The roots of Indian cinema are almost as old as those of the medium itself. Within eight months of taking Paris by storm, the touring agents of Lumiere brothers' Cinematographer landed on the shores of India. On July 7, 1896, The Times of India carried an advertisement heralding the arrival of "the marvel of the century" and "wonder of the world". Four screenings took place that historic evening at Watson's Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai). The entry fee was one Rupee. The show received an overwhelming response. Motion pictures were subsequently introduced in Calcutta towards the end of the year, and in Madras (now Chennai) in the next.
Two years later, one Prof Anderson, with assistance from Madmeoiselle Blanche, filmed A Train Arriving at Churchgate Station and Poona Races and included them in the Christmas edition of his show, Andersonoscopograph. The popularity of the new medium found expression in Calcutta around the same time in the hands of Prof Stevenson who filmed A Dancing Scene from the Flower of Persia and A Panorama of Indian Scenes and Processions.
The first Indian to make a film was Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar (better known as Save Dada). Bhatavdekar, already in possession of a projection apparatus, imported a British camera and made two short films The Wrestlers and Man and Monkey in 1899. Save Dada also picturised for posterity the coronation of Edward VII in Calcutta, four years later. The next pioneering effort came in 1900 from FB Thanawala and his Grand Kinetoscope newsreels opened up the possibilities for establishing the genre as a commercial entity.
Jamshedji Framjee Madan, also Calcutta-based, sowed the seeds of a burgeoning industry by spreading the nets of distribution and exhibition around 1905. Madan, who had started showing regular shows in tents in 1902, is credited with establishing India's first permanent cinema house - Elphinstone Picture Palace (1907), now called Chaplin. The maiden attempt to make a dramatic film was made by RG Torney and NG Chitre in technical collaboration with the British. Pundalik, about a Maharashtrian saint of the same name, was released on May 18, 1912, at the Coronation Theatre in Bombay. The film was shown as part of a double programme, paired with a foreign film, A Dead Man's Child, and ran to packed houses.
By this time, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (better known as Dadasaheb Phalke) had mortgaged his insurance policy and sailed to London in search of technical knowledge and material. Cabourne, editor of a British weekly called British Bioscope, helped him purchase the right equipment. Influenced by The Life of Christ which he had seen earlier in 1911, Phalke returned, his mind made up on making mythological films.
He did and the first, Raja Harishchandra, became India's first indigenous full-length feature film. It was shown to a select audience on April 21, 1913 and was formally released on May 3 the same year at the Coronation Theatre in Bombay, where it ran for 23 days. Phalke's Lanka Dahan (1917) went on to become India's first box-office hit. Phalke's contribution to Indian cinema was formally recognised with the institution of the Dadasaheb Phalke Lifetime Achievement Awards in 1966.
South India soon saw the birth of its first silent feature film in R Nataraja Mudaliar's Keechaka Vadhan (1916). Bengal too woke up - its first, Billwamangal (1919) was made by Elphinstone Company and directed by Rustomji Dutiwala. Calcutta had already seen a film being made: Madan's Satyavadi Raja Harishchandra (1917), but it was not a Bengali film. More and more people started making films. Among them was SN Patankar whose Ram Vanvas (1918), made in four parts, was the first Indian serial. Thus, the film movement led to the launching of the Bengali film weekly Bijoli, edited by eminent literary figures, in 1920. Ardeshir Irani's Nala Damyanti (1920) was the first international co-production (with Italy).
Two other significant filmmakers were Baburao Painter and Suchet Singh. Singh was the first to use a foreigner - Dorothy Kingdom - in Shakuntala (1920). He also made The Cremation of Lokmanya Tilak, the first optical newsreel, the same year. Painter's Savkari Pash (1925), on the other hand, was the first attempt to provide realistic treatment to the story of a peasant exploited by moneylenders.
International acclaim came as late as 1926 with Himanshu Rai's Prem Sanyas a.k.a. Light of Asia (1925), based on the life of Gautam Buddha. Directed by Franz Ostein, a German, the film was an Indo-German collaboration and ran nonstop for nine months in London. Fatma Begum, probably the first woman producer and director, started her company and debuted with Bulbul-e-Parastan (1925), released in 1926.
By this time the medium of cinema had found its voice too! The first talkie to be shown in India was Universal's Melody of Love at the Elphinstone Picture Palace in 1929.The Madans made a one-reel talkie on a song and released it in 1931. Alam Ara, the first full-length indigenously-made talkie, was produced by Imperial Film Company and directed by Ardeshir Irani. It also contained seven songs and was released on March 14, 1931, at Bombay's Majestic Cinema.
The first talkie also saw such films being made the same year in as many as three regional languages - Bengali, Tamil and Telegu. Bengal's first was Jamai Sasthi, a hilarious comedy directed by Amar Choudhary. The Tamil Kalidasa was made by Ardeshir Irani's Imperial Company, while the Telegu one, Bhakta Prahlada, was produced by H.M. Reddi for Bharat Movietone. The maiden Marathi Ayodhyacha Raja made by V. Shantaram, and Gujarati, Narsinh Mehta, directed by Nanubhai Vakil came a year later. Oriya Seeta Bibaha by Mohan Sundar Dev Goswami came in 1934. Punjabi Sheila, Assamese Joymati by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala a year later, Kannada Bhakta Dhruva by Jayawani Talkies after one more year and Malayalam Balan by S Notani after another three years.
