SILENT ERA (1899 TO 1930)

THE BIRTH OF CINEMA IN INDIA – SILENT ERA (1899 TO 1930)

On 28th December 1895, two mad French men by the names Louis and Auguste Lumiere presented the first display of a projected motion picture to a small private audience in France. Several thousand miles away in the land of colonial India, no one had even dreamt of such a technology let alone hear of it. The country was in the throes of a political and freedom movement and the only means of entertainment available to the masses were the traditional travelling theatre troupes (Nautanki), puppet theatre (Kathputli Natak) and the occasional dance and music shows for those who could afford it. The very next year in 1986 the Lumiere brothers brought their showcase of 6 short films to the Watson Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra). This was a significant event in the history of Indian cinema, as it was the first time that the subcontinent was witnessing the screening of Cinematography.

Even though Dadasaheb Phalke is often (inaccurately) credited to be the pioneer of cinema in India, it was in fact the efforts of a couple of gentlemen by the name of Save Dada (Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar) and Hiralal Sen who were the first to make 2 short films as early as 1897 and 1899. These short films were mere attempts at capturing live theatrical performances on film. F. B. Thanawala from Mumbai also made a few short films like the Splendid view of Bombay and The Taboot Procession (1900). These films were often matter of fact documentation of events and had they survived the tribulations of time would have been valid cinematographic representative of those times with great historic value.

More than indigenous productions a lot of cinematic entertainment was imported from abroad like Life of Christ (1901), Aladin and the Wonderful Lamp (1902), Alibaba and 40 Thieves (1903) and Napoleon Bonaparte (1904). This was primarily because India was a colony of the British Empire and a large English population lived in the country. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the availability of foreign cinema not only brought the wondrous technological advancements of the western world to India but also inspired the Indian film makers to venture into making full length feature films.

Regardless, cinema came to India in a commercial manner (commercial being the operative word here) at pretty much the same time that it did in the western countries. Although the west had been producing silent short films for over a decade now, the first full length feature film made in India was Dadasaheb Phalke’s silent opus Raja Harishchandra in the year 1913. Main films that followed included - Mohini Bhasmasur (1914), significant for introducing the first woman to act before the cameras - Kamalabai Gokhale, Satyawan Savitri (1914), Satyavadi Raja Harischandra (1917), Lanka Dahan (1917), Shri Krishna Janma (1918) and Kalia Mardan (1919). By 1920 India was producing more than 27 films a year which was a big number. The first Indian film makers turned to ancient epics and puranas for source material. The phenomenal success of Raja Harishchandra was kept up by a series of mythological films. The content of the films would not change for a long time till the advent of talkies and colour in the 1930’s.