Know About the Very First Film Of Indian Cinema

 

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One of the oldest and biggest cinema industries in the world is found in India. A public screening of an Indian movie took place at the beginning of 1913. It was called Raja Harischandra. A lifetime achievement award named after its director, Dadasaheb Phalke, has been given out by the cinema industry. It was quite difficult to find someone to play female characters at the time. It has only recently been questioned whether the middle classes still associate acting with a decline in virtue, female modesty, and respectability.

Screening of the First Film

The silent film "Raja Harischandra," which was India's first motion picture, had its world premiere on May 3, 1913, at Bombay's (now Mumbai) Coronation Theater. The founder of Indian cinema, Dadasaheb Phalke, created it. At a time when social traditions prevented working in the film industry, Phalke was responsible for introducing India to the world of filmmaking. 

Several filmmakers in Bombay and Madras started shooting silent films after his movie "Raja Harishchandra" became popular. Madras had emerged as the hub for all motion picture-related activities by the middle of the 1920s. To shoot Telugu and Tamil movies, Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu, S. S. Vasan, and A. V. Meiyappan established production companies in Madras.

About The Film

The movie begins with a scene reminiscent of one by Ravi Varma, including King Harishchandra, his wife Taramati, and his infant son. The king is introducing archery to his son. They went hunting. The Sage Vishwamitra's domain is entered by the monarch. Before the burning king, three furies appear. To save them, the king. 

The king is tempted by these fairies to give up his throne in favour of his love of the truth. Before a god emerges to reassure everyone that the entire story was only a test of the king's sincerity, the king experiences great hardship, including being exiled from his country.

Dattatraya Damodar Dabke, Anna Salunke, Bhalchnadra Phalke, and Gajanan Vasudev Sane are among the cast members of Raja Harishchandra. Male actors took on the roles of women since there were no women available to play them. Only the first and last reels of the movie are saved at the National Film Archive of India, with the other reels mostly lost. The Government of India recognises Raja Harishchandra as India's first feature film, despite significant disagreement regarding the country's first full-length motion picture.

About Dadasaheb Phalke

Since seeing Amazing Creatures at the America India Picture Palace and being astounded by the animals on the screen, Dadasaheb Phalke has been interested in filmmaking. He took his entire family to see "The Life of Christ," another movie that was playing because it was Easter, the very following day. According to mythology, Hindu deities like Ram and Krishna would appear on a screen. He went to London to take filmmaking classes. He established the Phalke Films Company in 1912 after his return to India.

Phalke had a strong interest in the arts when he was younger. He enrolled in the Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay (now Mumbai), in 1885, determined to follow his dreams. While there, he followed a wide range of interests, including amateur dramatics, photography, lithography, architecture, and magic. He had a brief career as a painter, a set designer for theatre, and a photographer. Phalke was greatly impressed by several of Ravi Varma's paintings of the Hindu gods while working at his lithography press. This effect is clear in Phalke's portrayal of various gods and goddesses in the mythological films he eventually made.

The End Of The Silent Era

When Ardeshir Irani released his first talkie, "Alam Ara," in 1931, the silent age came to an end. Irani was the father of the talkie and Phalke was the father of Indian film. The talkies altered Indian cinema's aesthetic. Along with good looks, actors needed a strong voices and singing chops because music became to define Indian cinema. In the same year, the first talkies in Tamil (Kalidass), Telugu (Bhakta Prahlad), and Bengali (Jamai Shasthi) were all released.

One of the biggest hits in Indian film history, "Kismet," starring Ashok Kumar, was released in 1945. Epic awareness and the craft of filmmaking have a close link. Filmmakers like Raj Kapoor, Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy, V. Shantaram, and others created their works in this environment. The cinema industry had advanced quickly in the meantime in the south, where Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada movies were dominating South India. In the late 1940s, religious themes predominated in films produced in a variety of Indian languages. 

Music's golden age was from the 1940s until the late 1950s. The styles of Shankar Jaikishan, O.P. Nayyar, Madan Mohan, C. Ramchandra, Salil Chaudhury, Naushad, and S.D. Burman was all unique.

Written By- Hanshu Varandani