History of Indian Cinema
India is a land of variety. It is a land of cultures,
language, arts, crafts, performing styles and music. These have been
instrumental in depicting stories of Gods and Goddesses, a memory, an emotion
like love, betrayal, or just simply about a girl in a small village. Being a
cultural hub with some of the best contemporary works on record, stories have
shaped India’s path of film-making for more than a century now.
Our glorious 100-year old Indian cinema grows more beautiful
every year with addition of about 1,000 movies. Tracing down the roots, as some
may like to acknowledge, its prequel is less known and much overlooked. Excerpts
from a book compiled by veteran film journalist Mohammad Yaseen Gureja suggest
that films were first shown on 7 July, 1896, marking the birth of Indian
cinema. The event took place in Bombay at the stylish Watson Hotel. The incredible
excitement around prompted the next screening within a few days. Novelty
Theatre was chosen as the new venue and the audience was entertained with 24
different shows, which included Dancer, Train, London Girl
to name a few. Had you had a chance to watch these shows, you would have cherished
the treasure for as low as 4 annas (25 paise). Gradually, film-making was being
celebrated and started getting more recognition. Theatres and open grounds, like the popular
Splendid Park in Bombay, were booked for shows for the masses.
In the following six to seven years, the ripples of
excitement reached Calcutta, which attracted equal interest in the region. Star
Theatre was one of the places where the movies were screened first in Bengal.
Back in Bombay, a photographer from Maharastra, Harishchandra Sakharam
Bhatvadekar, was so enthralled with the arrival of the cinematograph in India
that he ordered a movie camera from London at a price of 21 guineas. In 1897,
he captured several shots of a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay,
got them processed from London, and this way made his first movie The
Wrestlers. An era of movies began thereon.
Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke,
was another legend. Born in a village 18 kms from Nashik in Maharashtra, he was
fond of art and theatre. He invested most of his time reading books. In 1912,
he managed to go to England to get trained in filmmaking by securing some money
from loans. In 1913, Phalke gave India its first full-length feature film, Raja
Harishchandra. It gained a premier place in the history of Indian cinema.
The period after 1913 saw an immense increase in the number of movies being
released—two movies in 1913, one in 1914, four in 1916, four in 1917, seven in
1918, eight in 1919, 18 in 1920, 28 in 1921, 58 in 1922, 43 in 1923, 72 in
1924, and 80 in 1925. The films that followed have defined Indian cinema across
generations to the level what we see today.
