CHENNAI: If you ask your grandmother which film she liked in her younger days and why, she would say that it had good songs. Film historian S Theodore Baskaran used this example to illustrate the importance of song and dance in the early Tamil cinema.
As part of the Madras Week Celebrations, Baskaran delivered a lecture ‘Early Tamil Cinema and the Devadasi tradition’ at the Roja Muthiah Research Library on Monday. “Devadasis have been traditionally attached to temples, but they made a major contribution by providing much of the content drawn from their traditional repertoire. Thereby, they brought in style and content of early Tami cinema and that continues even today,” said Baskaran.
The Devadasi community was skilled in music and dance. The Devadasis held the baton of the major music tradition of Tamil Nadu and their dance was known as sathir and dasi attam.
“It was the Devadasi Abolition Act in 1924 that made them lose their livelihood. Suddenly, pay from the temples stopped. Zamindars and landlords’ patronage dwindled, as they began to lose wealth. This was when the exodus to a commercial status took place,” said Baskaran.
He presented an argument that unlike the West, where silent films gradually transformed into talkies, Tamil cinema had an abrupt change from silent to talkie. They adapted an existing art form with trained artistes, singers and writers.
Devadasis moved to theatre companies for their livelihood, and in 1931, talkie cinema was born. Theatres were looking for actors who could sing and thus, they were welcomed.
“There were 241 theatre companies and when the Devadasis moved in, they started their own companies too. One such company was started by Balamani. When she was staging a play in Kumbakonam, a special train from Thanjavur called Balamani Express was arranged. The plays they staged were mythological and written as musicals,” he said. This was why song and dance was important.
Baskaran said that out of the 200 early Tamil films, 160 of them were mythological. Since the story was already known, the essential ingredients were song and dance.
“The emphasis was more on singing and not on spectacle. All the actors had to know to sing. At this stage in 1931, though sound had arrived, for five years, there were no recording studios in the State. So, filmmakers would hire an entire dance company, take them to Mumbai, Pune or Kolkata. On a proscenium stage and with a single camera, the entire play was shot. I made a list of the first 60 early movies and they were all stage plays,” said Baskaran.
Early films did not use the language of cinema, which is the storyline, creativity of the camera or acting. It only concentrated on song and dance predominantly done by the devadasi community. So, there was an abrupt turn from silent cinema to talkies. Theatre companies and the devadasis were responsible for the change.
“You see actress Padmini performing a thillana in a film, so are you watching dance or cinema? Dance. Political cinema did not blossom. They remained at an entertainment and escapist level,” he said.
Basakaran concluded his lecture with a series of images and dance clips from the early cinema. Starting from Mayabazar (1954), carnatic legend M S Subbulakshmi playing the role of Naradar, Aryamela (1941) to Shankar’s Boys (2003). “We have come a long way from escapist cinema though. The biggest example would be Kakka Muttai,” he signed off.