Many years ago when I started making films, about 1962, I met Tom Cowan. We worked on each other's very early films... 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm. We shared our experiences of the new movies we were discovering from all around the world.
Tom got a job at the Comnmonwealth Film Unit in Sydney, I also got a job there and stayed for about a year. Tom remained with the CFU for a few years and then moved on to travel widely and shoot films in the big wide world.
The other day Tom sent me these notes about a film he shot in India:
When I was 26, I had an amazing adventure. It was the era of the hippie trail to the East. I arrived in India via Afghanistan and Pakistan and met Pattabhi Rama Reddy and shot a feature movie for him: 'Samskara'.
Steve Carthew, a mate from our days at the Commonwealth Film Unit, was also in India at the time. He introduced me to some artists who lived in a sort of commune on the beach near Madras and I stayed there. One of those artists, Vasudev, was to be the film's art director. I became connected to the movie through Vasudev. Steve was engaged to edit the movie which he did beautifully.
Samskara was my first feature movie as Director of Photography. Fifty years ago there were no foreigners anywhere near the region Sringeri in Karnataka. Of my crew, only the sound recordist spoke some English. Some crew members initially thought my shooting method was crazy - but they accepted and even enjoyed it.
Samskara was based on a brilliant novel by Dr. U R Anantha Murthy. It was a trail-blazing work and very controversial, exposing some of the hypocrisy of the Brahmin caste.
Samskara created a sensation - and was banned, creating great hardship for Pattabhi. At this time I was working with Bernice Rubens who had won the Booker prize and she came with me to India and saw Samskara. Her review helped to overturn the ban.
In 1971 it was awarded Best Indian Movie and the Silver Lion at Locarno. It was also shown here at the Opera House. I won an award for "Best Cinematography" in Karnataka.
Vasudev is now a major artist in India. Girish Karnad who played the lead became a famous playwright and actor. Steve Carthew continued on to London afterwards and edited a couple of feature films there. We are still known in Southern India.
I am planning now to shoot another movie in the same forest when...
The movie "SAMSKARA" is on Youtube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGtj5L_Mbcc
From Bernice Reubens Novelist (Booker Prize Winner), film critic
I saw a preview of Samskara while I was at Madras and I was deeply impressed by" its implications, not only as a work of art, but what seems to me to be a complete breakaway from the safe, conventional forms of Indian film-making. This is a film that will be seriously considered by all committed film-makers throughout the world and will be acknowledged as representing the best in Indian cinema. Samskara is a courageous film. It takes for its theme the concept of the brahmin elite and it dares to question it. But in doing so, it is careful never to demolish. Men, like great ideas, have weaknesses and it is the acknowledgement of man's fallibility that endows him with dignity and compassion. The brahmin concept is only the spring-board of the film. From it emerges a theme of utter universality, that of a man who comes to question his own motives, his own piety. It is the story of man's self-doubt and a nagging sense of responsibility. Samskara is a film that reaches out, that goes beyond the confines of its own particular theme, and its sensitive treatment forces an universal application. With all this, it is difficult to understand why the film was banned. By Western standards, there is nothing in the film that would possibly give offense; and if, by Indian standards, its ethics are questionable, then this is indeed a very sad reflection on Indian standards of morality. I can make no direct comparison in the English scene. The nearest similarity, I suppose, is our treatment of Churchill both in literature and film. It was only when the film-makers and the writers gently suggested that our idol had feet of clay that Churchill achieved that extra dimension of humanity.
If anything can give dignity to the Indian way of life and thought it is a film like Samskara. It is a film of which India should be very proud. It is without doubt a festival film and, as such, would contribute greatly to India's status in the film-making industry. India cannot afford to censor such a film. The backlash from the rest of the world, apart from its people, could be painful and humiliating. The Board of Censors, in passing such a film, would show the same quality of courage and imagination that the film makers have shown in making it.
- Bernice Reubens Here's a link to the documentary
"Revisiting Samskara"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqgJY...
About the career of Girish Karnad
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