Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of New Indian Cinema

Timestamp:

Jun 28, 2012, 3:55:24 PM (12 years ago)

Author:

Trupti

Comment:

--

New Indian Cinema

@@ +1 @@
+'''New Indian Cinema'''
+
+
+Promotional label for a sector of state
+sponsored film-making said to have originated
+either with Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome
+(1969) or Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti (1969).
+Associated in the late 60s/early 70s with
+financial support from the FFC (see NFDC),
+making it the first major result of governmental
+support for feature-film production outside the
+industrial mainstream. Among its beneficiaries
+were FTII graduates like Kumar Shahani,
+Mani Kaul, Saeed Mirza and Ketan Mehta. It
+also generated technicians who pioneered
+aesthetic and technological innovations which
+had a substantial impact on the technical
+standards of the film industry itself: the
+camerawork of K.K. Mahajan in Hindi, Venu in
+Malayalam and Ramchandra in Kannada
+cinemas, the sound recording of Kuldeep Sud
+and later Hitendra Ghosh and P.C.
+Padmanabhan. Described by the popular press
+as a ‘new wave’ in a facile comparison with the
+French nouvelle vague, prompting Satyajit
+Ray to issue a somewhat dismissive response
+to the sector, ‘An Indian New Wave?’ (1971: cf.
+Ray, 1976). What shaped the new cinema most
+decisively was the cultural and political
+dynamic sparked by the mainstream industry’s
+massive opposition to it. While attacking
+‘financially unviable’ films, the industry also
+sought to exploit its aura of cultural value for
+its own purposes (cf. B.R. Ishara). The films
+that articulated an ‘official’ agenda were
+Pattabhi Rama Reddy’s Samskara (1970)
+and Shyam Benegal’s Ankur (1973). Both,
+like Bhuvan Shome and M.S. Sathyu’s Garam
+Hawa (1973), were low-budget box-office
+successes. Samskara gave a new dimension to
+the predominantly literary movements in
+Kannada (see Navya Movement) and
+encouraged the notion of ‘regional realism’,
+claiming Satyajit Ray as its major progenitor (a
+role Ray was happy to play) although
+Tendulkar’s theatre work offered a more
+credible source. This development was
+extended into the Malayalam cinema by Adoor
+Gopalakrishnan and Aravindan. In its later,
+post-Benegal phase, New Indian Cinema often
+drew on advertising capital and aesthetics for
+art-house film-making, legitimating a new
+definition enshrined in e.g. the parliamentary
+committee’s instructions, during the
+Emergency, to the FFC to grant loans on the
+following criteria: ‘1. Human interest in the
+story; 2. Indianness in theme and approach; 3.
+Characters with whom the audience can
+identify; 4. Dramatic content and 5.
+Background and capability of the applicant’
+(Committee On Public Undertakings Report,
+1976). This ideology became official cultural
+policy in the 7th Five-Year Plan and had a
+decisive impact on Doordarshan as well as
+shaping the NFDC’s and the Directorate of Film
+Festivals’ institutional priorities.
+
+[[Glossary]]