Encyclopaedia of Indian films by Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemann
Sreenivas Paruchuri
Sub: Encyclopaedia of Indian films by Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemann (from a
south-Indian perspective :-))
Have heard so much about this book on RMIM in the past two years. Visited
Oxford Publishers' shop in Madras half-a-dozen times in Dec-'94/Jan-'95, as
the release was announced for Nov. 1994. Now, I own it since two days, spending
a small fortune (considering my student status) by ordering it from overseas.
IMHO this is the first and ONLY book ever published on Indian Cinema, covering
all languages 'fairly' in a balanced fashion.
At the risk of getting flamed, let me say this. As a vintage music fan and
hobby filmo-/discographer, with special interest in south-Indian films, I really
got sick of reading books/articles (many in number!) with titles: History of
Indian Film, Indian Filmography. Great Indian Directors, etc. etc., but cover
'predominantely' or only Hindi film field. At the most they dedicate a page or
two to Tamil and Telugu films, and even neglect the fact that there are other
major languages spoken south of Vindhya-s. Even a publication like
_Cinema Vision_(by Sidharth Kak, unfortunately it did n't live long!) was no
exception. I wonder if, a highly knowledgable person like Firoze Rangoonwaala,
is n't aware of the 'size' and 'quality' of south-Indian cinema. If you have
read his books, you understand what I mean. Take, Chidanand Das Gupta, a highly
acclaimed film critic. He is n't different either. Enough of criticism!
This book is extremely well done in every aspect. I liked the chronological
listing of film reviews and the personal sketches were well written. Some of
the best film journalists were involved in this project; like the Randor
'walking encyclopaedia' Guy, KNT Sastry, VAK Rangarao from south. Nowadays
RMIMers extensively quote the filmographies from this book, but some are n't
complete. To my surprise the no. of ooold Telugu films covered is very large!
Similarly Kannada! I can also guess the reason. The Telugu and Kannada
filmographies were well compiled and a lot of information was published in the
past 3-4 decades. On contrary, bit surprising too, no such attention was paid
towards Tamil cinema. The only available filmographies are from Anandan and
Randor Guy, whcih are n't complete, as I understand. Theodore Bhaskaran's
_The message bearers : the nationalist politics and the entertainment media
in South India, 1880-1945_ covers mostly the (Tamil) silents. Anyhow, atlast an
attempt is made, to bring the information published in regional languages to a
larger readership. Perhaps the authors may consider publishing the same book in
Hindi also.
Since I am posting it on RMIM, a music related news group, let me also say that
it provides brief skecthes of some music composers from south like:
S. Rajeswararao, C R Subburaman, P. Adinarayanarao, Ghantasala Venkateswararao,
GK Venkatesh, Dakshina Murthy, Ilaya Raja, vi-raa, Master Venu, T V Raju, et al,
whose names appear once in a while here on RMIM.
Regards,
Sreenivas
From sreeni Mon Jul 8 20:19:08 1996
X-newsreader: xrn 8.00
Sender: sreeni@ktpsp6 (Sreenivas Paruchuri)
From: sre...@ktpsp6.uni-paderborn.de (Sreenivas Paruchuri)
Path: ktpsp6!sreeni
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc
Subject: Encyclopaedia of Indian films by Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemann (from a
south Indian perspective :-))
Distribution: world
Followup-To:
Organization: University of Paderborn, Germany
Keywords:
Have heard so much about this book on RMIM in the past two years. Visited
Oxford Publishers' shop in Madras half-a-dozen times in Dec-'94/Jan-'95, as
the release was announced for Nov. 1994. Now, I own it since two days, spending
a small fortune (considering my student status) by ordering it from overseas.
IMHO this is the first and ONLY book ever published on Indian Cinema, covering
all languages 'fairly' in a balanced fashion.
