Treading that Middle-of-the-Road Path
By Puloma Mukherjee

She is on the other side of 70. She stares lovingly at the picture of a young girl. Her daughter, perhaps. Her generously wrinkled face stretches, into a sad smile.

Dusky, young and drowned in misery. Her tears have washed away the Kohl in her eyes. Her face glows from the chulha, on which she roasts her roti. The roti blackens on its sides. And eventually, completely burns up. Charred and destroyed.

She watches, indifferently. A tear gently trickles down her eye.

"Parallel", "Middle-of-the-road", "Art" are among the names given to this genre of cinema in India. Painted with the minimalist strokes of a rather exclusive ilk of directors, the subtlety and symbolism of such movies seemed to restrict the viewership, at least back in the 1950's when such movies were often funded by the Indian government. While Satyajit Ray is credited as being the pioneer of Parallel Cinema, Shyam Benegal, Ritwick Ghatak are noteworthy names of directors who followed closely on Ray’s heels.

Ray’s Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar, Devi, Charulata, Goopy Ghyne Bagha Byne marked the quiet beginnings of Parallel Cinema in the 60’s. With directors such as Shyam Benegal non-commercial cinema found a footing, however unsteady, in the Hindi film world (Reference to Bollywood is deliberately avoided as it didn’t exist then) as well. Ankur, Nishant, Manthan, Bhumika all by Benegal heralded a new era of ‘thinking’, ‘serious’ category of actors as well. For the first time actors with formal training in theater or films featured in movies. Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda became the followers and subsequent stars of the quiet but evolving revolution of Parallel Cinema. Documentaries and features began to be made where only movies generously laden with songs, and familiar themes or stories had a say in the market.

I am going to go as far as to say that parallel cinema was a revolution in its own right, one that was hardly anyone’s idea of ‘popular’, hence Parallel Cinema also earned the distinction of ‘non-commercial’. For the first time there was a conscious effort to move away from universalism of themes, places or characters in these movies, much unlike their ‘popular’ counterparts where references to a particular place were always avoided. Mainstream cinema at the time, and to a large measure even today, dwells heavily on black and white distinctions between good and evil while the early beginnings of non-commercial cinema were marked by the grey shades of characters and themes : the Satyajit Ray school of thought.

Although Ray [above right] himself, is said to have been greatly influenced by the Italian neo realist movement of movies which dealt with themes or depictions of the lives of the less privileged. However, the Parallel Cinema that he introduced dealt with a myriad of moods and genres – comedy, satire, surrealism and fantasy across a number of layers of the society.

Cinematography in such movies followed no pre-conceived notions of style. Visual effects and music strictly pivoted around the character’s moods and emotions together with the theme of the story. Consequently, Ray, a master of his craft, often found himself directly handling the camera or composing his own music for his movies.

It wasn’t easy treading the path in the middle-of-the-road. All of a sudden, cinema wasn’t only about entertainment or life around long-established social norms. The visual minimalism, lack of opulence and pace of this new genre helped it to carve a niche for itself, but failed to get acknowledgement from the entertainment-centric Bollywood cinephiles.

Non-commercial movies frequently ran out of funds. Actors had to resort to commercial cinema more often than not. On the flip side, since private investors for non-commercial cinema were so few, the directors had the freedom to experiment with a number of themes, and were under no obligation to produce visually pleasing movies if the theme did not merit it. Controversial themes and taboos of society came to the fore in the process. However, until the 70’s or 80’s, art or non-commercial cinema and all its participants, the artists, the directors and the audience remained exclusive: the classification of movies and consequently the audience were pre-decided, depending on the cast, the director and the theme.

Eventually, by the 70’s, artists and directors realized the importance of popularizing middle of the road cinema to more than just a niche audience. Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil and a number of other non-commercial movie artists forayed into prototype commercial movies. Fine actors as they were, commercial cinema or not, their craft found worldwide recognition and acceptance and consequently, piqued the interest of people in parallel cinema. ‘Meaningful cinema’ evolved in the 70’s and 80’s; even if it had a serious or social theme or just great comedy at its crux, it came packaged with good music, great acting and a theme that found acceptance among more people. Movies such as Arth, Masoom, Golmaal began to gently toe the line between commercial and non-commercial, opulence and simplicity but boasted unquestionably fabulous direction.

The art of movie making became better known through documentaries and articles. Technological progress both in movie making and in the information world helped significantly as did changes in norms of the society. People became more aware of universal themes, and began to appreciate, even look forward to ‘different’ (hopefully no longer ‘non-commercial’ cinema). Directors began to paint their uncommon themes with mildly commercial strokes, whether it be by casting more commercial actors or by giving it opulent touches. Monsoon Wedding and Zubeida are examples of more commercial type cinema by traditionally non-commercial directors, but masterpieces nonetheless. Commercial actors increasingly knocked on the doors of directors who made movies on social themes.

Today, we are on our way to becoming a more evolved, more complete film industry, where every good style of movie making has enough audience, is not bound by theme, style or three hours! Movies will eventually be ‘well-made’, ‘well-executed’ or not. After all, the conventional definition of entertainment is a legitimate cause, is it not? The point is to have yardsticks to assess the craft of actors and directors of movies however varied in theme and style of execution. Whether it is about questioning a norm of the society, a biography of a great man who affected many lives or just popularizing fashion and clothes, movies are probably the most effective and far-reaching medium of doing so. It is a question of organizing resources and popularizing the right directors for their skill.

While films like My Brother Nikhil or Fire now show widely in movie theaters, if genius were born again, and a Pather Panchali was revisited, would there be a bigger audience?

Truth be told, I don’t know. But with the way things are going, a few years from now, maybe.

Images
Top: Shabana Azmi in Ankur (1973)
Top Middle: Satyajit Ray
Top Bottom: Poster of Shyam Benegal's Mantham (1976)
Bottom: Juhi Chawla and Sanjay Suri in My Brother Nikhil (2005)