Archive
Leadership Insights from Jaina text Saman Suttam 71
The Production of the Past: BioScope
4(1) 71–80
Early Tamil Film History as a © 2013 Screen South Asia Trust
SAGE Publications
Living Archive Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/097492761200483060
http://bioscope.sagepub.com
Stephen Putnam Hughes
Abstract
This article considers a series of questions about the relationships between historical sources, archival
practice, and the production of film history about Tamil cinema of the 1930s. I review the range of
archival material relevant for producing histories of early Tamil film in order to consider how the issue
of access to historical sources has produced various kinds of expert knowledge. What kind of limits do
these various film archives impose on our historical research? How do these archives constitute their
own historical narratives? And, how might we begin to think critically beyond these limitations to write
alternative histories of early Tamil film? I argue that these questions are vital in order to remake film
history as an ongoing, unfinished, and open-ended project that is part of the living present.
Keywords
Tamil cinema, 1930s, archives, film history
The history of early Tamil films of the 1930s may
never have an obvious home in any one official or
public film archive. There is no single institution
that is specially tasked with collecting or preserving
these materials. Rather, there are multiple sites,
institutions, and individuals who have all served as
custodians of the past and have variously
contributed to the production of histories of early
Tamil film. In this article, I argue that in order for
Tamil films from the 1930s to remain accessible to
future generations, they must be made traceable. In
this living Tamil film archive, traces of the past
become part of a vision for the future. For film
history dwells alongside us as part of the living
present; it is an ongoing, unfinished, and open- Image 1. Film still for the Tamil film Sampoorna
ended project (Hall, 2001). Harischandra (Sagar Film Company, 1932).
This article emerges from a 2011 seminar enti- Source: From the author’s personal collection with grateful
tled The Future of Early Tamil Cinema. Funded by acknowledgment to Film News Anandan.
Stephen Putnam Hughes is affiliated with Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS, University of
London, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
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72 The Production of the Past
the Indian Foundation for the Arts and hosted by the Roja Muthiah
Research Library in Chennai (see Image 2), our objective was to
inspire and encourage a greater scholarly and public engagement
with archival practice as a way of preserving, evaluating, and re-
energizing the history of early Tamil cinema. The workshop
aimed to evaluate and enumerate the extant historical resources
for the study of 1930s Tamil films, toward making these resources
more available and more regularly used. In this seminar we
sought to probe critically, if gently, the popular nostalgic narra-
tives on early Tamil film history. As a corollary, we sought to link
the past with the present through a more considered engagement
with cinema’s archival pasts. For an engagement with archival
sources is the first and necessary part of opening up the early his-
tory of Tamil cinema for a more critical interrogation and the pro-
duction of alternative historical narratives. Archival engagement
with early Tamil cinema is crucial not only for helping us rethink
why film matters to larger social and cultural histories of south
India, but also for reconsidering a new historical agenda for film
Image 2. Future of Early Tamil
Cinema poster (from The Future of Early studies in India (Hughes, 2007, 2009, 2010).
Tamil Cinema seminar, 2011. Funded by Indeed, the workshop was particularly successful in bringing
the Indian Foundation for the Arts and scholars and archivists with expertise in cinema from other parts
hosted by the Roja Muthiah Research of India together with experts on Tamil cinema to discuss shared
Library in Chennai.). problems and priorities for the documentation, preservation, and
research in early Indian cinema. However, I was left with a
series of nagging questions about the relationships between historical sources, archival practice, and the
production of film history. As Trouillot (1995) has argued, the production and circulation of versions of
“the past” involves the uneven contribution of competing groups and individuals who have unequal
access to the means to support its production and circulation. Thinking in terms of the history of cinema
in India, how does this play out? What “other” stories might emerge if we paid more careful attention to
how the collection and access of historical sources have shaped the making of Tamil film history?
“Archives” do not exist only in government record offices. Particularly for the case of cinema history,
these are to be found in both private and public collections. What is less clear is: What kind of limits do
these various film archives impose on our historical research? How do these archives constitute their own
historical narratives? And, how might we begin to think critically beyond these limitations to write alter-
native histories of early Tamil film? In what follows, I review what the range of archival material relevant
for producing histories of early Tamil film is, where it is, and what it has been used for up till now.
