Not About A Film, But About A Filmmaker That Influences

The term 'Multi-Hyphenate' now a days used by Millennials and Gen Z, is for someone, who is skilled in several skills, person of multiple talents. One artist whose name immediately comes to mind is the late Dadasaheb Phalke. He was skilled in Painting, Sculpture and Music. He wrote, directed, produced and edited his own films. He sold all his assets to produce India's first ever Feature Film 'Raja Harishchandra' which was a silent film in 1913.   

Although some people consider Dadasaheb Torne's silent film 'Shree Pundalik' (1912) as first ever Feature Film, but although It was produced by Dadasaheb Torne, A British Cinematographer shot it. The film was only 22 mins long and it was a Play/ Drama that was being shot, so due to these reasons, It is not considered as first feature film. 

In an era where people were only used to Print Media like books, newspaper as it was British Raj back then, introducing people with a moving imagery kept them captivated and wondering. Me as an Artist and a Media student, find it very inspiring that He actually brought an entertainment media in India that too with a creative mind. He introduced several technical innovations in Indian Cinema like use of close-up, fade-in and fade-out. He produced and directed 27 short films, and over 90 full-length movies in two decades of his career as a filmmaker. When some were Silent films initially, It was hard than it seems to portray in actions what a character wanted to say, as all was in actions, never ever audience felt confusion and misunderstood/ misunderstand any scene; which was Dadasaheb's speciality. Expressing the concepts and ideas in silent manner that too with very less technical support was challenging, which I feel any filmmaker would agree, appreciate and student like me would get inspired.    

Dadasaheb Phalke was propelled to form movies after observing the no dialogue film, The Life of Christ, in 1910. He sold all his resources and traveled to Britain to study filmmaking and cinematography. In 1913, Phalke built up Hindustan Film Company and delivered the movie 'Raja Harishchandra', which was India's to begin with full-length film.