“If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it....” said Shakespeare. When it comes to cinema, music is also a source of passion fodder and a vital revenue generator. Otherwise why would filmmakers spend lakhs and crores of money in cranking a single song!
The role of love and music in cinema, was the subject of discussion at the seventh anniversary celebrations of Chamiers on February 14.
Ace director Mani Ratnam and director/cinematographer Rajiv Menon were drawn into conversation, moderated by TNIE film critic Baradwaj Rangan.
The duo, who have worked together on films like Bombay and Guru, brought out several reasons as to why music is such an integral of cinema — Indian cinema, in particular.
“Cranking a song for a film is more challenging than filming a scene with more emphasis on aesthetics and highlighting nuances of emotions as well. While a song captures the hidden emotions of love, the dialogues essentially capture the story,” said Rajiv Menon, as he cited an example from his Minsara Kanavu.
“The Vennilavae number, choreographed by Prabhu Deva, is a portrayal of this man who is in love with a girl he can never have. A number of emotions had to be portrayed in this number,” he explained. The language matters as well, to convey a message and make audiences connect with it. “It is very challenging to think, write and direct a scene in Indian English. It sounds like college drama,” said Rajiv Menon and added, “I think and write in Malayalam and used to show my scripts to writer Sujatha, who translated it into Tamil.”
Rajiv also threw light on why it is so essential to have an average of six songs in a film, whether or not they are picturised or even included in the film. “For music album to be sold, it needs to have more songs. And if you try to make a tight film without songs then it become very difficult to promote the film,” he said.
Both Mani Ratnam and Rajiv Menon agreed upon the important role songs play in the promotion of a film — to draw audiences to theatres. Mani Ratnam said, “I always make a film with songs and I still feel I have a mountain to climb. The first two weeks after a film release, it is the youngsters who throng the theatres. We still need that educated class to come to theatres to watch a film. It’s particularly important to promote films in B and C theatres in the state. I agree world cinema has reached real fast here, where not songs, but background score has a role to play. But the challenge here is to promote a film with songs, where all the songs need to be good.”
Baradwaj Rangan touched upon old Tamil classics of director Sridhar’s films and Thespian Sivaji Ganesan’s. Mani Ratnam said, “Love in the classics of Tamil cinema used to be a part of the main story line, which also had a strong social message.”
To a quirky question from the audience on whether the music director ultimately does a better job than a director, Mani Ratnam said, “When you remember a song, you do it in the form of a tune or maybe a few lines from its lyrics, but when you remember a good film, you remember it in totality.”
