Madras was a thriving epicentre for not just Tamil films but also for those in all south Indian languages, with its state-of-the-art facilities and visionaries who introduced several firsts in film-making.
An automobile parts dealer who turned his attention to cinema, R. Nataraja Mudaliar set up the The Indian Film Company studio in Madras in 1916, and went on to make the first silent film in south India, Keechaka Vadham. Talkies came in later, with the pioneering efforts of A. Narayanan, who founded the General Pictures Corporation and set up the first studio with sound recording facilities in the city, Srinivasa Cinetone. Until then, one had to go to Bombay or Calcutta to produce films but in 1934, Srinivasa Kalyanam became the first talkie produced in Madras.
In an interview with The Hindu in 1936, Mr. Narayanan said he was keen to see the film industry and the facilities in Madras advance like it had in parts of north India and other countries. True to his statement, rapid developments were seen in the next few decades.
Bringing together both film-goers and film traders, the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce was inaugurated in April 1939.
The 1940s welcomed film studios to the city. S.S. Vasan’s Gemini Studios came up on Mount Road, Vijaya Vauhini Studios in 1948 at Kodambakkam and in 1949, A.V. Meiyappan shifted AVM studios from Karaikudi to a 10-acre campus, again in Kodambakkam.
This turned Kodambakkam (and Vadapalani) into a famed cinema hub for aspiring actors, technicians and even fans, waiting to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars.
Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, in a 2010 interview to The Hindu, recalled Madras’ link with cinema. “Films of all regional languages were patronised in the city because films of all languages used to be made here,” he had said.
Mount Road (Anna Salai) became a hub for theatres, with Elphinstone theatre, Gaiety Cinema and later, Anand and Shanti theatres. Kodambakkam had Liberty theatre and Broadway had Minerva, now called Batcha theatre.
The studios in Madras were advanced and had expensive special equipment. A.V.M. Saravanan, son of the legendary film producer A.V. Meiyappan, founder of AVM Studios, says in the book AVM 60, that it was the only studio at the time to have realistic special effects equipment to simulate rain and storm effects in films.
Soon, a transformation ensued — movies that were being made in the confines of the studios began to be shot in real locations. Significant portions of Anbe Vaa, Kadhalikka Neramillai and Then Nilavu, made in the 1960s, were shot on-location, outdoors. Once they moved outdoors, the dynamics of the films themselves changed.
Film historian and writer Venkatachalam said two films — Annakili and 16 Vayadhinile — were highly influential among film-makers.
“The success of the two films made producers look for new locations to film their stories. It also reduced the costs involved and they began filming in realistic settings. This resulted in studios in Chennai slowly turning into commercial establishments, apartments and godowns,” he said.
Another development that fundamentally changed Tamil cinema was the arrival of digital cinema projectors in the 1990s that were installed in theaters. Chennai-based Real Image Media Technologies (now Qube Cinema Technologies) was at the forefront of this change. The cost of distributing the film print of a movie, to be played in theatres across Tamil Nadu, significantly reduced and the film could be played in more theatres simultaneously.
Just as a trip to Elphinstone theatre was incomplete without falooda from Jafar’s Ice Cream back in the day, the city now has its multiplexes that remain inseparable from popcorn. While theatres have remained shut since March, the buzz around OTT platforms and the varied content they have is yet another turning point.
