The Evolution of Hindi Cinema
Cinema, also known as a motion picture or film, brings joy, happiness and excitement to a lot of Indians and plays a huge role in life of Indians. We, Indians, have made cinema an important part of our lives. It’s not only just the kids in the millennium era who find it fascinating but the tradition of cinephile was present since its inception. Films in itself have encountered evolution, from the black and white cinema to the cinema now which is full of colors; from the several reels to the single show reel; from zero graphics to animation and from a single-take artist to “no comments”. Thus, Darwin’s theory of evolution holds good for cinema, as well. Although there is no such evidence in history that can entertain the starting point of cinema, it is considered that Lumière brothers were the ones who introduced the motion picture to the real word.
India witnessed the first motion picture in the late 1910s and was introduced by late Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, also popularly known as Dada Saheb Phalke, through the film “Raja Harishchandra”. He is also considered to be the “Father of Indian cinema”. Although it was a silent film, little did he know that he was giving birth to an art form whose sound will echo around the world. His initiative propelled the rise of many filmmakers in our country. Although it took nearly two years after Raja Harishchandra for the first motion picture with sound to release i.e Alam Ara directed by Ardeshir Irani which was released on March 14, 1931, and the seed of color cinema was also sowed through ‘Kisan Kanya’ directed by Moti B Gidwani in 1937.
Indian filmmakers call the era after the end of British Raj as “The Golden Era” from the 1940s to the 1960s. This was the time when parallel cinema came into existence and Bengali filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and many more were the pioneers and major contributors. It was the impact of Indian theatre and Bengali literature which gave rise to the parallel cinema and its influence was encouraged in many parts of the country, as well. Especially, in the southern part of our country, filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli from Karnataka was one amongst them to carry the torch and introduce it to the Kannada audience.
On the other hand, films which had songs, dance, fight, and so-called heroism were equally dominating the Indian film industry. These films were and are still also called as full-fledged commercial films. Time and again Indian cinema has left its mark on the global platform through actors like Amitabh Bachchan with his acting skills or Aamir Khan for the movies he choose and his perfections in every movie.
Plainly speaking, Indian films have always been rich and will continue to be rich in terms of the content.
