My homage to Shiva written on October 5, 2004.
It has been 15 years to this day that a movie by a new director was released with minimal pre-release hype and went on to be the most revolutionary movie in the history of Telugu cinema for the past 2-3 decades. There have been better movies before and better movies after. There have been more successful movies before and more successful movies after. But no other movie before or since has made a greater impact on filmgoers as this movie and become the icon of an entire generation of 15-25 year olds. The movie is Shiva, released on October 5th, 1989. This article is a homage to that epochal day.
Shiva marked an inflexion point in my life, personally, when movies stopped being an interest and became a passion. It was a wonderful time to be 15 (or 17 or 19 …) when I went into Devi theatre on November 26, 1989 feeling like a boy and came out an adult. Shiva showed me the power of cinema and the power of the visual media.
Memories: Every scene in Shiva is etched in our collective memory. Every backdrop is marked out clearly in our memories to be passed on to kids down the ages. Every location was known to us – I do not how many are true and how many apocryphal. The college is where they study is apparently Keyes High School in Secunderabad, the house where he stays with his brother is in S.R Nagar, the cinema hall where they go for a movie is Vimal in Balanagar, the bar where Chinna runs out of is Urvashi Bar in Punjagutta, the house where Shiva stays after marriage is in Lalaguda etc etc. Every guy with a child on his cycle became Shiva. After the movie, countless kids in our school would etch an image of chain on to their desks and numerous shops would be named Shiva in that wonderful calligraphy in red.
Right from posters to photography to promos, Shiva marked a breath of fresh air in Telugu cinema.
Photography: At a time when photographers like P.C. Sriram were making waves, S.Gopal Reddy proved his worth with his brilliant photography. What Shiva will be most remembered for are its wonderful, chase sequences brilliantly shot with a steadi-cam. Steadi-cams were being used even before this movie but never to such effect as in this movie. Shiva led to a huge increase in popularity in usage of steadi-cams, by both accomplished directors like Mani Rathnam and even mainstream commercial directors. In Shiva, the action is more through movement and momentum than aggression. The steadi-cam makes the audience feel every movement with the camera.
Editing: Shiva was criticised by many for being overly violent. I had some uncles and aunts walking out of the theatre at the violence. If you observe the movie closely, there are few scenes of bloodshed and gore. I mean, nothing compared to the movies nowadays. Many criticise Shiva for starting this trend. Most of the violence in Shiva is unseen, it is the way the editor cut the movie. The violence is played over in the viewers mind. Take the scene where Naresh is assaulted, his head is taken to a boulder, the camera takes the boulder’s place and Naresh’s head is pushed toward the camera. Cut. We are not shown his head breaking, his blood splattering etc. If it were shown the scene would have ended there for the viewer however cutting the scene makes the viewer imagine it in three of four different ways and the violence is played over in our minds so many times. This amplifies the violence for the audience. In fact, we are not even shown Naresh’s body in the hospital. A similar pattern can be seen when Sudhakar is killed when he in on the ground, and the axe is raised and the scene is cut.
The undercurrent of violence in Shiva, to a large extent, has to be credited to the editor Sathi Babu. This coupled with the tight screenplay never allows the proceeding to change tone or momentum.
Music: There is nothing left to say about the Illayaraja’s songs. I would like to make a point about the background music which still replays in my mind whenever I visualise any scene. Powerful and evocative. It is a pity the art of background music is losing out these days to music directors who do not know the value of a good score.
Direction: Ramgopal Varma main skills were in writing a tight screenplay and using the assets at his disposal, photograpy, editing and music to visualise a thin story and create a lasting impression. More than anything else, he inspired a generation of filmmakers who took hope from a young 27 year olds first effort and took to film direction. The past 15 years of the Telugu film industry are littered with his protégés – Teja, Krishna Vamshi, etc. – some successful and some not so. He introduced Mani Sharma in Raathri where he scored the background music. Teja’s first photography venture was also Raathri. Rasool, the steadicam operator in Shiva, made his photography debut in Gayam and later directed “Okariki Okaru”.
Posters and promos: The first time I saw the poster of Shiva was the one where Nagarjuna is walking with five people spread out in the background and a rising railway gate (the scene where Amala is abducted and rescued). This and several other posters (another memorable one being a degree certificate being rolled by a chain with the caption “He was the nice guy in college till they made him a graduate in inhumanities”) were markedly different from the run of the mill posters in vogue back then. The usage of English in these posters was also so new to the audiences (who now are bored repetitively with mindless captions). Even the TV Promos were in English. A short scene ending with a voice over “Nagarjuna in Shiva” very much like a Hollywood promo.
Other credits: Art: Thota Tharani; Dialogues: Tanikella Bharani
I wonder how many of you are less than 25 years old to whom the movie must have come at a bit too young an age. The true worth of a movie is in its ability to withtstand the ravages of time and Shiva does come out strongly here. Shiva to this day still gives me goosebumps whenever I see it and imagine Raja’s score playing on the background. The art of cinema journalism and cinema history is not too prevalent in India but I surely wish someone would write a book on Shiva and bring home those memories.
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