Changing trends in film land

Change is constant goes an old saying.

From quality to quantity, skills to technical supremacy, melody to rhapsody, repartee from class soft words to loud lampooning and mockery things have changed a lot in film world. In the name of trends, films industry laps up many new things and they remain until replaced.

It was director’s day once, slipped to script-writer-music-director days, further heroes dominated the scene, producers and production houses chipped in later, then came the off-beat mania and parallel cinema, now it is a mixture of hero and production house domination while all others are secondary.

Whether you search for a hero after reading the script or plan a script to suit the hero is no more a question. Films have become hero-centric and with the second and third generation stars walking into the industry, the art of film making has taken a beating to a certain extent.

When a grandfather or a Godfather is there, half the picture is ready. There are exceptions with kids from a family of artistes doing extremely well, but the point is things come on a platter to them. Some of them refuse to accept their limitations as well.

Dynasty point of view apart, Tollywood films clearly lack innovation in script, in majority of the cases they lack script itself. A boy and a girl to run about the bushes, a bad character always that is double in age and size to the hero enters, some mischief, vengeance, bloodshed and the like.

Violence has become so mindless and unconvincing that new trends are being created.

In early days fighting scenes were always picturised in long shot, dual or group fights. Now it is close-up, the spill of blood, gory expressions, chopping of heads, arms and throwing people out of glass panes, windows, trains and from anywhere. The funny part is the hero does not match the villain or the group of bad guys in muscle, but still such scenes have come to acceptance.

Action films have become films with violence and a new genre of directors have come to create films which have a heavy dose of violence followed by a comedy track (whether or not it has relevance to the main film) and a song and the cycle moves again. Three to four such revolutions, the film is over.

It is time that the mindless violence is replaced with some meaningful trend. Killing people and chasing enemies for generations cannot be accepted for long as such things are far reality and convincing.