Background music was introduced by Debaki Bose in Chandidas (1932), a cinematic validation in Bengali of a major stage genre - the quasi-legendary biographical. Toofan Mail (1934) was Hindi cinema's first major success in the stunt film genre, and the biggest next only to Hunterwali (1935). The first to have an English version was Imperial's Nur Jehan, directed by Ezra Mir. The first to be made entirely in English was Karma (1933), shot in England and starring the legendary husband-wife pair of Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani. The first wholly indigenous English film was Raj Nartaki (Court Dancer) (1941) made by JBH Wadia. Debaki Bose's Seeta, sent to Venice Film Festival, was the first to win an international award.
Playback singing, to be forever popular in mainstream commercial cinema, was introduced by New Theatres in the Hindi Dhoop Chaon (1935) and Bengali Bhagya Chakra (1935). Both films were directed by Nitin Bose. The first song-less film was JBH Wadia's production Naujawan (1937). The first animation, Lafanga Langur (1935) was produced by Bocho Gutachwager, a German photographer.
Sant Tukaram of Prabhat received a special jury mention at the 5th Venice Film Festival (1937). Tamil film Chintamani enjoyed a continuous run of one year at the same hall around the same time. Moti Gidwani's Kisan Kanya (1937) was the first indigenously-made colour film, because for technical reasons Billawamangal and Sairandhri (1933) by Shantaram had failed to qualify as colour films.
1946 was significant. Dharti Ke Lal, a realistic depiction of the plight of a peasant family caught in the manmade Bengal famine of 1943, was made by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas for the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). Also based on a script by Abbas was Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar, an allegory of the widening gap between the people's expectations and the determination of the rich not to recognize them, which earned acclaim at Cannes. Dr Kotnis ki Amar Kahani, directed by Shantaram and based on And One Did Not Come Back by Abbas again, was about an Indian medical team sent to China by Jawaharlal Nehru to assist the wounded of Mao Tse Tung's Eighth Army.
Another significant happening in 1946 was the starting of a phenomenon unique to Bengali cinema: a group of film technicians working collectively as film director. The Agradoot combine initially consisted of cameraman Bibuti Laha, sound recordist Jatin Datta, lab technician Sailen Ghoshal, scenarist Nitai Bhattacharya and producer Bimal Ghosh. Though they started with Swapna Sadhna (1947), they made a string of commercially sentimental socials in the 1950s and 1960s.
In the meantime, Bombay Talkies' Kismat (1943) created a record for the longest continuous run of 187 weeks at a single theatre Calcutta's Empire Cinema (now Roxy). Another unique film was dance maestro Uday Shankar's Kalpana (1948), a series of spectacular ballets, which was awarded for exceptional qualities at the Second World Festival of Films and Fine Art, Belgium.
KA Abbas, meanwhile, continued to make socially relevant films - Munna (1959), the second Hindi film without songs and dances, was about a child being separated from his parents. It came to be accepted as a readymade formula in most Bombay mainstream films made subsequently. Socially significant films were also made by Mehboob Khan. Aurat (1940) was remade all over again in colour as Mother India (1957), the first Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar in the best non-English film category. Sohrab Modi made the first technicolour film, Jhansi ki Rani (1953). One of the biggest blockbusters ever was K Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960), a historical romance.
Guru Dutt is credited with having made the first Indian Cinemascope film Kaagaz ke Phool in 1959. The same year also saw V Shantaram's Do Aankhen Barah Haath win the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Samuel Goldwyn Awards for best foreign film.
The first to try to break away from the routine films was Nemai Ghosh's Bengali classic Chinnamul (1950), made with PTA artistes. The landmark film in this regard came five years later with Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, which gave a new meaning and form to Indian cinema. It was awarded a bronze for the best Human Document at the 9th Cannes Film Festival. It was marvelled at by international film critics and it also bagged the President's Gold medal for the Best Feature Film in 1956. This masterpiece also won awards at Edinburgh, Manila, San Francisco, Vancouver, Stratford and New York, and till date remains the most decorated film ever. Ray, a multifaceted genius, carved a niche for India in the world cinema and is the country's most well-known filmmaker outside. Conferred the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement just before his death in 1992, Ray, who made 32 films in all, based many of those on the works of Bengal's most famous son - Rabindranath Tagore.
Though Ray had set the stage for a departure from the mainstream narrative cinema, it was Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome (1969) which marked the real birth of the New Indian Cinema. Ritwik Ghatak, on the other hand, was the first from this band to innovatively use symbols from Hindu mythology particularly in his highly-acclaimed trilogy - Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komalgandhar and Subarnarekba - made over three consecutive years. Barring Ray, the other two Oscars that have come India's way were both for British films. The first, Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), saw Bhanu Athaiya winning it for her costumes and the second, Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth (1999) for best make-up.
