All about songs in Peries’ films
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Very often we seem to feel that Lester James Peries films did not have songs. They certainly had good background music scores which have left their mark in Sri Lankan cinema, like Maestro Khemadasa’s score in ‘Golu Hadawatha’. As for the songs, Lester’s first feature film ‘Rekawa’ came at a time when filmgoers were used to dozens of songs in each film, because Sinhala filmmakers were imitating everything that the Indian filmmakers were doing.
This year’s Lester James Peiris Oration was on songs in Lester-Sumitra Peries films. The LJP & SP Foundation could not have picked on a better speaker than Sunil Ariyaratne – academic, researcher, film director, author and lyric writer. He speaks superbly in Sinhala using simple words. He is witty- a pleasure to listen to.
The day –June 15 –marked the 49th wedding anniversary of the Peries couple. Sunil Ariyaratne spent quite a bit of time on a pre-golden jubilee address. “A couple full of contrasts (he listed out a whole lot) living under one roof for five decades – possibly a record in world cinema for a duo in film direction,” he said.
From those remarks in a lighter vein, Sunil moved on to talk about songs in the Peries duo films. Lester directed 18 films. There were no songs in ten of them. A significant feature was that in his first two films – ‘Rekawa’ (1956) and ‘Sandeshaya’ (1960) there were 13 songs – six in the former and seven in the latter. That was virtually a continuation of the tradition of ‘overloading’ Sinhala films with songs. Lester however, was not competing with the others. The first Sinhala film, ‘Kadawunu Poronduwa’ had 12 songs and an early film ‘Sada Sulang’ had as much as 18, according to Sunil..
Lester’s other five films, each had two songs each. Of Sumitra’s 10 films, three did not have any songs. The others had two each.
For Sunil, the best songs were those in the first two of Lester’s films. He chose ‘Sigiri landa kage’ (lyrics by Father Marcelline Jayakody) in ‘Rekawa’ as the best lullaby in Sinhala films. (The audience was in for a treat when Lata Walpola who sang the song 57 years ago repeated it in her inimitable style). And Walpola Jr sang a popular song from ‘Sandeshaya’ – Kate kirisunwanda’ (Arisen Ahubudu’s lyrics) which was originally rendered by his father. Sunil paid a tribute to music directors B.S. Perera and R. Muttusamy, and Sunil Shantha who wrote the melodies in the two films.
Lester broke new ground when he introduced Los Caberellos led by Neville Fernando to do a night club song in ‘Delovak Atara’. Mahagama Sekera wrote ‘Gayanageyum’(set to the music by Pandit Amaradeva), which became an instant hit.
Sunil saw a distinct departure in the approach of Nimal Mendis who was music director of Lester’s ‘Ahasin Polowata’ and five (including the yet unreleased ‘Vaishnavi’) of Sumitra’s films. Nimal Mendis had the tendency to get the lyric writers to put in words to pre-determined tunes, he said. Sometimes he wanted them to put into Sinhala the words he had written in English. He quoted the popular song in Sumitra’s ‘Ganga Addara’ – Ran tikirisina’ as an example. Incidentally, it was a pleasant surprise when the duo – Victor Silva and Nirosha Perera who sang the song originally – appeared on stage. Victor very rarely sings but even in his ripe age showed that he still has a good voice. Nirosha was just 12 years old when she sang the song 33 years ago.
After Sunil’s talk, which took quite a long time with six songs thrown in, Lakshman Joseph de Saram spoke on ‘Music and the Moving Image’. He had a lot to say and to show by way of clips from films he had composed music for. Interesting as it was, possibly it was a little too heavy for the audience who had already spent quite some time listening to Sunil who warned right at the start that it was going to be a long day with him.
It has been customary for the LJP & SP Foundation to have two talks on the Oration Day. Possibly the directors should re-think whether two are a bit too much for an evening, particularly when the main speaker generally takes more time. One well illustrated talk would be just right.
It’s nice to see the Foundation active. In his welcome address on Saturday, director Yadamini Gunawardena hinted that something positive is happening about the setting up of a film archive in Sri Lanka. This has been talked about for so many years but we have yet to see anything happening. Hope the Foundation will keep pressing the authorities and make the dream of the ‘Father of Modern Sinhala Cinema’ become a reality.
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