Cinema helps to connect with life, says scholar

TRICHY: Cinema's significance as a visual medium was stressed upon at the two-day seminar on the "History of South Indian Cinema' here on Friday. "Cinema trains our visual actions and our visual learning to connect with life," said Prof Venkatesh Chakravarthy, dean and professor of direction and screenplay writing at the Ramanaidu Film School, Hyderabad.
Cinema, a study of human vision, was a bonus to capitalism, Chakravarthy noted while tracing the historical aspects of films. He cautioned the audience to understand cinema from the right perspective lest it led to wrong conclusions, he said:
Contradicting the popular perception, Chakravarthy said cinema was not a continuity of "pava koothu" (shadow puppet). It is a vision that later became the object of knowledge, because scientific instruments were trying to stimulate human perception. But there was a bias against cinema in the initial days for three reasons: First, people like Rajaji opposed it as he considered it a social evil. Secondly, some people looked at it purely for its aesthetic value, and they created two baskets of art and commerce. The third group such as the leftists saw it as politically vigorous and they considered "the political evil" as the worst influence on society, Chakravarthy explained.
The huge success of Sivaji Ganeshan's magnum opus "Parasakthi" related to what he called "popular sovereignty" and while the common man was feeling empowered, he did not know that he was simply manipulated. Brand DMK brought Sivaji Ganeshan, but it was the Congress that appropriated him. It was at this point, C N Annadurai brought M G Ramachandran for the emotional investment of the spectator in the star. Later, though Rajnikant was accepted to be a star, his films like "Baba" failed because it tried to stretch the image beyond what the audience wanted. Likewise, Maniratnam's "Thalapathi" failed because the star was not above the narrative, he said.
Chakravarthy offered to extend all help in planning a curriculum to start a new course in film appreciation at Bharathidasan University.
Prof N Rajendran, the head of history department of Bharathidasan University, while presiding over the inaugural function said the "layman's subject" was chosen as it was dear to all. Cinema was magical because the make-believe world made illusion look real and the real as illusion. But it was the contemporaneousness of the subject in the period of postmodernism that made it very big, he said.
Slightly contradicting with Y Srinivasa Rao, assistant professor in the history department, who had said that the Tamil cinema, unlike the Malayalam, deviated from the real world, Rajendran clarified that films like "Pithamagan" brought the margin to the centre and beautifully dealt with the postmodern subject.
Explaining that people had the tendency to see only the inner currents of a film, Rajendran advised the research scholars to have a look at films like K Balachandar's "Thanneer, Thanneer" a realistic portrayal about the working-class people's struggle for water within the political undercurrent.
Kerala and West Bengal experimented in cinema differently, because their socio-political context too were different. For instance, there were only two stars for a long time in Malayalam, and the market was minuscule.