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OLD IS GOLD!
With The Artist sweeping the Oscarsr, here's a look at black and white films that changed Tamil cinema
M Suganth
It was The Artist, a silent, black and white film that generated the most noise at the 84th Academy Awards this week. While world cinema has been exploring black and white films now and again, Tamil cinema has shunned the format since the advent of colour.
Says G Dhananjayan, who has written a book celebrating 80 years of Tamil cinema, "Unlike Hollywood, Tamil cinema never really went back to black and white after colour films became the norm. The most notable 'modern' black and white film is Balu Mahendra's Sandhya Raagam (1989)," he says. Film chronicler Film News Anandhan informs that no Tamil film has been shot in black and white after Gnana Rajasekaran's Mugam (1999).
Looking back at how these films shaped Tamil cinema, actor and film historian Mohan V Raman says that every rule of cinematography was formulated with black and white films. "They determined the sets, costumes and even the acting," he says.
Talking about the elegance of these films, he says that they made actors look heavenly while colour films showed them as merely beautiful. "Take any actor or actress who has appeared in both black and white and colour films. They will look definitely stunning in the former. Rajinikanth looks ravishing in his early films that were shot on black and white. These films were shot in the
35 mm format whose
squared frames made
close-ups beautiful.
Also, cinematographers like Maruti Rao set up the lighting according to an actor's skin tone that made the frames distinct," he feels. Anandhan reveals that there were 80 silent films that were shot in black and white and released in Tamil Nadu, though they were categorized as Tamil films only if it was produced by a Tamilian. The copy of Keechaka Vatham, considered the first silent film to be produced by a Tamil producer, has been lost forever. "If preserved properly, black and white film stock can give you the perfect tone even after a century. But colours fade on a colour film stock," he says.
Mohan Raman says that directors S Balachander and Sridhar, along with their cinematographers Maruthi Rao and Vincent, contributed to the evolution of the visual aesthetic in Tamil cinema. "They were influenced greatly by the Bengali cinema of Sathyajit Ray and Rithvik Ghatak, Guru Dutt and his cinematographer V K Murthy, and closer home, the Malayalam parallel cinema. They explored aesthetics like angle, frame, light and shade, to make their films stand out," he explains.
He mentions Andha Naal, the first film noir in Tamil cinema, Uthama Puthiran, which superbly juxtaposed for the first time an actor playing dual roles, and Maya Bazaar, which perfected the art of trick photography, as among the significant black and white films of yore.
"When you talk of black and white films, you cannot resist mentioning the 1948 epic Chandralekha, directed and produced by movie moghul S S Vasan. That film's grandeur, be it in the sets, costumes, songs, dances and the fight sequences, still remains a benchmark even this day of colour and 3D films," says Dhananjayan.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
• Chandralekha
• Meera
• Parasakthi
• Malai Kallan
• Manohara
• Vanjikottai Valibhan
• Andha Naal
• Nenjil Or Aalayam
• Major Chandrakanth
A still from Raja Desingu
A still from Manohara
A still from Nenjil Or Aalayam
A still from Andha Naal
A still from Kalyana Parisu
Cricket
