Glowing Ambers

Before he took a ship to India from New York in 1961,Gaston Roberge took an orientation session of sorts.

Before he took a ship to India from New York in 1961,Gaston Roberge took an orientation session of sorts. The Apu trilogy,which was playing in New York at that time, was his introduction to India. I felt deeply for the characters. There was real empathy, says Roberge.

Apu,Durga and Sarbajaya may have nothing in common with Jai,Veer and Thakur,but Roberge holds the characters of the 1975 blockbuster Sholay in same esteem. A film scholar has to have a proper understanding of the likes and dislikes of the audience. Sholay is a hugely popular film and has inspired countless spin offs which is why I thought it would be interesting to find out more about it. Sholay is not a film which people find enjoyable in first viewing and then promptly forget. They keep going back to it. They seem to take back something from the experience, says Roberge.

In his book The Indian Film Theory: Flames of Sholay,which was launched at the St Xaviers College last week,Roberge applies the concepts of Natya Shastra on Sholay. I had been asking myself since the 1980s why we do not have a new theory of popular film. It was only recently that I got an answer after studying a 2000-year treatise, says Roberge.

Popular cinema may have been royally ignored by most film scholars,but Roberge has never been disdainful towards them.

Most academics dismiss popular cinema because they see the film in the framework of a western theory of film as expressed by Aristotle two thousand years ago based on the great dramas of his time. I am convinced that if we want to understand the popular film we have to look at it from the point of view of the Indian subcontinent, says Roberge.

Roberge’s book is a slim 100 page study that offers a new perspective on the theories underlying Indian commercial cinema. This is the latest offering of Roberge who has written more than 25 books on cinema and spirituality and is the founder of Chirabani,the first media centre in eastern India.

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