Flushing filth from films

Motion pictures produced in the country during the first half of the last century, more than a hundred years ago, called bioscope, a term pronounced differently in the land’s different languages, sans sound, not to speak of dialogue by the actors and actresses, have come a long way witnessing both high-decibel sound and dialogue that don’t appeal to the senior citizens who can recollect with nostalgia viewing movies flush with stories, pleasing dialogues, valuable message to all sections of society, songs that endured as hits long after they were screened and all these in black & white which they would gladly recommend to others to patronise. Film production and wide distribution across all nooks and corners of the country and even beyond the country’s shores has acquired astronomical dimensions that are anybody’s guess on counts of money invested and earned as well as employment to people with no reference to their academic qualifications, unlike in other sectors of the economy. In short, film industry in the land has outperformed virtually all other industries, perhaps with the exception of IT industry which is heading to reach a plateau.

 Society of yesteryears and the fraternity of film producers can be deemed to have worked up a healthy nexus, each side supportive of the other, the former virtually setting the unwritten rules of making films matching their refined tastes for entertainment and the latter responding handsomely. The land’s epics and historical narratives served as a rich canvas for selecting stories, scripting lyrics and dialogues, not to forget the iconic actors that appeared on the big screen.

Although there are no reports in the print media about the earnings of the actors in lead roles in the films produced nowadays, what is heard on the grapevines about the amounts that the stars pocket borders on Von Ripley’s Believe it or not (Created by American cartoonist Robert Ripley: 1890-1949). In addition, funds invested by producers of movies that are both box-office success and those that bomb in the cinema halls are reportedly in amounts that can make the heads of most people dizzy. Despite these high-low features of the film industry, more than 1,500 movies are reportedly produced in India, Kannada language movies accounting for a good share among them.

Uncomplimentary remarks about what is dished out by the film industry nowadays by speakers and writers in public domain, aghast at the new wave cinema, which the legendary Thespian Ashok Kumar called nude-wave cinema, don’t seem to have made any impression on film producers of all hues, barring exceptions. The patrons of modern cinema only can apply brakes on the land’s verbal/visual filth-ridden films.