Some of our earliest films may be lost forever

Have you had the chance to watch some of Hindi cinema’s earlier classics, like Alam Ara, Raja Harishchandra or Achyut Kanya? Or even Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali or Aparajito on the big screen? Some of our earliest films may be lost forever and chances are you may never see them either, unless efforts are made to restore the prints of these films for consumption by today’s multiplex audiences.

Film restoration has been taken up with gusto in countries that want to protect their cinematic heritage. Hollywood, for instance, woke up after having lost a great number of silent classics, but the film fraternity in India is yet to join hands to make any attempt at restoring our own gems. There are sporadic attempts here and there, but nothing substantial.

“And Mughal-E-Azam, which was restored and colourised a few years back doesn’t count as ‘preservation’,” says filmmaker Shyam Benegal. “The whole point of restoration is to bring a film back as close to its original state as possible. Colouring a black and white film hardly counts,” he says. 

Nevertheless, the colourised film released for ‘today’s audience’ did reasonably well at the box office. Siddharth Roy Kapur of UTV Motion Pictures, that released the film, says that restoration becomes viable when there are economic returns in taking up the expensive process. “Why should anyone be obliged to restore old films? But as an industry, we can join hands and do something about it. Today, there are a lot of avenues to be exploited with a restored film — satellite, home video, film festivals etc,” says Kapur.

Benegal, though, feels preserving our cinematic heritage should not depend on commerce alone. “Most countries that are proud of their cinema have begun the process of restoring their old films — Germany, France and America are all doing it. In India, though, we have no interest in our own history,” he says, adding that it’s not just about cinema either. “Take architecture, or even literature. Outside of what the government does with the limited money it allocates, efforts are found wanting. Restoring films is no joke — it’s an elaborate and expensive job,” says Benegal, who suggests that a corpus be formed, which would earn interest and take on the restoration work in a systematic manner.

Actor Sharmila Tagore narrates how organisers of the Cannes festival were unable to do a retrospective of Mrinal Sen’s films because they weren’t in a condition good enough to be screened. “In addition to the restoration, we will also have to make arrangements for storage of the restored prints. I have seen the place where the Academy stores its prints and we will have to find a way to replicate that here,” says Tagore, adding that Indian corporate houses and connoisseurs  will have to pump in the money, while people from the industry can look after the nitty-gritties of film preservation. Most restoration efforts around the world are being carried out with backing from private organisations and cash-rich individuals.

Sandip Ray, son of Satyajit Ray, is less worried about his father’s
films than about other forgotten classics. “My father’s early films have already been restored. Personally, I have been occupied with preserving my father’s heritage. But what about films by other Indian greats? Someone has to take up the mantle of preserving them.” Sandip is aware of the cost of restoring films, especially in India because “we lack the technology and know-how”. “In the West, restoration is done with the help of a chemical process, for which we don’t have the tools. If we have to follow the same procedure, we’ll have to outsource the materials and the experts and that could cost a bomb. In India, a digital form of restoration is more doable, but this is less effective than the chemical process,” he says. 

Benegal says we’re running out of time. “Films by directors like Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Ritwik Ghatak and many other such filmmakers need urgent tending to. Restoration has to be taken up by our film industry itself,” he says.

Another reason for the restoration to be taken up in India is easy access to the restored films. The Ray films which have so far been restored in Hollywood, for instance, now lie in a film lab in Los Angeles. If a film festival in India wants to show these films, a pretty sum will have to be shelled out for transportation and rent.
Only so we can enjoy a film by one of our own greats