From the time I have known film studies (not much!), Indian Cinema has never really been taken seriously in FTII or film teaching institutions in India. You studied Satyajit Ray, saw and appreciated Ritwik Ghatak, and that was it. Yes you saw Indian movies of all shapes and sizes- afterall like Indian culture, Indian cinema too has a huge diversity in its output. But that wasn't discussed with the seriousness reserved for Bergman or Kurosawa.
There was of course the issue that Indian cinema was not one whole but consisted of diverse regional cinemas. And there was the permanent problem of Hindi Cinema that it did not belong to anywhere, despite representing a huge number of people with different cultures spread across a large geographic area.
Given the scope of these issues it made a lot of sense to brush Indian Cinema under the carpet, and to go on treating cinema as an international language. The fact that such an attitude denied the cinema going experience with which students began to study cinema; the fact that most, if not all, students were going to practice their filmmaking craft in India; both of these were convineiently overlooked. And we pretended that Indian Cinema was all Ray and Ghatak, perhaps a bit of the FFC/NFDC supported cinema-Mani Kaul/ Kumar Shahani.
The problem was really bad for people from the Hindi speaking regions, as nothing in the film viewing experience of a student featured in what you studied. Indeed the most unique aspect of Hindi Cinema- its music became the point that was just not bothered with, indeed it was looked down upon. So you had a problem- internally, in your mind as an artist, how did you reconcile all that you studied with what you enjoyed and had learned from. Its difficult to reconcile a Miklos Jansco or Tarkovosky with Raj Kapoor or Vijay Anand, but you had to do it on your own- the teaching or the staff were not going to be able to help you with this.
To me, this was a central problem with FTII's traditional teaching model of Indian Cinema- it just treated a student's mind with a lot of violence and created deep chasms in the minds. Its not a technical problem of lighting or camera, its a gut root issue of creation. Unless we treated the movies that students had seen seriously, their minds were never going to be in balance.
This week, talking to a few friends who teach filmmaking I was surprised to note that we were all now using Hindi Cinema in our teaching. Gurudutt, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and others featured in our teaching.
In a way it had to happen, we had to start being less violent in our teaching and point our new facets in what the students already knew. I have been encouraging students to study commercials in cricket matches to understand structure and film language.
Are we doing the right thing? Indeed is there a right path to teaching Indian Cinema?
I honestly do not know, am just moving on. Passing on the teachings of my teachers to my students.
There was of course the issue that Indian cinema was not one whole but consisted of diverse regional cinemas. And there was the permanent problem of Hindi Cinema that it did not belong to anywhere, despite representing a huge number of people with different cultures spread across a large geographic area.
Given the scope of these issues it made a lot of sense to brush Indian Cinema under the carpet, and to go on treating cinema as an international language. The fact that such an attitude denied the cinema going experience with which students began to study cinema; the fact that most, if not all, students were going to practice their filmmaking craft in India; both of these were convineiently overlooked. And we pretended that Indian Cinema was all Ray and Ghatak, perhaps a bit of the FFC/NFDC supported cinema-Mani Kaul/ Kumar Shahani.
The problem was really bad for people from the Hindi speaking regions, as nothing in the film viewing experience of a student featured in what you studied. Indeed the most unique aspect of Hindi Cinema- its music became the point that was just not bothered with, indeed it was looked down upon. So you had a problem- internally, in your mind as an artist, how did you reconcile all that you studied with what you enjoyed and had learned from. Its difficult to reconcile a Miklos Jansco or Tarkovosky with Raj Kapoor or Vijay Anand, but you had to do it on your own- the teaching or the staff were not going to be able to help you with this.
To me, this was a central problem with FTII's traditional teaching model of Indian Cinema- it just treated a student's mind with a lot of violence and created deep chasms in the minds. Its not a technical problem of lighting or camera, its a gut root issue of creation. Unless we treated the movies that students had seen seriously, their minds were never going to be in balance.
This week, talking to a few friends who teach filmmaking I was surprised to note that we were all now using Hindi Cinema in our teaching. Gurudutt, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and others featured in our teaching.
In a way it had to happen, we had to start being less violent in our teaching and point our new facets in what the students already knew. I have been encouraging students to study commercials in cricket matches to understand structure and film language.
Are we doing the right thing? Indeed is there a right path to teaching Indian Cinema?
I honestly do not know, am just moving on. Passing on the teachings of my teachers to my students.
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