Cinema in India before 1913
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Cinema in India before 1913
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Brief history of Indian cinema By UrooJ, aligarians.com, Mid-2000 Aligarians
History of Indian Cinema Bollywoodvillage
Milestones
Atul Thakur TIMES INSIGHT GROUP | May 1, 2010 The Times of India
India's first short film was Hiralal Sen's 'Dancing Scenes from the Flower of Persia' (1898)
India's first [motion picture] advertisements were Hiralal Sen's ads for Jabakusum hair oil and Edward's Tonic.
Dadasaheb Torney's 'Pundalik' (1912) was the first [short] film made by an Indian.
1886
In 1886 the Lumiere Brothers Cinematographe unveiled six soundless short films at Bombay's Watson's Hotel. Soon after, Hiralal Sen and H.S. Bhatavdekar started making films in Calcutta and Bombay, respectively. Like Lumiere Brothers Bhatavdekar made India's first actuality films in 1899. Though there were efforts at filming stage plays earlier India's first feature film Raja Harishchandra was made in 1913 by Dadasaheb Phalke who is known as the Father of Indian Cinema.
1907
1907 : J.F. Madan opens the Elphinstone Picture Palace in Calcutta, the first of his cinema chain. Pathe establishes office in India.
1908 : Abdulallay Esoofally, a South Asian and Singaporean traveling showman starts exhibiting in India.
1910
1910 : Dadasaheb Phalke attends a screening of The Life of Christ at P.B. Mehta’s American - Indian Cinema and decides to become a filmmaker himself.
1911 : Anandi Bose, Debi Bose and others start the Aurora Cinema Co. showing films in tents as part of a variety bill. The Coronation Durbar of King George V held in Delhi is filmed by several Indians. (S.N. Patankar, Hiralal Sen, Madan Theatres)
1912 : Two amateurs N.G. Chitre and R.G. Torney attempt a narrative film, about 1500 feet long, of a play - Pundalik.
The pre-Phalke era
Atul Thakur TIMES INSIGHT GROUP | May 1, 2010 The Times of India
What is the name of India's first full-length feature film? Who shot the first advertisement? Who made the first newsreel? When was the first talkie released? You might be able to answer all these questions, but perhaps no one can claim to have watched any of these 'firsts' of Indian cinema.
Simply because they only exist in quiz books and encyclopaedias.
After screening a series of short films at Salon Indien du Grand Cafe in Paris, Lumiere brothers took just six months to bring moving pictures to Indian soil. In July 1896, the audience of Mumbai's Watson's hotel watched the screening of six silent movies. Indian film-makers didn't wait too long to pick up the art of movie making. In 1898, Hiralal Sen released India's first homemade short film.
But east is not west and the road to preserve history took a different course over the next 100 years. The first films shot by Lumiere Brothers are still available for aficionados to watch, while each one of the 25 films made by Hiralal Sen have been lost forever. "Sen was not alone," says Suresh Chabria, professor of film appreciation at FTTI, Pune. "Most of his contemporaries were destined for a similar fate. Of the 1,250 films made in India during the silent era, only about 25 could be preserved," he adds. "There might be some prints available with private collectors in foreign countries, especially Algeria, which was a big market for Indian silent movies," says film historian Firoze Rangoonwalla.
From Sen's first short film — Dancing Scenes From The Flower of Persia — to India's first ever advertisements, featuring Jabakusum hair oil and Edward's Tonic, the lost list has many a gem. It also includes India's first newsreel, shot by HS Bharvadekar. In 1902, Bharvadekar filmed the reception given to Cambridge fellow Sir Wrangler RP Paranjpye on his return to India. Then there's Dadasaheb Torney's Pundalik, which was the first Indian-made film released in the country. Although Pundalik was released a year before Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra (1913), the fact that it was processed overseas and was two reels short of the minimum feature length of 40 minutes, meant that it did not qualify as the first Indian feature film.
Did Hiralal Sen, and not Phalke, make India's first feature film?
In Calcutta there is a legend (and persistent belief) that between roughly 1903 and 1913 photographer Hiralal Sen had made six or seven or even more feature films. If this is correct then the history of Indian cinema needs to be re-written. This will make Sen, and not Phalke, the father of Indian cinema.
According to this legend, Sen released a two-hour screen version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves in 1903—a full ten years before Raja Harishchandra, currently considered India’s first feature film.
Indeed, The Statesman records a view that Hiralal made his first moving film in 1898. (He did, but it was not a feature.)
Why are no prints of any of the films available? Because, in 1917, after Sen's death, a fire destroyed all the films that he had ever made. That no prints of Sen's films exist is no reason to not consider him the pioneer of Indian cinema. After all, there are no extant prints of Alam Ara either.
Whether there is any truth in this legend can be easily verified by going through the Calcutta newspapers of 1903, of the period between 1903 and 1917 and, especially newspaper coverage of that fateful fire of 1917. Is there any mention of Sen’s feature films?
The article Hiralal Sen discusses the pioneer's life and works. Indpaedia's conclusion is that what are being described as 'feature films' were,in fact, filmed sequences from stage plays. Only Ali Baba was a full-length, two-hour theatrical production recorded on film. It was never screened commercially in its entirety.
Evidence to the contrary is eagerly awaited, for it can change the history of Indian cinema.
See also
Cinema in India before 1913 Covers the era before the first Indian feature film
CinemaScope and 70mm films Mainly about the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
70mm films in India/ South Asia I.e. Part 2 of this article. Mainly about the 1960s and 1970s.
Cinerama theatres in India, Pakistan, Sri LankaMainly about the 1960s.
Colour films in South Asia: 1—South Asia as a whole.
Colour films in South Asia: 2 (Indian Cinema)—India as a whole.
Colour films in South Asia: 3-- Hindi-Urdu films. Mainly about the 1950s and 1960s.
See all articles on South Asian cinema in the alphabetical indexes of
by clicking these links here, or at the bottom of this page.
