75 Years of Tamil Cinema

The Platinum Jubilee celebrations for Tamil Cinema
Tamil Cinema has completed 75 years!!! Yes! Believe it or not, Tamil Film Industry is 75 now. Still sprightly, still upright and still entertaining – the Industry is growing younger and younger every day and night. Thanks to its legendary heroes and technicians. Keeping in tune with the upcoming technologies and trends in film-making, the industry has proved itself with umpteen award-winning movies, world-class technicians and ingenious maestros. Be it the base-voiced Thiyagaraja Bhagavathar or the astounding T.R Mahalingam, be it our legendary MGR or chevalier Sivaji Ganesan, and be it the Super Star or theUniversal Hero, who can match Tamil Cinema when it comes to star-crazy fans or fan-crazy stars? Or who can beat our industry Or who can beat our industry when it comes to the like to the likes of M.S Subbulakshmi or A.R. Rahman? What’s more, it has a host of historic stars and gallant team of young and fresh talents.

These were the first ever words spoken in a movie, by the actor Al Jolson in Warner Brothers' 'The Jazz Singer.' Just 4 years after that, a Tamil film spoke breaking the silence. The first film was H M Reddy's 'Kalidas.' So, this is the context that completes the 75 year of Talkie Tamil films. This is the right time to evaluate the growth of Tamil cinema, particularly the audio part.
In the times of silent movies, it is the 'talkies' who gave their voice. Standing by the side of the screen they used to tell the story, the conversations and the background of the story.
This was how the global trend was and the Tamil films just followed that trend. In 1926, Warner Brothers Studio of Hollywood introduced the Vitaphone system. In this method, large discs were recorded with the audio and played to synchronise with the conversations in the film. During the shooting of the film, both conversations and music were recorded with the help of the mike.