Cinema, like life, is always evolving and that?s the way it should be,? said filmmaker Ramesh Sippy. Sippy ? along with filmmakers Anurag Basu, Govind Nihalani, Habib Faisal, Abhinav Kashyap, Sriram Raghavan and actor Rishi Kapoor ? was on the panel of Screen Big Picture held on October 18, at Express Towers, Mumbai to talk about the evolution of storytelling in Bollywood since its inception 100 years ago.
Kapoor, who belongs to the first family of Bollywood, spoke about how he has been a part of the industry for 84 years. ?We (the industry) made 91 silent films before we started making talkies. After that we made mythological films. The trend changed when India won its independence. We were a young budding nation with lot of problems, and this transcended into socially-relevant cinema. When I came into films, the audience was extremely forgiving, and most of us ended up doing three to four films in the lost-and-found genre. Now, when I see my son Ranbir working, I see the competitiveness prevalent in the industry.?
Nihalani, one of the pioneers of the parallel cinema movement in India in the ’80s, added that storytelling, over years has also been influenced by the source of funds. ?I made films for NFDC with zero interference. I could do whatever I wanted.?
While the narrative of storytelling has evolved over years, Faisal and Kashyap believe that trends keep recurring in Bollywood. Talking about his portrayal of the common man in his film Do Dooni Chaar, Faisal said, ?The common man was the protagonist during the phase when Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee made their movies. Somewhere in between, he got lost and it seemed that putting a visa stamp on your passport was crucial to making any film, even if it meant going to Brunei or Maldives. But now, the common man has been rediscovered.”
Kashyap, who has been attributed for getting the rural setting back in vogue in Bollywood with his directorial debut Dabangg, added, “I realised in the last 10 years that Indian villages and small towns had fallen off the map. Nobody was talking about them. So I decided to take the path which nobody was treading. The success made me realise that diversity is a must.”
While storytelling has majorly been influenced by the changes in society, Nihalani believes that technology has played a great part too.
Kapoor added, “Theatres have improved even in B or C centres in terms of basic facilities such as sound system. This has attracted the audience and helped the business. These changes have also introduced the terminology of Bollywood where R100 crore films have now become the latest trend.? “When I started making Agent Vinod, the ?R100 crore’ concept wasn’t predominant,” said Raghavan, ?but by the time I finished, everyone was using that phrase.?
While cinema has evolved across India, Bollywood has emerged as the strongest voice from India, which is no mean feat. Talking about the survival and success of Bollywood in the last 100 years, Basu pointed out, ?We are the only film industry which is independent of other film industries. All other film industries across the world rely on Hollywood movies. They plan their local releases depending on the release dates of Hollywood movies so they don’t clash. Bollywood has its own personalities and we are proud of it.” Sippy seconded Basu, adding that although Bollywood has seen a few dark years, it has constantly emerged from the crisis.
?This is the best period for Indian cinema as the younger generation and the older generation are in tandem today more than they ever were.?