The Films and Where to Find Them
The most obvious place to start film history is with the films themselves. However, as with much early
film history in India (and indeed world over), these resources are scarce. Chemical instability, fire
accidents, unfavorable climatic conditions, a lack of preservation resources, and a certain amount of
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Stephen Putnam Hughes 73
carelessness, means that precious few remain. In the case of Tamil films, of the approximately 200 Tamil
films produced in the 1930s, there are currently only 12 films known to survive.1 While it is reasonable
to expect that a few more films might emerge within the next decade or so, it is obvious that the lack of
surviving films presents a huge challenge for understanding early Tamil film. To make matters worse,
most of the surviving Tamil films are not in widespread circulation. They can be difficult to find. What
this means is that we cannot rely only on the films themselves to write their history.
The only film archive with any celluloid versions of Tamil films from the 1930s is the National Film
Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune. The NFAI is an important custodian of at least four of the existing
12 Tamil films from the 1930s.2 As far as I can tell (and I would be delighted to be mistaken) there is no
comprehensive and definitive publicly accessible listing of the early Tamil film holdings held by NFAI.
Perhaps there might even be more early Tamil films at the NFAI that have not yet been recognized. But
even if the NFAI held more films, would there be resources to restore and digitize copies of this material
and make them easily available for public screenings? Like many of the other so called “regional” films
of India (that is, films in languages other than Hindi), early Tamil film has suffered a certain amount of
neglect at the NFAI. To be fair, the NFAI is an underfunded institution that cannot be expected to be able
to adequately handle its enormous task in collecting, restoring, preserving, and providing public access
to India’s vast film heritage. Since the 1960s the NFAI has been at the forefront of efforts to salvage and
preserve fragile films and print material that would have otherwise been lost forever. Nevertheless, given
its institutional constraints and national agenda, it is doubtful that early Tamil film will ever become a
top priority for the NFAI.
In contrast, commercial DVD-producing companies are at present, perhaps unknowingly, doing some
of the most important work in helping early Tamil films remain part of a living heritage. In this DVD
companies follow upon earlier work done by the video cassette business. Starting in the early 1990s,
some video cassette companies tracked down a number
of old film prints of important early Tamil films and
released new video recordings of them. These companies
were able to take advantage of the lapse in copyright for
early Tamil films and transferred them to a new media
format. With very little investment or risk old Tamil films
were converted into a new commercial opportunity.
In this way the M.K. Thyagaraja Bagavatar films
like Chintamani (1937), Ambikaapathi (1937), and
Tiruneelakantar (1939) have become the most widely
circulated early Tamil films to have survived and func-
tion as a contemporary marker for early Tamil film (See
Sundar Kaali, this issue). As DVDs have replaced video
cassettes, new companies have moved into the business
of early Tamil film. In particular, the Modern Cinema
Company of Madurai has brought out relatively inexpen-
sive DVD versions of early Tamil films (see Image 3).
The circulation of video cassettes also facilitated crosso-
ver of film content into the new satellite and cable TV Image 3. Cover of the Modern Cinema
networks that were arguably the most important mass DVD of the Santha Sakubai (Rayal Talkies,
media phenomena of the 1990s. Madurai, 1939).
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74 The Production of the Past
The slow accumulation of video and DVD releases over the last 20 years along with their broadcast
on Tamil TV channels have by now made the limited number of early Tamil films in circulation more
accessible to current generations than they have been at any point in the last 50 years. Given the over-
whelming dominance of cinema-related programming on Tamil satellite TV, TV broadcasters and view-
ers have together produced a living legacy of early Tamil film. Rather than lock early Tamil film away
in a closed-access institution like the NFAI, the key to the future of old media lies in the renewed life
offered by new media. I suspect we will soon see digital copies of early Tamil films uploaded onto video
sharing websites where they can continue to grow as a living archive.
The Collectors
While few film prints from the 1930s survive, the beginnings of Tamil cinema in the 1930s coincided
with a marked increase in the publishing industry of south India (Venkatachalapathy, 2012). As a result,
a vast range of printed materials from the decade can still be found throughout south India. Small pub-
lishers, magazines, and newspapers in the 1930 all sought to cash in on the sales potential of the new and
rapidly growing popularity of Tamil film and attract the suddenly substantial advertising revenue it
offered. Tamil film of the 1930s found its way into numerous and widely disseminated film song-books,
film magazines, postcards, newspapers, handbills, advertisements, invitations, and books. These materi-
als form a substantial historical record that is necessary for locating early Tamil film as a larger social
and cultural phenomenon. Nevertheless, urgent attention is needed to identify, collect, and preserve
whatever supporting print materials still remain.
