Renowned Indian filmmaker Dr. Adoor Gopalakrishnan was the chief guest at the launch of the Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries Foundation to co-inside with the diamond jubilee of Dr. Peries winning his first ever international award, and, the Golden jubilee of Mrs. Peries’ entry into cinema.
Addressing the gathering at a ceremony at BMICH last week, this celebrated filmmaker said that he was amazed to see his first Sri Lankan film experience when he watched Lester’s ‘Gamperaliya’ at the Grand Prix International Film Festival in India in 1965 and immediately decided that the film of Sri Lanka’s pioneer filmmaker should win the Best award ‘the Golden Peacock’.
 |
Renowned Indian filmmaker
Dr. Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
Pic by Mangala Weerasekare |
Subsequently Dr. Lester became one of his most favourite filmmakers and Dr. Gopalakrishnan talked about his memories on Sri Lankan cinema and its directors, problems faced by the realistic filmmakers and issues related to cinema in India, Sri Lanka and all over the world.
When asked what was the driving force for him to stick to the realistic cinema in a country which released commercial films to the international market, Dr. Gopalakrishnan said the only reason was his desire to make films he would liked to see. “I must mention that there is nothing called artistic and commercial cinema. Commercial cinema is an aberration, that compromises for someone else.
You don’t produce a cinema that you like to do and you like to see, this is because I studied the medium and watched works of great masters, I knew to differentiate between a good cinema and a bad one. I was motivated to produce a cinema to only satisfy me. I feel happy about what I have done. That is my principle. I don’t know the other man’s taste. But I know my taste,” the great filmmaker said.
When asked whether the commercially successful Bollywood industry was a challenge to his kind of filmmaking, Dr. Gopalakrishnan said that it has made a false picture of the entire Indian cinema.
“Very often I have experienced that people were unaware that we produce films outside Bollywood.
People’s ignorence is made known to you when they speak. In that sense Bollywood has created problems for us. They think that all Indian cinema is singing and dancing and is about people romancing all the time which is completely unrelated to life.When you look at some of the Bollywood films they look silly and amateuristic,”.
“Due to this we have to work hard and fight certain notions created internationally. The best way to show dissatisfaction is to depict it in the films you produce. This has to be convining through the quality of the film,”.
‘However I am not against cinema getting popular. But it is important to say that films should be produced proffessionally. Proffessionalism is essential in cinema production otherwise cinema can’t exist,’ he added.
Speaking about the Sri Lankan cinema, Dr. Gopalakrishnan says that Sri Lanka has far better talented filmmakers compared to some parts of India. ‘I have a feeling Sri Lanka makes better films than Kerala. I find better talent in Sri Lankan cinema specially among the young people,” he said naming some of the filmmakers like Prasanna Vithanage and Asoka Handagama.
He also admired the veteran filmmakers like Dr. Peries and Dr. Dharmasena Pathiraja.
A defiant fighter of censorship in cinema Dr. Adoor Gopalakrishnan says that all along his film career he was against censorship. “Censoring films is not a good idea at all” the experienced filmmaker protested.
“When the Indian government appointed an Expert Committee in 1975 we stated that there was no meaning and there was no justification for censorship. One of the things we proposed was that censorship should be done away with in cinema,”
But unfortunately some of the commercial filmmakers insisted on having the censorship simply to prevent members of the audience suing the film producers, he added. |
E-mail
