The Literary Connection

Although Uroob and others wrote screenplays and Thakazhi's Randitangazhi was adapted to film in 1958, the practice of utilising literary materials of reputes as raw material for film scripts became more frequent only in the sixties. When well-known stories and novels, mostly serialised in literary journals, were made into films, it automatically introduced a lot of cultural aspects which were absent in the Malayalam films of the fifties. Novels were preferred to other literary sources. The tendency to borrow literary materials for film-making was at its peak in the late sixties and early seventies. The collaboration of writers and directors produced fruitful results on the Malayalam screen. The general standard of production went up. Since many of the literary materials were area-specific, films had to be shot on actual locations. This was something that was unheard of at least in Malayalam cinema a decade before. Much of the difficulty in providing a realistic touch in a film like Neelakkuyil arose from its studio-bound interior shots.

Collaborative Cinema of the Sixties

The best thing that happened to Malayalam cinema in the sixties was the active participation of well-known writers in film projects. Thoppil Bhasi and Ramu Kariat in Mudiyanaya Puthran, Vaikom Mohammed Basheer and A. Vincent in Bhargavi Nilayam, M.T. Vasudevan Nair and A. Vincent in Murappennu are some of the best examples of such collaborative work. The first two films were produced by the ever adventurous Chandrathara Pictures and the third by Roopavani films. Bhargavi Nilayam veined away from the realistic streak and moved to the world of fantasy and horror for a change.

1965 marked the entry of short story writer and novelist M.T. Vasudevan Nair whose writing by nature had a visual orientation. M.T. Vasudevan Nair was exposed to cinema when he began scripting. Films based on his screenplay maintained a visual quality unmatched in the rest of Malayalam films of the time. M.T. Vasudevan Nair's screenplay was effectively used by cameraman turned director, A. Vincent in Murappennu. Though still theatrical and melodramatic Murappennu had the advantage of being shot extensively on location. When actors and actresses were placed in real locations like river banks, matriarchal family-abodes, gravel paths and paddy fields, they came out with an acting style freed from the theatricality inherent in studio-filming.

A landmark in collaborative effort happened in 1966 with Chemmeen which won the President's gold medal for the first time for a south Indian film. Based on Thakazhy Sivasankara Pillai's widely-read novel, the film had screen play by S.L. Puram Sadanandan, camera work by Marcus Bartley, editing by Hrishikesh Mukherji and music by Salil Chaudhury, all established names in the Indian film industry. All these contributed immensely to the overall technical quality of the film. But its aspirations right from the title shots were strictly aimed at the box office. Ramu Kariat, its director, had a tendency to work on epic proportions often missing the finer elements. Chemmeen looked at the fishermen of Kerala from a distance and all the established actors looked separated from the rest of the fishing community and their environments. Its characters very often appeared before the camera in frontal shots, their faces fully lit though set in fishermen's thatched dwellings, in the theatrical style of the earlier decade. It's music was unrelated to the cultural milieu though the songs tuned to the score originally done for non- Malayalam films were lilting and pleasing. Its high calibre publicity greatly aided by the gold medal secured before its commercial release and its technical flourish made a great impact on the audience in Kerala and outside. Ramu Kariat got national attention with this effort.

A major landmark in Malayalam cinema was to come in the next year with Iruttinte Atmavu. With a detailed screenplay by M.T. Vasudevan Nair, P. Bhaskaran could make one of the best films of his career and also provide Malayalam cinema with a new direction; that of the low budget film. One could see a lot of the pre-occupations of the scenarist, who carried the touches of human relationships through all of his subsequent films whether as screenplay writer or director. In spite of its large number of studio shots and overall theatricality, the film was so culturally rich that many of the episodes would become archetypes for future Malayalam film makers dealing with family drama. It depicted the story of an imbecile (finely portrayed by the late Prem Nazir) in a joint family with remarkable sensitivity and seriousness of purpose.

1967 also witnessed the first film of a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune; P.M. Abdul Aseez's Aval. Two years later another graduate John Sankaramangalam made Janmabhoomi, the first Malayalam film with the support of Film Finance Corporation (now the National Film Development Corporation). Shot in Wayanad, on the western Ghats, a pristine location for film shooting, the film told the unexplored subject of assimilation of a migrant community and the theme of religious co-existence. Though marred by over-statement, the film won a Presidential Award for the best film on national integration.

By the end of the sixties, the traditional Malayalam cinema had produced a number of good work, most of them based on reputed literary work by authors like Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Parappurath, K.T. Mohammed, Thakazhy Sivasankara Pillai, Malayattoor Ramakrishnan, P. Kesava Dev and Thoppil Bhasi. The directors who need special mention include P. Bhaskaran, Ramu Kariat, A. Vincent and K.S. Sethumadhavan. The film makers of the sixties however, turned out to be mere translators than true authors of their films. This was evident in the uneven quality of their productions.