Cinema as Agent of Change

Cinema is all around us in India, a seemingly inescapable fact of life. And on day two of the Rajnigandha Times Delhi LitFest, the audience was privy to a fascinating and entertaining discussion in the session, ‘Cinema as Agent of Change’.
The four panelists – writers Gautam Chintamani, Jai Arjun Singh, Maithili Rao and Fahad Samar – spoke of the “seduction of Bollywood”, and the ways in which mainstream and art movies have kept up (or not) with the times, taking into account the enormous social and economic changes that time has wrought on India in the last 25 years.The session was moderated by Srijana Mitra Das.
Samar believed that a film-maker can be a populist, or can capture the zeitgeist. “Either films are capturing the zeitgeist or informing the zeitgeist.” Singh gave the example of ‘Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!’ to prove that cinema can both enlighten and amuse. “This is a film that’s entertaining but it also comments on the nature of aspiration in contemporary India.”
Rao, author of a recent biography on Smita Patil, described the world of 1970s art cinema as “claustrophobic”, what with the likes of Patil, Deepti Naval and Shabana Azmi occupying the same space, maybe also eyeing the same roles. But each of these three also looked to find a niche in mainstream cinema. “Their thinking was that if we act in mainstream cinema, we can bring that audience to parallel cinema,” said Rao.
And in the chameleon-like world of Bollywood, nothing is impossible. “Amar Akbar Anthony, a cult classic, was created by Manmohan Desai, who’s a maestro of masala cinema,” explained Samar.
There was, however, no escaping the intolerance question. “You can only go so far, and no further,” rued Samar, adding that artistes were imposing too many restrictions on their art. “Writers are curtailing themselves.”
Rao said that it’s next to impossible to question the “relevance” of faith and religion in our times. Yet despite the desire of many to avoid tackling taboo subjects like religion, a few are still more than willing to make thought-provoking cinema. A film like PK, Samar felt, “holds up a mirror to society, is not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions – it is interesting and engaging cinema.”
Chintamani labelled many of today’s filmmakers “lazy”, thinking much of their work formulaic. “Cinema is packaged today, you know what is going to happen.” In fact, an argument could be made – as Rao did – that the best films being made can be found in regional cinema. “I find the Marathi films brilliant, and they show up the banality of the rest,” she said.
On whether the portrayal of women has changed in India’s cinema, Rao’s answer was yes. But that didn’t mean the change was positive. The female form has gone from predominantly voluptuous to now size-zero, an “acceptable” figure for the on-screen woman. “We have been victims of Brahmanical puritanism and Victorian morality, to the point where heroines have been desexualized,” she lamented.
However, films like ‘Queen’ and ‘Cocktail’, she felt, have tried to combat the stereotypes, happy to accept a woman on her own terms.
Should films carry a message? Singh felt that in a country like India, with its myriad social problems, one where cinema is a powerful medium, a case can be made for social realism in films. “But it is a complex question.”
Chintamani believed there has to be some “take-away” from a work of art. “The filmmaker has to be true to his environment.” On a completely different note, Samar, asked if cinema and morality can coexist, replied with a quizzical “Why?!”