At the risk of getting flamed, let me say this. As a vintage music fan and
hobby filmo-/discographer, with special interest in south-Indian films, I really
got sick of reading books/articles (many in number!) with titles: History of
Indian Film, Indian Filmography. Great Indian Directors, etc. etc., but cover
'predominantely' or only Hindi film field. At the most they dedicate a page or
two to Tamil and Telugu films, and even neglect the fact that there are other
major languages spoken south of Vindhya-s. Even a publication like
_Cinema Vision_(by Sidharth Kak, unfortunately it did n't live long!) was no
exception. I wonder if, a highly knowledgable person like Firoze Rangoonwaala,
is n't aware of the 'size' and 'quality' of south-Indian cinema. If you have
read his books, you understand what I mean. Take, Chidanand Das Gupta, a highly
acclaimed film critic. He is n't different either. Enough of criticism!
This book is extremely well done in every aspect. I liked the chronological
listing of film reviews and the personal sketches were well written. Some of
the best film journalists were involved in this project; like the Randor
'walking encyclopaedia' Guy, KNT Sastry, VAK Rangarao from south. Nowadays
RMIMers extensively quote the filmographies from this book, but some are n't
complete. To my surprise the no. of ooold Telugu films covered is very large!
Similarly Kannada! I can also guess the reason. The Telugu and Kannada
filmographies were well compiled and a lot of information was published in the
past 3-4 decades. On contrary, bit surprising too, no such attention was paid
towards Tamil cinema. The only available filmographies are from Anandan and
Randor Guy, whcih are n't complete, as I understand. Theodore Bhaskaran's
_The message bearers : the nationalist politics and the entertainment media
in South India, 1880-1945_ covers mostly the (Tamil) silents. Anyhow, atlast an
attempt is made, to bring the information published in regional languages to a
larger readership. Perhaps the authors may consider publishing the same book in
Hindi also.
Since I am posting it on RMIM, a music related news group, let me also say that
it provides brief skecthes of some music composers from south like:
S. Rajeswararao, C R Subburaman, P. Adinarayanarao, Ghantasala Venkateswararao,
GK Venkatesh, Dakshina Murthy, Ilaya Raja, vi-raa, Master Venu, T V Raju, et al,
whose names appear once in a while here on RMIM.
Regards,
Sreenivas
Abhay Avachat
In article <4rrjh5$d...@news.uni-paderborn.de>, sre...@ktpsp6.uni-paderborn.de says...
>
>Sub: Encyclopaedia of Indian films by Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemann (from a
>south-Indian perspective :-))
Let me take this opportunity to say something about this book. I do not
remember reading any reviews of it on the net.
>Have heard so much about this book on RMIM in the past two years. Visited
>Oxford Publishers' shop in Madras half-a-dozen times in Dec-'94/Jan-'95, as
>the release was announced for Nov. 1994. Now, I own it since two days, spending
>a small fortune (considering my student status) by ordering it from overseas.
I am not a student, but still, in India, Rs 1000 for a book is definitely not
a small amount. And everybody at home says, "Why are you buying such a costly
book, esp. when it's not technical. It's just a book on Cinema afterall".
I bought it an year back, used to read it very often. It's a good book to
consult while you are watching titles of films :-) I do not have it with me
now. When we came here, my wife vetoed me and brought a pressure pan instead !
Imagine ! I know a pressure pan is an useful utensil, but it doesn't help me
in writing good articles on RMIM :-) :-)
>IMHO this is the first and ONLY book ever published on Indian Cinema, covering
>all languages 'fairly' in a balanced fashion.
True. It's about "Indian" Cinema and not just Hindi Cinema. You can find a lot
of information about Cinema in all the languages. For a general-movie-fan like
me, reading about Bengali, South Indian cinemas was very informative and
interesting. I thought I knew a thing or two about Marathi Cinema, but the book
told me how much I do not know.
There are many good points which one can say about this book. Even with many
limitations, it is indeed a book to have with you. And the authors need to be
congratulated. But I have some major objections, which I would like to mention
here.
1. Some great personalities have not been mentioned. I may concede that due to
space restrictions one has to omit Roshan and Shakeel Badayuni. But I was
shocked to notice that Snajeev Kumar and Pran have been omitted. How on earth
can any book be complete without mentioning these two ? Pran was the first of
great villians. In fact the book does not mention ANY villian at all. This is
really shocking, as villians are as necessary part of our films as are the
heroes.
