> After watching two NT movies last week (Bengali versions of Saugandh
> and Wasiyatnama), I was searching for more information on NT on the
> Internet and came across the following article. I have still not read
> it completely but the initial part sounds interesting and well
> researched. The article is quite long and I was wondering whether it
> would be a good idea to post it entirely in one message. Decided to
> post it for archival purposes. In case you have accessibility/
> legibility problems with the article posted below you could try the
> html or pdf versions from the URL-s given below.
>
> Citation: S. Gooptu, "The Glory That Was: An Exploration of the
> Iconicity of New Theatres," J. Comparative Studies of South Asia,
> Africa and the Middle East, vol. 23, no. 1&2, Duke Univ. Press, 2003,
> pp. 286-302.
>
> URL for html
version:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/comparative_studies_of_south_asia_africa...
>
> URL for pdf
version:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/comparative_studies_of_south_asia_africa...
>
> -Prithviraj
>
> ==========================================
>
> The Glory that Was:
> An Exploration of the Iconicity of New Theatres1
> Sharmistha Gooptu
>
> New Theatres, created in 1930 by Birendra Nath Sircar, had an
> important role in the creation of the Indian film industry.
> Functioning from Calcutta, it was not just a well-equipped studio; it
> was a system, a way of life for the people working with it. . . .
> Sircar wanted not just cinema halls and a studio; he wanted a system.
> A pervasive, self-supporting, effectively-managed, supremely equipped,
> net-work of men and women and machines which would sell the celluloid
> dream like it had never been sold before in the country...2
>
> As in the above extract, most available literature on New Theatres,
> Bengal's leading film-producing concern in the 1930s and early '40s,
> exudes a celebratory rhetoric. The romantic discourse surrounding New
> Theatres is one of the enduring nostalgias of the Bengali bhadralok3 .
> The above quote indicates that the New Theatres ethos, though
> glorified for its efficiency, commercial viability and machine-like co-
> ordination is also celebrated as "a way of life." Herein the iconicity
> of New Theatres is informed by certain elements basic to bhadralok
> life. Chief among these is "bhadrota," which may be interpreted as
> cultured gentility. Kanan Debi, a leading star of the 1930s and '40s
> who worked at New Theatres between 1936 and 1942, commented in her
> tribute to B. N. Sircar, founder-proprietor of New Theatres, "I was
> under contract with Radha films when I received the offer to play the
> role of Parvati in Devdas. I could not accept in spite of my
> enthusiasm for the offer. My regret was that I could not work with Mr
> Sircar. He had by then earned a very high reputation in the film
> industry as a noble, erudite and respectable filmmaker."4 In a similar
> vein, actress Umashashi Debi, who made a name for herself at New
> Theatres, reminisced in later life:
>
> When I was at New Theatres, we used to compare ourselves with a
> happy family.... What a wonderful feeling of goodwill and happiness
> permeated the studio. We would enter the studio in the early hours of
> the morning and would not leave till our work was complete. Since
> discipline and adherence to principles regulated our lives, projects
> were always completed in time. What intimate bonds held us together.5
>
> These constructions of respectability and extended family came
> together in the public face of New Theatres, producing a sense of the
> perfect. Herein, the imagination centering on New Theatres stands out
> as unique when placed against, for instance, the "electrified utopias"
> of America studied by David Nye6 , where electricity, as a symbol of
> technological progress, became a dominant icon in the first three
> decades of the twentieth century.
>
> That the iconic status of New Theatres was entrenched by the 1950s is
> evident from the following extract from an essay in the souvenir
> brought out on the occasion of the silver jubilee of the Indian Talkie
> in 1956:
>
> It was after that memorable film Chandidas was made when a Bengali
> Pioneer-Shri B N Sircar showed me one day around his New Theatres
> studio which has served for full 25 years not only Bengal but the
> whole of India as a veritable cradle of All India talents on a
> national cultural basis. The studio invested a fortune not in
> rewarding or capitalising on "Artistes" but in building up new
> traditions for the technique of artist acting, direction, photography,
> sound recording etc. It is because of these that this pioneer Bengal
> studio has become a veritable institution and a promoter of talents
> that have largely influenced the whole course of Indian Films. Bombay
> and Madras studios may have advanced further in some respects but the
> Bengal studio experts did the pioneering job on the technical side.7
>
> This rhetoric has survived till to date, not only in reminiscences of
> an older generation, but in much of contemporary writing on the
> subject, and in popular discourse in the tele-visual media.8 In this
> essay, I probe the iconicity of New Theatres, exploring the hypothesis
> that its genesis, which I locate in the 1930s, was rooted in aspects
> of contemporary life that went much beyond the realm of cinema. The
> objective is to look deeper, and understand cinema as an institution
> rooted in the politics and economy of early twentieth century [End
> Page 286] Bengal/India. The final section of the essay aims to provide
> a brief insight into the lasting iconicity of New Theatres in
> contemporary India, where the concern has lingered as a shadow of its
> former self. However, before embarking on an understanding of this
> iconicity, I would like to chart the history of the institution, from
> foundation to dissolution, and subsequent revival.
