In focus: A guide to making great movies about the movies

Jubilee, Vikramaditya Motwane’s 2023 series is set in India of the 1940s and looks at a prominent film studio and the birth of a star. But it plays fast and loose with period details, says film critic Deepanjana Pal. “The characters based on Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani are shown to be working in the late 1940s, while Rai died in 1940,” she says. “Jubilee is about as historical as Bridgerton.” Yet, the story shines through, offering a look into the political, economic, social, film and urban preoccupations of the time.

Pal says that it is hard to think of an Indian film or show about cinema and isn’t critical of some aspect of the industry. In both Luck By Chance (2009) and Rangeela (1995), the characters playing actors encounter the same problems that actual newcomers and struggling thespians face. The grit makes the magic work. Bombay Talkies (2013) is a different kind of tribute. The four-part anthology depicts how and how much movies are part of life in India. The stories – of an accidental extra, a gay man breaking free, a flamboyant little boy, a superfan – impart a bit of their magic on to the viewer.

Rana Siddiqui Zaman, an art and film critic, says a good film about cinema will always talk about much more than cinema. She likes the way The Dirty Picture (2011) weaved in a subplot about the way the cut-throat entertainment industry triggers mental-health issues such as depression. Luck By Chance took a cold hard look at how unglamorous it is to be a spot boy or a showman. She also appreciated the way Jubilee debunked the myth that “craft is respected over everything else in a creative industry”. It’s a theme that echoes in the 2021 film Chhello Show. It starts with a boy’s father making an exception for them to go see a movie, only because it has a religious theme and isn’t morally corrupting mainstream fare. The boy, Samay, is captivated anyway. It’s a reminder that cinema is inherently democratic, as long as you can dream.

“I hope everyone from the present generation is writing diaries,” says Pal, who believes that the Indian entertainment business is teeming with stories. Zaman would like to see “works that are more thought-provoking than hatred-provoking”, meaning that shows set in the entertainment world should put human drama in focus. Consider the 2008 film, Supermen Of Malegaon, about a town half a day away from Mumbai, where the residents shoot slapdash remakes of popular Bollywood films on paltry budgets. The seriousness of their pursuits is what makes their story worth telling, worth watching, worth recalling.

For decades, film lovers knew that Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra (1913) was India’s first full-length feature film. But it took Harishchandrachi Factory, made 90 years later, for viewers to follow how that film got made. The 2009 film looks at why Phalke would have sold his printing business to invest in a medium no one cared about, using tech that India didn’t have, to tell a mythological story everyone already knew. His wife refuses to appear on screen, even prostitutes turn him down. He ultimately makes do with an all-male cast. It’s telling how the challenges and power structures in Indian cinema have changed since. “Many who are critical of the industry today are kept out by those who control it,” says Zaman.