The Golden Period of Indian Cinema
Actually, that’s the question! What can, which years, be called the Golden Period of Indian Cinema? Or are we still waiting for it? And if we collectively declare a certain bracket of years as the Golden Period, is it likely that we will have a Diamond or Platinum Period?
Then there are some parameters that need to be fixed. What kind of films? Devdas? Do Bigha Zamin? Or Awara? Many film buffs with left leanings may consider the social films to be the golden period, many the Amitabh Bachchan era.
The matter is open-ended and needs an introspection. This blog ( and if our discussion gets longer then we will take it up in a few more installments is to invite you, dear readers, and visitors to ShowMyFlix to participate and write back. Let’s have an open-ended discussion.
Where do we start? Let’s take Alam Ara, 1931. The first talkie and with it, the advancement of technology, especially sound. The Indian culture full of mythology and therefore songs and dance naturally led to the production of films based on mythology. In the course of time, films based on literary successes were also filling the space. Stories of Sarat Chandra like Devdas ( the 1928 version was silent but in 1935 Paramthesh Barua made three language versions) and Parineeta, 1942 were also getting into the mainstream. A matter of note here, between 1928 and till date, tere have been 18 production/versions of Devdas, covering Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalee as also Assamese.
We must remember here the pioneering efforts of people like Homi Wadia, B N Sarkar, Himanshu Rai who turned film making in the early years in to an industry, launching many talented artists in this segment, had really set the ball rolling. In the next decade, the speed of the roll was accelerated. Issues like caste system, social matters, comedy and even action had formed the bulwark of the entertainment that cinema provided. Was this the beginning of the Golden Period?
The early 40’s saw a major development in the Left movement coming to forefront through Indian People’s Theatre Association, IPTA, and many talented p[eople from the field of literature, theatre, music, cinema willingly associated themselves with IPTA. That led to a powerhouse of creative teams bursting into the scene. In 1946, Chetan Anand’ s Neecha Nagar was released. Based on Maxim Gork’s Lower Depths, it was scripted by K A Abbas and Pt Ravi Shankar scored music for this film.
Almost at the same time, K A Abbas’ directorial venture, Dharti Ke Lal was released. This was again a showcase of India’s best talents. Based on a story by Kishan Chander on the Bengal Famine of 1943 and written for film by Bijon Bhattacharya, the film’s music was scored by Ravi Shankar and the lyrics of the songs were by Ali Sardar Jafri and Prem Dhawan. The film also had a great star cast: Shombhu Mitra, Tripti Mitra, Balraj Sahani, Damayanti Sahani, K N Singh, David and making her debut in cinema was Zohra Saighal. It was a landmark of a film, along with Neecha Nagar and set the trend for social films in India.
When talking Hindi cinema we must bring in the purview of South Indian films. In the mid 40’s, South India ( and we are using the term South India here since the political divisions at that time were different from what they are now), were half of India’s Cinema halls and SS Vasan’s Chandralekha moved South Indian film in the public domain. Importantly, it helped South Indian films to open up in North India, rather, Hindi India.
We stop here and will follow up with the advent of Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, MGR, NTR and on to Satyajit Ray.
Courtesy : Artpickles