> The Story of New Theatres
>
> Five minutes seven in the evening on Friday, the 28th November
> 1980. Destiny wrote finish to a history; history that wraps within it
> two covers, the actions, activities and events that resulted in the
> galvanisation of the art and industry of Indian cinema with its
> epicentre at Calcutta; a history that records, efforts, endeavours,
> enterprises and experiments behind the birth, growth and rise of the
> Indian cinema, and particularly the Bengali cinema to the peak of its
> glory, which in its ultimate analysis came to be reckoned as the
> 'Golden Age' of Bengali Cinema. For at this hour that evening-B N
> Sircar—the pioneering spirit of this galvanisation, the founder of New
> Theatres, the fountainhead of film culture in this country, the
> energising force behind all the experiments and innovations that gave
> a prestigious identity and image to Indian Cinema, breathed his last
> at his Elgin Road residence....9
>
> Birendranath Sircar, founder-proprietor of New Theatres, sustained
> Bengal's leading film-producing concern for thirty-five years, 1931 to
> 1955. Sircar holds a record of film production in India, having
> produced 177 films under the New Theatres banner. The only other
> concern that came close to this figure was Chandulal Shah's Ranjit
> Movietone,10 with its 175 films.11
>
> At the start of the 1930s, a large share of Bengal's film industry was
> controlled by the Madans, Parsi businessmen originally from western
> India, who started out as financiers/exhibitors in the early years of
> the century. In 1919, Madan Theatres Ltd. produced
> Bilwamangal,thefirst Bengali feature. By the end of the twenties, the
> Madan Empire included half of all permanent cinemas in the
> subcontinent.12 In 1935, there were about fourteen film producing
> concerns in Calcutta13 . By 1938, these had increased to eighteen14 ,
> though a few of the older ones were no longer in existence. Clearly
> Birendranath Sircar had entered a competitive, but lucrative, field as
> is evident from depositions before the Indian Cinematograph Committee
> of 1927-28 confirming the popularity of the cinema among all classes
> in Bengal.15
>
> In 1928-29, Birendranath formed International Film Craft in
> partnership with friends Amar Mallick and P N Ray, who had been
> associated with the making of Himanshu Rai's16 A Throw of Dice (1929).
> The concern folded up after making two silent films Chorkanta and
> Chashar Meye. In February 1931, Birendranath formed New Theatres as a
> family concern, shares being held exclusively by family members, with
> himself as managing director. In the same year, he opened New Theatres
> Studio in Tollygunge, in south Calcutta. Bharat Laxmi Pictures,
> Devdutta Films, East India Film Co., Kali Films and Radha Film Co.
> also had their own studios. Like other studios of the time, New
> Theatres contracted artistes as salaried employees, generally on the
> basis of monthly payment. The company had three fully equipped units,
> and boasted of some of the best technicians and music hands.
>
> New Theatres' first success was Chandidas (1932), based on the life of
> the Vaishnava17 saint of the same name. It was remade as Puran Bhakat
> (1932) in Hindustani for the North Indian market, setting a trend of
> bilingual and multilingual features, and finally turning the tide for
> B N Sircar who had been struggling to find a distributor in Bombay, by
> then the established nerve center of the Indian cinema industry.
>
> By 1934, New Theatres was a growing presence in parts of north,
> northwest and south India, as evident from the following report:
>
> Mr B N Sircar with Mr I A Haffesji of New Theatres Ltd. left
> Calcutta on the 7th instant for an all-India inspection tour for
> better distribution of N T films and rearrangement of existing areas
> and circuits. The area covered in this tour is extensive and we were
> given to understand that very important arrangements have been made
> with local distributors regarding better and more methodical publicity
> and distribution of New Theatres pictures. It was found out in this
> tour, that distributors of Madras, Madura, Tricinopoly, Erode,
> Bangalore, Poona, Bombay, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Kangra Valley and Lahore
> are very very ...