2. It's not always easy to find a listing. eg. I just couldn't seem to locate
Madan Mohan. He is listed as "Mohan Kohli, Madan". I don't know if this is the
correct way, but it' sure non-intuitive.
3. The book is written for non-Indians ! Yes, read the descriptions of the
movies, and you will know what I mean.
4. After reading the book, I got a very strong impression that Mr. Rajadhyaksha
strongly favours Socialism !! Now whether this is correct or not is besides the
point. The issue is, an "Encyclopedia" should be collection of facts/knowledge
and free of opinions. And esp. Art should be kept away from politics as much as
possible. Indian Cinema is not at all far away from Politics, but IMHO, the
authors have not tried to keep their biases out of the way.
5. There is absolutely no mention about awards of any type !! Facts like whether
an actor won an award or not, should make it to such a book. In fact in the
listing for Dadasaheb Phalke, it's not even mentioned that the Indian Govt.
presents an award named after him, and which is considered the highest award.
6. Again about bias. There is a strong bias towards the so-called "Art" films
than the so called "Popular" Cinema. The authors claim to have mentioned those
"who have made significant contributions (quality and/or quantity) to Indian
Cinema" etc etc. But they omit Sanjeev Kumar and mention that Kalpana-something
who has produced only one movie so far. Such selective omissions make me suspect
pseudo-intellectual behaviour.
The list could have been big. But you know, it's difficult to look at the
pressure pan and remember everything about a book :-).
- Abhay.
Marriage is the ultimate pressure pan !! :-) :-)
Ikram Ahmed Khan
Abhay Avachat (Ab...@InfoSoft.com) wrote:
: 4. After reading the book, I got a very strong impression that Mr. Rajadhyaksha
: strongly favours Socialism !! Now whether this is correct or not is besides the
: point. The issue is, an "Encyclopedia" should be collection of facts/knowledge
: and free of opinions. And esp. Art should be kept away from politics as much as
: possible. Indian Cinema is not at all far away from Politics, but IMHO, the
: authors have not tried to keep their biases out of the way.
It is interesting to note that quite a few of the poets and such-like of
cinema in the 40s and 50s had strong links with the Communist movement.
One can easily note K.A. Abbas. Unless I am much mistaken (heck! that is
always a strong possibility with me :) ), I think that Balraj Sahni too
had strong red-leanings. Same goes for Majrooh too, I believe. At one
time, it was perhaps fashionable to be a marxist or something, tho' I
strongly believe that people of the ilk of Abbas and Sahni and Majrooh
didn't just pick it up out of fashion. Wasn't Makhdoom Mohiuddin also
imprisoned thanks to his communist bg? Perhaps since these guys (I mean
Abbas and Sahni) were the leaders of different cinema (of those days) and
maybe Raju there belonged to the same side, that explains why he likes
both Communism and the 'art' cinema. {Bet he wrote pages on Bhuwan Shome!!
:) }. But then Communist thought can be seen reflected in quite a few
movies of the times. In a way, Marx helped hindi cinema give some of its
brightest luminaries.
Later,
Ikram.
ps. This article is not meant to praise for the Communists or for Communism
in general. Neither otoh, do I want to condemn them.
Also cross-posting to ramli as we have started talking movies. :)
: 5. There is absolutely no mention about awards of any type !! Facts like whether
U.V. Ravindra
In article <4s6en2$j...@doc.zippo.com>
Ab...@InfoSoft.com (Abhay Avachat) writes:
=> In article <4rrjh5$d...@news.uni-paderborn.de>,
=> sre...@ktpsp6.uni-paderborn.de says...
=>
=> >Sub: Encyclopaedia of Indian films by Rajadhyaksha and Paul
=> >Willemann (from a south-Indian perspective :-))
=>
=> Let me take this opportunity to say something about this book. I do not
=> remember reading any reviews of it on the net.
