During his days at FTII and as a documentary filmmaker later, Karan Bali had read a variety of scripts. But when he first heard of Ellis R. Dungan in 2004, his jaw dropped. Here was an American, who made Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films in the 30s and 40s, directed MGR in his first film role and was perfect celluloid material.
Bali started gathering information; he wrote a basic article for Upperstall. With the film idea nagging him, he began a monumental search for material in 2008-9. He hunted down Dungan’s autobiography A Guide to Adventure – andthedetails in the book set him on his own adventure of making the film. The challenges were many; financial issues, no schedules. The “protagonist” himself had died on December 1, 2001, and the studios he had worked in had been pulled down.
Slowly, things fell into place. He watched five of Dungan’s Tamil films. With film historian Theodore Baskaran as his GPS, he traced and interviewed filmmakers Hariharan, Krishnaswamy, researchers and other film personalities. Armed with clippings and interviews, Bali made An American in Madras and released it exactly 12 years after his death.
Watching the film at DakshinaChitra – screened as part of Kindred Nations, an exhibition celebrating ties between the US and India that go back to the 1780s – I was transported to the Dungan era. Here was a man who came on a whim, accepting USC classmateManik Lal Tandon’s invitation and breathed fresh air into Tamil cinema. Both experts and lay cine-goers speak of Dungan’s Hollywood touch. His shot placements were superb, despite his western perspective (he used the Romeo-Juliet theme in Ambikapathy ). He used a moving camera, travelled inside the studio on “Dungan” tracks. He shot outdoors and took films out of the studios. At Mathura/Brindavan, people thought Meera had returned when they heard MS sing. While Sakunthalai remains his best for the standards it set, Meera was a significant multi-ethnic, multi-cultural synthesis.
In the documentary, Kamal Haasan wondered how the first two lines of 'Brindavanathil' were interchanged in the two versions and Ellis says, “My understanding of Hindustani/Carnatic was that.” Dungan shaped movie-making conventions. “It was a problem to get them away from the staginess; I tried to refine, make expressions and movements soft, speaking subdued,” he said. He hired well-known writers, had words translated for him. “I had to be annoying to MS when her acting was terrible.”
Between 1941-45, as the official photographer for the Madras Government, Dungan made documentaries for the Indian News Parade. He photographed milestones of Indian history: the unfurling of the flag, riots in Bombay, Gandhiji’s funeral. For Ponmudi (1949), Dungan went to sea and pictured boatmen with empathy. His scenes of intimacy were natural, bold and pro-active; his women, self-willed. “Audiences came back repeatedly for the kissing scene in Ambikapathy !”
He left India reluctantly when Alice, his wife, insisted they leave “before you go completely native.” He returned as a consultant/crew-member to make “animal” films like The Jungle (1952), Harry Black and the Tiger (1958) and Tarzan goes to India (1962), travelled through forests… and even came face-to-face with a rhino!
Through Rochelle Shah’s reminiscences (she was the filmmaker’s friend from 1952 till he died), Bali brings us a Dungan away from cameras. “Foreigners were called 'master' but Dungan was called 'Aiyya'," she says, “I liked him; it was impossible not to.” When he came to Chennai in 1994, she organised a function where MS got up and sang a well-known bhajan. “I’m proud to say Ellis Dungan was my friend.”
