If people of the Western world were introduced to Indian films as full of colors, songs, and dance; they also had a rendezvous with the Indian realistic cinema. For instance, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali first premiered at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1955 and then later it was released in Kolkata the same year. During the 1960s, the Indian government financed some of the independent films based on Indian themes.
Tag: Satyajit Ray
When the Characters on Screen Can Hear It Too — Diegetic Sounds in Indian Cinema
The film ‘Monica O My Darling’ executes the same idea and places the theme music amidst the anarchy that settles in the whole plot. This is the scene where Rajkumar Rao (Johnny) is following the instructions to murder the common blackmailer, Huma Qureshi (Monica Machado). He boards a train, as discussed with his co-plotters, to aid in the dispersal of the corpse. In this relay race while we are constantly listening to the notes of “Monica O My Darling” in high and low pitches, Rao encounters a broken car on his way to the destination, and to add to the glory of the murderer/plotter, the woman inside the car was also listening to the same song, “Monica O My Darling”. The music that began as an ode to old Hindi cinema was being played conspicuously; and in this particular scene, the background music makes an organic shift becoming a part of the characters on screen. Just like how we listen to music via the radio or the internet, but we never know the song that plays itself with the unexpected rhythms of our lives – that too, just organically!
Ritwik Ghatak’s Partition Trilogy
The Partition haunted Ritwik Ghatak all his life as did the subject of refugees. He identified himself with the pain and anguish of refugees who lost their entity and had to readjust in the alien environment. In his book, Cinema and I, Ghatak had said: “Cinema, to me, is a means of expressing my anger at the sorrows and sufferings of my people”
You often penetrate my Mind
The flinging words, the screeching words, the artistically inflated words or simply words in their birthday suits are impeccably capable of penetrating your mind. And even if I change the word – ‘Word’ from the preceding sentence with terms like ‘Gesture, Expression or Emotion’, I won’t be wrong in concluding that any unquantifiable attraction…