I am often asked why Telugu filmmakers don’t win prestigious awards in India and abroad. My answer has always been the same. Instead of asking “why don’t we win?”, we should ask “why should we win?”
What is it that distinguishes Telugu cinema from the brilliantly evocative films in Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi? How truthful is Telugu cinema in reflecting the complexities of contemporary life?
When people say Telugu films are mostly masala stories driven by star power, they are right. Majority of the Telugu filmmakers have always believed that filmmaking is more a commercial business than art. Having wondered often how to define ‘commercial cinema’, I have come up with one of my own: “A commercial film aims at making money by peddling stereotypes and sensory thrills. It employs reductionist archetypes and simplistic views that the audiences are manipulated to believe as truths.”
Almost all Telugu films are male-centric. Our heroes are super-humans with powers that even God would hesitate to display. Our heroines are inevitably ‘cute’, irrational and dumb; our families are massive piles of relatives dressed in garish clothes and living in ugly bungalows; our idea of wooing a girl is dangerously close to molestation; and we think that it’s funny when the hero repeatedly slaps the poor comedian. Telugu filmmakers maintain: “This is what our audience wants.”
Woody Allen once famously said that if films have to be made according to the wishes of the audiences, then the audiences themselves must direct them. He has a point. Filmmakers are artistes who shape the popular cultural imagination through their work. That responsibility has been totally forgotten in the current Telugu cinema scenario. Not that we don’t have talented people. There are passionate writers, actors, directors, technicians and producers. But when a newcomer looks at this industry from outside, he/she beholds a whirlpool of preconceived notions, power games, star wars, fan mania and an utter disregard for fresh and offbeat ideas. They have to choose between giving up, which is disheartening, and taking the plunge, which is depressing.
The root of the problem
The real problem lies deeper: in the gradual elimination of cultural education from our lives. We are dealing with a generation that has very little or no knowledge of Telugu literature, music, dance, folk traditions, painting, sculpture or theatre. How can it come up with new ideas?
The abject lack of knowledge of World Cinema (we do occasionally visit it only to copy stories or stunt choreography), our arrogant assumptions about the ‘intelligence levels’ of the audiences (satisfying the pre-decided intelligence of the imagined rickshaw-wala is our sole aim), the scornful dismissal of any progressive idea as commercially unviable, and the firm belief that education is totally unnecessary to be a filmmaker are some of the major causes for the current stagnation in Telugu films.
Are there any solutions? There cannot be an overnight cure but what we need to do is to introduce high-quality film education in the so-called international film schools that are sprouting in Hyderabad, boasting of state-of-the-art facilities. Most of the great films of the world have been made by independent filmmakers with limited means. Their visual and narrative innovations are absorbed, recast and packaged as ‘trendy techniques’ by commercial film industries. Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘jump cut’ is now more popular than the normal cut; Cinema Verite’s docu-style ‘hand-held’ camera is now ubiquitous; and the ‘Deutsch’ angle (wrongly called the ‘Dutch’ angle), used by German expressionist filmmakers of the 1920s, is now the staple diet of our cinema! Creativity innovates. Commerciality exploits.
For artistic cinema to flourish, there has to be a vibrant and fertile cultural environment. Understanding of the arts, cultural literacy, film education, a solid rooting in humanities and social sciences will breed well-informed, imaginative and responsible filmmakers who will create meaningful entertainment that nurtures the soul while giving pleasure.
Mohana Krishna Indraganti is a National Award-winning filmmaker.