In the absence of any official film library or archive for early Tamil film, the vast bulk of surviving
materials relating to Tamil cinema in the 1930s is currently to be found in the hands of private collectors.
Their work has been central to the production and maintenance of this living archive. Though one can
only guess what may be out there, we know that hundreds—perhaps thousands—of private collectors
have devoted decades of their lives to assembling personal archives. They have often worked in relative
obscurity and isolation, collecting as a labor
of love. Until the last decade or so, these
materials were relatively inexpensive and
easy to find from second-hand book dealers
(see Image 4) and even in scrap paper depots
throughout Tamil Nadu, but this is changing.
Collectors of Tamil film-related print
materials have, in their own way, continued in
the long-established tradition of collecting
and preserving lost Tamil texts (Gros, 2010).
Over the course of the late nineteenth century
a small number of collectors searched for sur-
viving palm leaf manuscripts that eventually
led to the “rediscovery” of an ancient classi-
Image 4. Second-hand book dealer, Salem, Tamil Nadu, cal Tamil literature (Nambi Aroonan, 1980).
1994. In many ways this tradition of collecting has
Source: Photo by the author. continued in the twentieth century, with many
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Stephen Putnam Hughes 75
Tamil literary scholars amassing very large private
collections. In a similar manner there are numerous avid
Tamil film collectors, working like latter-day U.V.
Swaminatha Iyers. And, similar to an earlier moment in
the field of Tamil studies, a notion of expert knowledge
has emerged with private collectors acquiring a new sta-
tus as experts on early Tamil film.
This correlation between private collections and
expert knowledge produced the first generation of pro-
fessional non-academic experts of early Tamil film. In
particular I am referring to three well-known chroni-
clers, “Film News” Anandan, Randor Guy and Aranthai
Narayanan. These three men have done more than any
Image 5. Film News Anandan at home, 2010.
others to ensure early Tamil film has a live presence in
Source: Photo by the author.
contemporary Tamil Nadu. During the final decades of
the twentieth century, these men used their private
collections to fashion uniquely successful careers and produce styles of expert knowledge of early Tamil
film. However, their publications are based on unique access to their own collections; while their work
reaches vast popular audiences, their collections do not.
Film News Anandan started his career as a film still photographer and as journalist for a well-known
film journal, Film News3 (see Image 5). Through his professional involvement in the film world of
Chennai, he developed an extensive collection of film stills and print materials and began compiling infor-
mation about Tamil films. For over 60 years his print collection on Tamil film functioned as a commercial
reference library, and information service. Over time, Anandan developed close connections with the film
industry, and worked as a publicist and editor for a South Indian film trade journal, Star Voice. In the
1980s he featured his collection in a traveling public exhibit that presented an account of Tamil cinema
history and toured widely for a few years. Film News Anandan never produced anything resembling a
narrative history. Instead, in his capacity as a kind of semi-official statistician of the film industry, and
with some financial support from the Government of Tamil Nadu, he was able to put together a very
substantial reference guide to Tamil cinema from its beginnings down to the present (Anandan, 2004).
Along with Film News Anandan, Randor Guy is probably the best known popular historian of early
Tamil film.4 His long-running weekly column in The Hindu has undoubtedly done more to inform the
English newspaper reading public about early Tamil film than anyone else. Originally trained as a law-
yer, Guy has written several novels and collections of stories in Telugu, Tamil, and English. However, he
is best known for his journalistic writings on film history over a period of about 50 years. And like
Anandan’s work, Guy’s expertise on Tamil film has, to a large extent, derived from his own private
collection of source material. However, since the 1970s Guy has also conducted numerous journalistic-
style interviews with senior film stars, directors, and technicians, many of which were recorded and are
still held at the NFAI. He has mined his private archive and interviews to create highly engaging and
colorful narratives about Tamil films and their stars. Over the years he has written numerous newspaper
and magazine series in different languages and in different publication outlets. Some of these have been
collected in a book-length publication in English (1997).
The third of my conjoined collector/expert examples, Aranthai Narayanan, was the most academi-
cally inclined of the popular historians of early Tamil film.5 Like Film News Anandan and Randor Guy,
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76 The Production of the Past
Narayanan converted his substantial collection into a book, Tamil Cinimavin Kathai (1981), which was
at the time of its publication the most authoritative account of early Tamil film (see Image 6). In 1982
this Tamil book earned Narayanan the inaugural award for the “Best Book on Cinema” given as part
of the National Film Awards administered by the Government of India’s Directorate of Film Festivals.
