In early years, it was little difficult to comprehend the exact meaning of this statement but after watching hindi cinema for a few years and observing the social developments around, the statement has started to make more sense to me. The way our society has evolved and the way our movies have changed, both tell the same story.
The Current Hindi cinema has changed a lot from the cinemas made in 60s and 70s. Everything has changed about film making: the kind of stories, the style of narration, the kind of songs, the actors, the language and most importantly the purpose of film making itself. It is not to say that everything has become better or worse but definitely the change only reflects the change in our social values. From a time when a Raj in Anari refused to betray his conscience for making any illegal money we have come to a Guru Bhai who believes that money making is the only noble virtue, no matter how you earn it. It would have been only suicidal for any producer to make a ‘Guru’ in those days and an ‘Anari’ now days.
Moral values, personal sacrifices, complexity of human relationships and social divide were few of the plots around which all the early movies revolved. The protagonist was supposed to uphold the moral values at any cost and self sacrifice was more like a reward. But our country has come a long way since then. From being pseudo socialist, where excess of personal money was considered amoral we have come to a capitalist society, where money making is considered the only virtue. It does not matter any more that how has One earned the money; but what matters is whether he is good enough to earn money or not. Slowly, we have accepted Corruption and Inefficiency as part of our daily lives and people with these qualifications enjoy the maximum privileges in the society. So has been the case with our screen heroes. The concept of Mr Right and Mr. Wrong is replaced by a lesser Mr. Wrong and the original Mr. Wrong has almost disappeared. The difference between a hero and a villain is becoming a story of the past and the only way to recognize a hero is that he is supposed to outsmart all other characters in a movie, at least in the eyes of heroine. The public sympathy for the hero as a terrorist in the movie Fanna, where the hero didn’t even blink to kill anyone, only shows a wider acceptance of Mr. Wrong.
Another change the movies have gone through is in the story and the language. The early movie directors generally had either villages or middle class in the backdrop of their stories and special care was taken in the language. There used to be a rich use of Urdu, Hindi and local dialects in the dialogues. The movies like Teesri Kasam and Mother India beautifully depicted the India in villages and were a big success of their times. The landscape has changed today. The villages have lost their charm and we are introduced to something called Indian Diaspora which only emerged a few years back. Unlike the rest of India, this Indian Diaspora is lot wealthier and growing in size and influence everyday. But what these ‘foreign Indians’ miss is their home country and their home connection. And the movie industry has jumped to the idea. Major Production Houses are routinely coming up with the movies specially aimed for Indians living abroad, and these movies do well also. But sadly what they are selling is not Indian. Indianness has got reduced to showing Indian festivals and celebrations. The use of Hindi and Urdu is on a downfall and the words in these languages are more often used to create amusement. The contemporary language is shown more as rowdy and loud and the original sweetness is lost. However, there has been handful of movies like Swades and Namesake where a very true picture of contemporary India is shown; as it is in the villages and is in the cities. These movies were more so important because they were made under big banners.
Also, majority of earlier movies had some kind of social theme or message. On one hand movies like Bandini, Sujata and Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam discussed the state of women in Indian society, the movies like Guide and Pyasa directly hit the very foundation on which a society stands. There were also many successful movies made on our history, mythology and also the patriotism. The Middle Class was flavour of many movies like Golmaal and Chupke Chupke and these were big hits. What was common in all these movies was that they all could establish some kind of connection with the Indian audience across all ages, either living in cities or villages. Everything was Indian about these movies and the viewer could easily identify himself with the story.
But as the canvas of Hindi cinema grew, such movies became a part of what is popularly called Parallel cinema or Art cinema. The mainstream directors and producers kept away from such experimental movies and rather stuck to conventional Masala movies which had a much better chance of revenue making. So, what happened was, beginning late 80’s we have had a flood of movies which all were mostly a copy of or what they say a remake of another hit Hindi or English movie, and so all looked terribly similar. The creativity was more invested in not bringing a new idea but to recreate an existing idea. We suddenly had a dearth of mainstream producers and directors like Raj kapoor, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, V Shantaram and Hrishikesh Mukharji who gave the Film Industry its golden era and an envious position in the world cinema.
Now a days seldom we come across movies which are original and uninspired from any previous movie. The originality and creativity have no takers. The focus has completely changed from making a good movie to a hit movie. Everyone is on a hunt for a hit formula. Inspired compositions and inspired scripts(read copied) have become the norm of the day and a lot of emphasis is put on marketing. So sometimes I wonder whether the earlier film makers were fools to ignore such an important aspect of film making when none of their films look repetitive. Or were they too smart to know how to make a movie which was not only good but equally successful. We need to accept the fact that these days barring a handful of directors, the rest, and mostly the big banners, just keep on playing with a hit formula.
Well, to say that everything is bad won’t be right. In fact the Hindi movies have a much wider audience today and make a lot more money. The Movie Stars are more like the cultural ambassadors of our country and many are compared with the best in the world. What I feel is more needed is to understand that movie making is not just another form of business but also a work of art. To look them separately is only going to deteriorate the standard of commercial cinema. We need more producers like Aamir Khan, Vishal Bhardwaj and Vidhu Vinod Chopra who have masterfully blended the difference between a commercial cinema and a meaningful cinema. And they have also tasted the success quite continuously. Hope the rest follow suit and we just don’t keep getting just another hit movie but also a memorable movie of our times !