Indian cinema and Mumbai go together. The ‘Talkie Film’ was a boon to the middle class because it was affordable and provided an avenue to fulfill dreams while awake. Mumbai, being the central place for talkie films, became Mayanagari!
The financial capital of Mumbai has a unique personality -- probably the most significant example of urban India, it speaks many languages and personifies the diversity of India in every sense of the word.
From political intrigue to class struggle; from flourishing business empires to the poorest slums, the city has many dimensions and equal stories to tell.
From noir tales to gangster sagas to the love stories of working men and women, Hindi films like Deewar, Chakra, Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho!, Satya, Lunch Box, Saathiya, Bombay and Mumbai Meri Jaan have tried to decode the true nature of the city for decades.
To discuss ‘Destination Cinema: Mumbai’, the Asiatic Society of Mumbai will be holding a series from March 17-24.
The event is being hosted by the Mumbai Research Centre of Asiatic Society and will be coordinated by Dr Santosh Pathare.
The topics and speakers are Arrival of Cinema (Ashok Rane), Mumbai Reflects in Cinema (Siraj Syed), Mumbai in Marathi Cinema (Abhijeet Deshpande), Theatres and Studios of Mumbai (Arun Puranik), Mumbai through Documentary (Kunda P N) and Mumbai as a Theme (Ganesh Matkari).
“The biggest film industry is located in Mumbai both in size and numbers. This Megapolis has reflected in thousands of films made in various languages in various ways. In most of them, it simply appears as the location where the story or part of the story is set. Then there are some films that use the name Bombay or Mumbai in their titles, while we find some popular songs describing life in the city, both as the glamourous big apple or its seedy heartless underbelly,” said Raamesh Gowri Raghavan, a life member of Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
The lecture series Mumbai: Destination Cinema will be an attempt to interpret the relationship between the city and its people as it reflects in the medium most equipped to narrate it; and also to explore various aspects of Mumbai city revealed artistically in cinema.