=>
=> I am not a student, but still, in India, Rs 1000 for a book is
=> definitely not a small amount. And everybody at home says, "Why are
=> you buying such a costly book, esp. when it's not technical. It's
=> just a book on Cinema afterall".
While that is true, Abhay, you are doing bhabhi-ji a grave injustice
when you say this:
=> I bought it an year back, used to read it very often. It's a good book to
=> consult while you are watching titles of films :-) I do not have it with me
=> now. When we came here, my wife vetoed me and brought a pressure
=> pan instead ! Imagine ! I know a pressure pan is an useful utensil,
=> but it doesn't help me in writing good articles on RMIM :-) :-)
Objection, milaard. If she hadn't bought the pressure pan, you
wouldn't be able to enjoy those delectable Indian dishes which can
only be made perfectly if you have a pressure pan available. Also, a
pressure pan enables you to steam rice in the delicious Indian way,
which makes for wonderful dinner, which you eat, and write great RMIM
articles. Moreover, if you read a book with sufficient interest, you
can remember it so well that you can carry its contents in your head,
but show me one Prestige Pressure Pan which you can benefit my just
carrying memories of it in your head?
;-)
=> There are many good points which one can say about this book. Even with many
=> limitations, it is indeed a book to have with you. And the authors
=> need to be congratulated. But I have some major objections, which I
=> would like to mention here.
=>
=> 1. Some great personalities have not been mentioned. I may concede
=> that due to space restrictions one has to omit Roshan and Shakeel
=> Badayuni. But I was shocked to notice that Snajeev Kumar and Pran
=> have been omitted. How on earth can any book be complete without
=> mentioning these two ? Pran was the first of great villians. In
=> fact the book does not mention ANY villian at all. This is
=> really shocking, as villians are as necessary part of our films as are the
=> heroes.
I think, while perusing the book at your place I *did* see some
mention of the villain of CID (that slightly cross-eyed what'shisname
who is in the 'kahiN pe nigaaheN kahiN pe nishaana' song, who looked
most villainous to me when I saw the film at the age of 8). Doesn't
the book mention Ajit, too. Well, Ajit was a hero before he became a
villain, but still. What about PremNath? He was villain in a few
films too, wasn't he?
=> 2. It's not always easy to find a listing. eg. I just couldn't seem
=> to locate Madan Mohan. He is listed as "Mohan Kohli, Madan". I
=> don't know if this is the correct way, but it' sure non-intuitive.
=>
=> 3. The book is written for non-Indians ! Yes, read the descriptions of the
=> movies, and you will know what I mean.
=>
=> 4. After reading the book, I got a very strong impression that Mr.
=> Rajadhyaksha strongly favours Socialism !! Now whether this is
=> correct or not is besides the point. The issue is, an
=> "Encyclopedia" should be collection of facts/knowledge and free of
=> opinions. And esp. Art should be kept away from politics as much as
=> possible. Indian Cinema is not at all far away from Politics, but
=> IMHO, the authors have not tried to keep their biases out of the
=> way.
=>
=> 5. There is absolutely no mention about awards of any type !! Facts
=> like whether an actor won an award or not, should make it to such a
=> book. In fact in the listing for Dadasaheb Phalke, it's not even
=> mentioned that the Indian Govt. presents an award named after him,
=> and which is considered the highest award.
=>
=> 6. Again about bias. There is a strong bias towards the so-called
=> "Art" films than the so called "Popular" Cinema. The authors claim
=> to have mentioned those "who have made significant contributions
=> (quality and/or quantity) to Indian Cinema" etc etc. But they omit
=> Sanjeev Kumar and mention that Kalpana-something who has produced
=> only one movie so far. Such selective omissions make me suspect
=> pseudo-intellectual behaviour.
=>
=> The list could have been big. But you know, it's difficult to look at the
=> pressure pan and remember everything about a book :-).
=>
=> - Abhay.
=> Marriage is the ultimate pressure pan !! :-) :-)
Well, well ... no comments on that!
Ravindra.