Films of the 1960s onwards

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The sixties experienced the use of the most melodious music in Indian films, which is difficult to replicate. ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ produced by K.Asif broke all previous records at the box-office. It was followed by notable productions like Raj Kapoor’s ‘Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai’ and ‘Sangam’, Guru Dutt’s ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Gulam’, Dev Anand’s ‘Guide’; Bimal Roy’s ‘Bandini’, Ramanand Sagar’s ‘Arzoo’, Hrishikesh Mukherji’s ‘Anand’, B.R. Chopra’s ‘Waqt’; Hemant Kumar’s ‘Bees Saal Baad’ and Manoj Kumar’s ‘Upkar’ among others. Films like Raj Kapoor’s ‘Sangam’ (1964), Chetan Anand’s ‘Haqeeqat’ (1964) and Shakti Samanta’s ‘Aradhana’ (1969) portrayed assertive Indian nationalism following the India-Pakistan wars of 1962 and 1965.

In 1960 the Film Institute was started in Pune on the premises of the former Prabhat Studio. The second Film Festival of India was held in Delhi in 1961. The Dadasaheb Phalke Life-time Achievement Awards were instituted in 1969.

During the seventies the mainstream cinema turned more volatile and violent, although good off-beat and romantic movies were also released. The seventies can undoubtedly be described as the ‘era of Amitabh Bachchan’, who created a sensation in the Hindi cinema with his ‘Zanjeer’ (1971) by introducing the ‘Angry Young Man’ as a protagonist in Hindi cinema.

The horror genre in the Hindi cinema was established by Ramsay Brothers’ ‘Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche’ (1972). In 1975 Ramesh Sippy’s ‘Sholay’ became the first 70 mm film to be released in India. The mythological film ‘Jai Shantoshi Maa’ (1975) was another great hit of the seventies. Amrit Nahata’s ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’ (1976) was a political satire on the Emergency. The film ‘Heer Ranjha’ was unique in the sense that the whole film was written in lyrics by Kaifi Azmi.

The eighties saw the advent of women filmmakers, Vijaya Mehta (‘Rao Saheb’), Aparna Sen (‘36 Chowringhee Lane’), Sai Paranjpye (‘Chashme Baddoor’, ‘Sparsh’), Kalpana Lajmi (‘Ek Pal’) and Meera Nair (‘Salaam Bombay’). In the nineties, Indian cinema faced the onslaught of television and the cable network. Nevertheless, films like Aditya Chopra’s maiden effort ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’, Suraj Barjatya’s ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ and ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’, and Yash Chopra’s ‘Chandni’ recreated the magic of romance in the Hindi cinema somewhat similar to the films of the fifties and sixties. Other films like ‘Dil’, ‘Hum Hain Raahi Pyar Ke’, ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’ and ‘Saajan’ followed similar trend and were mega-hits.

The ‘anti-hero’ was launched with the superb performance of negative roles by Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Baazigar’ and ‘Darr’. The great pair of Anil Kapoor-Jackie Sheroff emerged during this period, which gave super hits like ‘Teezab’ and ‘Ram Lakhan’. The first 3D film made in India was ‘My dear Kuttichatan’ in Malayalam, which was dubbed into Hindi as ‘Chota Chetan’. In 1994 the Dolby system was introduced in India with the release of Vinod Chopra’s film ‘1942 – A Love Story’.

The later half of the decade was dominated by the three Khans – Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman as the male leads. The major block-busters of the decade were Mani Ratnam’s ‘Bombay’ (1995); Ramgopal Varma’s ‘Rangeela’; Rakesh Roshan’s ‘Karan Arjun’; Indra Kumar’s ‘Raja’; ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ (1994), ‘Raja Hindustani’ (1996), Yash Chopra’s ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’ (1997) and Karan Johar’s ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ (1998). The mega-hits of the new millennium include ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’, ‘Mohabbatein’, ‘Mission Kashmir’, ‘Refugee’ ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’, ‘Lagaan’, ‘Chori Chori Chupke Chupke’, ‘Koi Mil Gaya’, ‘Baghban’, ‘Munnabhai MBBS’, ‘Dhoom’, ‘Chak De India’, Taare Zameen Par’, ‘Ghajini’, ‘3 Idiots’, ‘Dabangg’, ‘Raajneeti’ and ‘My Name is Khan’.

Films of the 1960s onwards

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