, wanted to see radical changes in the society. Aptly capturing the

mood of the society of that time, the character of angry-young-man whowanted to right all wrongs and backed with films, with scripts, which placedfinger right at the pulse of the nation, catapulted Amitabh Bachchan to dizzyingheights of super-stardom .

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Cinema, popular or parallel, a visual art of storytelling with rich inputs of

music, screenplay, cast and script, mirrors the contemporary society inwhich it functions. From emotional dramas to candy-floss romances toaction-thrillers, cinema derives its sustenance, ideas and imaginations fromits surroundings. The images cinema creates, surreal or tangled wave ofdeceit, need to be in sync with societal aspirations and basic urge ofhumanity to recreate and have fun and entertainment. In its long journey

of more than a century, cinema has transformed itself from being ataboo and absolute no-no to a virtual way of life.

From Dadasaheb Phalke to Farhan Akhtar, every decade of Bollywoodhas reflected various hues and aspects of real life on reels of cinema.

When Dadasaheb integrated centuries old mythological narratives withemerging medium of cinema in forms of films like Raja Harishchandraand Kaliya-Mardan, it was instantly lapped up by audience and showed

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spiritual bent of mind of society of those times. Ashok Kumar starredKismet, released during Quit India Movement, was a cinematic rendition

of resistance against imperialistic British by Indians.

Post independence Nehruvian socialist era was time of Guru Dutts,Satyajit Rays and Bimal Roys, ruthless perfectionists, who vividlycaptured the growing pains of infant democracy and universality ofhuman emotions in their films. During the time of 70s and 80s, with

films like Ankur, Manthan, etc, art cinema finally came of age andshowcased common mans struggle with the system and striving forbasics of life. Post 90s, when Indian society woke up to globalisation andliberalisation, new-age cinema makers too broke traditional Bollywood sdefinitive cinematic boundaries.

With pots of money pouring into India, Indian film industry too learned totalk in crores and filmmakers went global, aimed for Hollywood kind of

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releases, and tried to earn revenues from satellites, video and otheravenues apart from box-office collections. Movie business in India

underwent a sea-change: Corporate style of functioning came into vogueand added emphasis on special effects, dubbing with help of chromoscreen, digital audio and video post-production/SFX and film-processing.As India started its upward spiralling journey across political, economicaland other affairs and its aura and acceptability increased mani-fold,several old notions and myth about India were broken particularly by

Western media and think-tanks. There was perceptible change in thenotions of Western media and positive deviation from the stance, whichearlier labelled Indian cinema as too escapist and unnatural.

Catering to a highly diverse society, Indian film industry is largest in the

world, churning out an average of 800 films per year. The audienceconsists of an estimated 3.6 billion people with 14 territories (Bollywoodspecific ) within India and 52 counties across the globe. As such, no film

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producer and director can vouch for homogeneous consumption of hisfilms. With audience dictating the terms, film contents are demarcated into

outright gender, age and geographical segmentation. There are global-in-outlook-Indian-in-ethos films of Karan Johar and blue-eyed boy of YashRaj banners, Shahrukh Khan, which pander to the tastes of urban rich,Indian settled abroad and audiences with deep pockets.

Directors like Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal, who are not burdened to

cater to the masses, inescapably remind viewers of refined tastes - ofhard facts and realities of life through their straight-in-the-face films.Then there is entire breed of film merchants who serve to theentertainment palates of the majority by playing it safe; by makingtraditional commercial Bollywood potboilers. Also there are cerebral

directors like Nagesh Kukunoor and Madhur Bhandarkar who delve deepinto stark realities of everyday life to give us edgy cinema likeIqbaal,

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Chandni Bar, which prick our sense of film-viewing in an entirelydifferent way.

Social dynamics have always regulated the content of cinema. The main protagonist of any film fights villains who are manifestations ofcontemporary societal evils - from village money-lender to land-hawks toadvocates of dowry, dons and modern day terrorists. A society, which ishighly tolerant despite ethnic, religious and linguistic cleavages, is visible

in rendition of a religious bhajan by Mohd Rafi in a role essayed byDileep Kumar in the filmRam Aur Shyam. Khans from minority are thedarlings of the masses. The biggest super-star in Tamil film industry

ajnikanth, is a Marathi by birth.

Indian cinema has always tried to showcase Indian culture in all itsramifications. Family ties, particularly, joint family system and series ofrituals like wedding, engagements, celebrating of new-born etc are always

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present in our films. There are feel-good films like Bobby,Kaho Na Pyarai, which define puppy love; Sholay, a wholesome entertainment;

Golmaal- healthy sprinkling of humour;Border and LOC-stories ofsupreme sacrifices of our valiant soldiers, Murder and Jism, which dealwith the theme of adultery;Black Friday - realistic portrayal of 1993 bomb blasts all ideas picked up by our social setup.

Western society, where morality is increasingly being blurred and

aesthetic values are on the wane, has a cinema which satiates its delightsand other needs. But one often wonders why Hollywood, which has eatenup lot of indigenous film industries across the world, fails to make animpression in India barring few films like Titanic and Superman. Culturaldifferences make it difficult to side-step Indian films despite Hollywood

having commanding edge over technicalities, jaw-dropping special effectsand exquisite attention to the detail during film-making. Though currentIndian filmmakers are toying with morally ambiguous subjects also, to give

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us raunchy comedies with salty dialogues, darks plots with loads of sex- its too brief and very difficult to predict as to whether this genre will

sustain its mass-appeal in a traditional Indian society.Great films will be made when we become a great audience, saidFrench author, Andre Malraux. Indian filmmakers are often panned formaking unreal cinema. But with audience enlightening up andgraduating to outside cinema, cinema-makers have tough job in their

hands to keep audience glued to their celluloid products. Cinema industryis realising that they need to be experimental and open up to new setof ideas and shed their old reservations about audiences. Schlock cinema,with lot of plot-holes and half-baked stories, are becoming things ofyore. Simple relatable stories about unassuming characters from nonmetro and moffusils towns and villages are flavour of filmmakers. Indiancinema, if it continues to strike a chord with ever-increasing audiences

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and serve healthy and wholesome cinema in its platter, is surely headedfor a bright path.