Director: Ganpat Shinde
Duration: 00:05:24; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 258.556; Saturation: 0.005; Lightness: 0.196; Volume: 0.038; Cuts per Minute: 14.994
Summary: Suresh Chabria writes: ‘Previously attributed to Phalke, we now know that Tukaram was in fact directed by Ganpat Shinde, another member of the Hindustan Cinema Film Co. team. It extolls the life of Sant Tukaram, one of medieval India’s greatest and much-loved saint-poets who advocated social equality and the philosophy of bhakti or complete devotion to God.
Set against the gaunt landscape of rural Maharashtra, the ecstatic dancing and chanting of the warkaris (devotees of Lord Vithoba of Pandharpur) and the heartfelt and simple charm of Tukaram’s ascension to heaven have a touching naiveté and fervour that are typical of the devotional or saint film genre. The inter-titles contain some original Marathi verses of Sant Tukaram with English translations.
The extant fragment is from the ending of the film and bears an amazing resemblance to the great Prabhat classic Sant Tukaram (1936)’. From Suresh Chabria ed. Light of Asia: Indian Silent Cinema 1912-1934, New Delhi: Niyogi Books/Pune: National Film Archive of India, 2013, pg 79.
Aerial footage well into the 1960s essentially meant 'magical' back-projection, a technique that goes back to the 1920s. Ganpat Shinde's Tukaram, made for the Hindustan Cine Films Company where Dadasaheb Phalke also worked, and in numerous ways presages the more famous 1936 film Sant Tukaram by the Prabhat film company, The most famous is of course Tukaram's ascent to heaven at the end, presented in the intertitles as 'scaling space'.
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