Michael Research Foundation

     This article presents about how the cinemas can be considered as historical sources with examples from Tamil Cinema. This study is not about history of Tamil Cinema. It’s about studying the history embedded into the content and narration presented in a Cinema. The period, which the cinema depicts, can be assessed by some images shown in that cinema. Examples: the wall poster, Name board in the market places, Dresses worn by the characters and the like. This paper, keeping this as the framework, tries to study the representation of middle classes especially Brahmin families in Tamil cinemas, which is the forte of K.Balachander, who contributed more to the Tamil cinema as a director. This also studies the various historical events and their impact through the cinemas of K.Balachander.        The authentication of historical events can be done by comparing the contemporary representations in different movies of the same period and also with the other traditional historical documents

          Tamil Cinema industry, one of the leading cinema industries in the world, produced approximately 6500 cinemas, a force influencing Tamil Society, Culture and Politics, produced chief ministers like M.Karunanithi, M.G.R and J. Jeyalalitha, has not yet produced a single cinema on Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, Swamikannu Vincent, one of the earliest exhibitor in Tamil Nadu, screened the first show of the silent movie ‘Life of Jesus Christ’ in 1905, in St.Joseph’s School, Trichy, using the equipment purchased from a French Man called Dupont along with that movie, and started touring the major cities in the then Madras Presidency and India under British rule , to screen the movie. The silent movie, Life of Christ, was not produced by any of the native film producers or film makers from Tamil Cinema world. There were few dubbed versions of the cinemas from Malayalam (Jesus) and Telugu (Karuna Moorthy) on the Life of Jesus. Jesus (1973), a Malayalam movie, was directed by P.A. Thoma

If the Lord Rama opens a stamped envelope with Indian postal stamps and postal marks, from Sita devi, What will you think?. Yes, It happens, in the movie Sita Vanavasam (1934), Lord Rama does it that too in the wilderness. Mistakes and inaccuracies, very commonly present in the Cinemas, not been given much attention by the film makers and critics/ reviewers, is a point of concern to be stressed upon, so as to make a better presentation in cinemas. In Kovalan (1933), a Tamil film set in between third to fifth century, based on a character from the Tamil epic Silappathikarm by Ilangavadigal, one character appears with spectacles in few scenes. In Madurai Veeran (1952), based on a story on a popular folk deity, set in seventeenth century, had one scene, in which “guillotine” makes an appearance. In the dubbed in Tamil, Malayalam cinema Jesus (1973), there were four dances like modern day cabaret dances, in the palaces of Herod the great, since then the trend in the south Indian films

    Recently I went to a Cinema hall in Thanjavur, to watch a cinema, a recent release, after reading the good online reviews. I got the tickets too. It was almost time for screening and an attendant came and told me, Sir, Please go and collect the money at the ticket counter as there is no show today. I got shocked as my eagerness of watching a thriller got shattered, asked him, why so? Since the tickets sold are less than twenty in numbers, we cannot screen the movie. When will you screen this again? Not sure, Sir , he replied. I collected back the money and threw away my dream of watching that movie, as there is no certainty of being screened in the near future. I was really surprised seeing the milieu pertinent to watching cinemas in the cinema halls in this social media era, in Tamil Nadu. We have reached, from a battle ground like scenario in front of the cinema halls, to a situation that there is no surety of watching even after getting tickets. The reasons could be attribut