After this success Narayanan went on to publish a series of popular Tamil books on Tamil film. Yet,
despite his national recognition, Narayanan’s writings have never been translated into English and are
not known beyond a Tamil reading public. Even after his death, his numerous writings are being continu-
ally republished in new editions and edited selections.
Tamil film collectors have produced histories of early Tamil film as a product of their life’s work. In
some cases, the children of Tamil film collectors have become the collections’ new custodians. For exam-
ple, starting in the 1940s, D.V. Balakrishnan, collected everything he could find about the film singing star,
M.K. Thyagarajan (MKT). Balakrishnan’s collection was eventually passed on to his lawyer son, Suresh
Balakrishnan, who recently completed a comprehensive 500-page biography of MKT using his father’s
collection (Balakrishnan, 2010). Unfortunately, instances where the care and passion for film collecting is
passed on in the family seem rare. On the passing of a film collector it is common to see family members
Image 6. Songbook cover of the Tamil film, Kalidas (Imperial Films, Bombay, 1931). This songbook was part of the
private collection of Aranthai Narayanan and bears his stamp. It is now held at the Roja Muthiah Research Library.
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Stephen Putnam Hughes 77
showing little interest and even expressing resentment about the amount of time, space, and resources put
into these collections of film memorabilia. There is no certainty about the fate in store for numerous small
collections scattered across south India once their primary caretakers are no longer able to look after them.
However, we can be certain that due to the increasing difficulty of finding collectible materials we are
coming to the end of the period where private collecting can serve as a viable mode of producing early
Tamil film history.
Tamil Nadu Archives
The Tamil Nadu Archives (TNA) and Library offer much for the study of early Tamil film. Whereas the
strength of private collections lies in publicity materials and fan cultures, the relatively limited popular
publishing and press material on film held at the TNA was assembled as part of the administrative work
of a colonial state apparatus. The TNA and Library reflect how the Government of Madras Presidency
sought to monitor, regulate, and report on the beginnings of Tamil film. Even though the colonial govern-
ment did not particularly value cinema, it still managed to produce a large volume of records across
many official departments dealing with Tamil film. As a result, the TNA holds a wide range of files relat-
ing to film censorship, the licensing of cinema theaters, policing of public disturbances at the cinema,
objections to the building of cinemas, and concerns about the public safety at cinemas amongst other
topics. Each of the files in the TNA contains various amounts of correspondence from officials at many
different levels and ranks of the government ranging from a specific locality all the way up to Whitehall
in London.
Collector/experts’ work grew out of their unique access to a particular set of popular sources but was
unable to address questions of how the colonial state either impinged upon, or supported the cinema, its
production, its exhibition or cinema-going. Theodore Baskaran’s landmark book, The Message Bearers
(1981), bridged this gap. It was the first academic work on early Tamil cinema, and remains the most
important book for that period. Baskaran drew both on private collectors’ materials and extensive research
at the TNA. The authority of Baskaran’s work was based upon the combination of academic training and
the mobilization of officially assembled archival sources to produce a new narrative about why early
Tamil film mattered as part of nationalist politics. In contrast to the collector/experts, Baskaran came to
cinema after a career in the Indian Civil Service and Postal Service. He wrote The Message Bearers when
he took a career break. Whereas collector/experts reached larger audiences, Baskaran’s book was granted
greater authority across a network of global experts. Different archives produce different products and
acquire different statuses in terms of the value they are assigned and the users, readers, and researchers
they engage. In the contemporary era, such hierarchies and distinctions are being unsettled.
Roja Muthiah Research Library as a Tamil Film Archive
If, as I have argued, an older generation of film fan/popular historian collectors provided the first catalyst
for producing history of Tamil film, then the future legacy of this history will have to pass on to another
kind of archive and another kind of research. In this regard, the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL)
in Chennai stands in contrast to the previous do-it-yourself private collecting practice, and in contrast also
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78 The Production of the Past
to the government archive. As a new institutional and archival alternative, RMRL offers an unprecedented
open access and shared space that can serve as an important new model for preservation and exchange.
