The entire character, style, perspective and approach to film journalism have changed drastically, says Shoma A. Chatterji. The intrusion of the Internet and television journalism has reduced interviews to bytes minus depth or research, and the genre has come down to pure and simple gossip, she points out. She laments the fall in the standards set by stalwarts of the genre, like B.K. Karanjia, Chidananda Das Gupta and Bikram Singh.
I have been a freelance film journalist for 47 years now. I began with small articles on the representation of women in television serials for The Daily, then edited by R.K. Karanjia, courtesy the sectional editor of the entertainment page. I also knocked on the door of B.K. Karanjia, then the editor of Screen weekly, and he welcomed me to contribute to the paper. My relationship with Screen lasted through several editors for 32 long years till the publication shut down.
Those were the golden years of film journalism, where editors could be easily approached, and they would guide and help you and even suggest story briefs if they did not quite like yours. And we youngsters and newbies did not even think of questioning their decisions. We focused on staying alert and on remaining accurate, objective and honest.
Senior independent journalists were respected and treated as if they were the intellectual pillars of society. One name I remember from those days is Iqbal Masud, an Indian Revenue Service officer whose real name was F.G. Jilani. He wrote in-depth articles on Indian cinema in different magazines under his pseudonym. Then there was Bikram Singh, the younger brother of the arch villain of Indian cinema, K.N. Singh. He became a noted film journalist and a distinguished editor of Filmfare. He was the personification of dignity, a man of few words, who had his head placed squarely on his shoulders.
There were many others in his league.One of them was Radhamohan Bhattacharya, veteran actor who was a regular reviewer of films in The Statesman in Kolkata. Another, Chidananda Das Gupta, co-founder of the Calcutta Film Society, was a brilliant journalist, author and filmmaker who had equal command over Bengali and English. Speaking on Shyam Benegal and his films, Das Gupta once brilliantly contextualised the early life, influences and life of Benegal, the deep impact his uncle, a member of the INS of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, had on his development, and how all this in some way influenced his career as a filmmaker. These people were institutions in themselves, and role models to journalists of my generation ad below.
author and filmmaker who had equal command over Bengali and English. Das Gupta, Satyajit Ray
and others started the Indian Film Quarterly in 1957. Photo: From Wikipedia
Das Gupta, Satyajit Ray and others started the Indian Film Quarterly in 1957. Indian Film Culture, the mouthpiece of the Federation of Film Societies in India was launched in 1962 in Calcutta. Currently, apart from occasional magazines like Filmfare, the TOI Group’s fortnightly, there is hardly any publication dedicated to cinema, while newspapers offer little space to topics related to movies except when written by Indian and international personalities not necessarily connected to films.
C.N. Lakshmikantan of Chennai brought out a daily called Indu Nesan in Tamil. Though it was supposed to be a general newspaper, it focussed more on film news and scandalous gossip from the film industry. Lakhsmikantan was notorious for publishing reports of the sexual exploits of film stars, including actors like M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. Some conspirators hatched a diabolic plot to silence him and, ultimately, he was murdered. The case went up to the High Court and the culprits were put behind bars. This put an end to gossip journalism to some extent, but it reared its head again in a milder form in other Tamil magazines that came out later.
T.N. Ramachandran published and edited Cinema India-International.The monthly magazine remained committed to serious writing on cinema – regional, national and international. Established journalists and filmmakers from across the world contributed to the English publication, which covered film festivals across the world, provided very good reviews of old and new films and often included a serious debate on contentious issues regarding cinema, a long interview, detailed analysis of an important film and an excellent response section that comprised letters to the editor. Sometimes, extracts from original screenplays such as Gautam Ghose’s Genesis were also published. It probably had to close shop because Ramachandran began to fall ill frequently and also because the magazine could not do well in the rising craze for gossip and scandal. In 1985, he brought out a big compilation of selected articles from the magazine in a book entitled 70 Years of Indian Cinema (1913-1983.)
Another very good publication was Cinema in India brought out from Mumbai by the National Film Development Corporation. The magazine did very well for some years and even brought out special issues during the IFFI on actors, directors, etc. It covered excellent subjects such as the history of music in cinema, the Muslim identity and the documentary film movement, and had mind-blowing reviews of films plus in-depth interviews of great filmmakers like Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Satyajit Ray. After a hiatus of several years, the magazine resumed publication in the mid-1990s, but in a new avatar, with the focus on mainstream Indian cinema and its showmen like the Kapoors of Bollywood, with glossy cover illustrations to match. This, too, folded up some years later.
One of the most outstanding magazines covering South Asian cinema was Cinemaya founded by Aruna Vasudev and Chidananda Das Gupta. It was first edited by Aruna Vasudev and had an impressive list of names on the editorial board. It had very good circulation figures. The editorial reins passed to Latika Padgaonkar and then to Indu Shrikent. It is one of the best film journals to have been published in India. For some time, it was taken over by Netpac, but subsequently stopped publication.
The entire character, style, perspective and approach to film journalism have changed drastically. They don’t make journalists like they did in the old days. Also, the intrusion of the Internet and television journalism has reduced interviews to bytes minus depth or research. Stars, directors and celebrities vie with each other to face the video cameras and microphones to give their bytes on the latest films, their personal lives, and so on.
Stars today are paid for participating in the promotion and marketing of their films, which does little to enrich film journalism. The genre has come down to pure and simple gossip, such as what a particular star wore to the airport before catching a flight to Paris to participate in a fashion show, which actress is expecting a baby (with baby bump pictures), what the Bachchans wore to Ambani’s son’s wedding, or how much Deepika Padukone earns per film. The mobile phone has hammered the final nail into the coffin of good film journalism. Social media outlets are spilling over with fake news, incorrect English and narcissistic reels posted by anyone and everyone who cannot take the mobile cam off their faces.
A few leading newspapers do carry film reviews, but these are few and far between. What all this indicates is that though journalism schools have mushroomed across the country, film studies has become a subject of research in academia across the world, and books on the topic are featuring heavily on publishers’ catalogues, the seriousness, the research, the dedication that film journalism demands are conspicuously and sadly absent. If the basic functions of cinema are to educate, inform, entertain and bring about social change, should film journalism not follow suit?
(The writer is a veteran freelance journalist and film historian based in Kolkata.)
from Webdoux