My interview with Scroll about masala cinema vs. ‘mass’ cinema
- Trinity Auditorium
- Sep 9, 2023
- 2 min read
The masala movie – derived from myth – has always been a part of our cinema. Take Gadar. Whether intended or not, the story of Sunny Deol going to Pakistan to get back his wife kidnapped who was kidnapped in a helicopter mirrors the story of Rama going to Lanka to get back his wife kidnapped in a Pushpaka Vimana. These myths are so much a part of our consciousness that one does not have to consciously say, “I am going to redo the Ramayana…” It can just flow while writing.
What differentiates the masala movie from, say, a social drama? Mainly, the heightened nature of the happenings. The dialogues, the narrative, everything is just a little larger than life. But the masala movie is still written the same way as a social drama is, the way all storytelling is. There is a setup, then the audience waits for the payoff.
The masala movie’s highlights are the “mass” scenes: a few golden examples being the meek Rajinikanth’s eruption in Baasha or the meek Kamal Haasan’s transformation in Vishwaroopam. But these moments cone within a regular story written the regular way that makes us register the emotional beats.
The “mass” movie, on the other hand, is what you get when you ditch all the connective tissue, the gradual build-up to a given emotion, and just focus on the “mass” moments. It is still hard to write those moments, but it’s hard to feel anything (other than love for your hero) in a “mass” movie because it is all about hero worship, hero elevation. And you could (rightly) say that the audience that goes to these “mass” movies DOES NOT want to feel anything. They just wait and whistle for those celebratory moments.
There is a lot more to talk about and the above is a lot of generalisation, but I just wanted to set the context for this interview I did with Nandini Ramnath for Scroll. Hope you like it.
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