Though RMRL was never exclusively conceived as a film archive, it nevertheless now hosts the largest and
best preserved public holdings on early Tamil film (see Image 7). And the collection is still growing.6
The recent emergence of RMRL represents a significant moment of potential where what started as part
of a haphazard tradition of private collecting can become part of the self-conscious work of a publicly-
accessible Tamil film archive. RMRL began life as a private collection in much the same way as many
other private collections. Roja Muthiah (1926–1992) started collecting books while working as an artist
and a signboard painter during the late 1940s and 1950s in what was then Madras city. He eventually devel-
oped his collecting interests into a book-selling business. He briefly ran a book stall in Moore Market, then
the major regional center of the book trade. During the 1960s he shifted his base back to his ancestral home
in the village of Kottaiyur, Chettinad, where he refashioned his extensive collection of books, pamphlets,
and ephemera into what he eventually called the Kottaiyur Library Service. Muthiah’s collecting did not
specialize in any one area, but was purposefully and systematically eclectic in its range and scope, inclu
ding classical literature, medicine, folklore, religion, popular journals, cinema, drama notices, and popular
song-books. After Muthiah’s death, the University of Chicago organized the purchase of the collection in
1994 and set up the RMRL as an independent trust and moved the collection to Chennai (Nye, 2010).
Image 7. Songbook cover of the Tamil fim, Cintamani (Rayal Talkies, Madurai, 1937). The songbook was part of
Roja Muthiah’s personal collection and bears his stamp.
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Stephen Putnam Hughes 79
Over the course of a 50-year journey, what started as one passionate and dedicated man’s collection
has been transformed into a new kind of public archive for Tamil south India. RMRL has already become
something of a magnet for other collectors, who want a safe and well-preserved future for their personal
collections. Slowly but steadily, private collectors have come forward to donate or sell their materials to
RMRL—for RMRL offers not only remuneration but also a way for private collectors’ passions to live
on. In this way RMRL is preserving the selection practices and labor of assemblage that went into private
collecting, but now as part of a much larger publicly accessible institution run by professional librarians
and archivists. RMRL is redistributing archival power in south India and engaging a new generation of
students, scholars, and wider publics.
RMRL’s collection forces us to reconsider how one should go about doing historical research on early
Tamil film. One of the strengths of the collection for understanding early Tamil film is that, like the TNA,
it was never narrowly conceived. The growing breadth and scope of the collection allows for a greater
possibility of moving laterally between materials directly related to Tamil film and a wide variety of
other sources that have not conventionally been considered part of film history. For example, we are still
waiting for someone to mine the substantial body of fictional literature from the 1930s to explore how
Tamil film and film going were represented. How we excavate film history raises questions about the
degree to which it is advisable—or even possible—to isolate film as a unique object of history. Collections
like RMRL open up new possibilities for how we ask questions of the past.
Notes
1. There is some consensus that these films include the following in roughly chronological order: Pavalakodi
(1934) Sri Meenakashi Cinetone; Sati Sulochana (1934) Bharat Lakshmi Pictures; Pattinathar (1936) Vel
Pictures; Chintamani (1937) Rayal Talkie Distributors; Ambikaapathi (1937) Salem Shankar Films; Madurai
Veeran (1938) Rajam Talkies and Raju Films; Santhanadevan (1939) Modern Theatres Ltd.; Rambaiyin Kathal
(1939) Central Studios, Coimbatore; Santha Sakkubai (1939) Rayal Talkie Distributors; Pragalatha (1939)
Central Studios, Coimbatore; Tiruneelakantar (1939) Thyagaraja Films; and Tyagabhoomi (1939) Madras
United Artists. Some of these are available on DVD, some were released as video cassettes in the 1990s, but
have not yet surfaced on DVD, and some are held at the National Film Archives of India, Pune.
2. I cannot be certain, but it seems likely that these films might include Pavalakodi (1934), Sati Sulochana (1934),
Madurai Veeran (1938), and Tyagabhoomi (1939).
3. I am indebted to Film News Anandan’s great generosity in freely sharing his collection and his time with me
over a period of 20 years.
4. When I first started researching Tamil film history I paid Randor Guy for what amounted to tutorial lessons
where I met with him and interviewed him at his house on a weekly basis for several months. I am indebted to
him for helping me take my first steps into early Tamil film.
5. I tried on and off over many years to meet with Aranthai Narayanan and regret that I was never able to meet
with him before he passed away.
6. What is missing from RMRL as from all other collections I have discussed, is a comprehensive newspaper
archive. Although The Hindu, The Madras Mail, and Swadesa Mitran exist on microfilm in a few collections
(Centre for Research Libraries, Chicago and the British Library and Teen Murti Bhavan, New Delhi), these are
hard to use and even harder to access. Hopefully other papers will follow the example of the Times of India and
make their entire collections available digitally to research libraries.
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