Crafts and industry in early films of British India: Contrasting album and process films

Abstract

Films showing industrial processes or crafts were popular topics in early cinema. However in the case of British India, these films were part of a larger discourse in which India was admired for its traditional crafts, while for the development of modern industries the initiative and management of the British were considered necessary. Craft films of India are therefore always constructed as album films – giving a glimpse of what is involved in the making of the object, but not showing much of the larger process. However, modern industries in India were filmed as process films, which gave ample space to understand the production process. The rhythm of the factory is thus mirrored in the rhythm of the film sequences, making the industrial films more attractive to watch than the craft films. Using the examples of a film showing crafts in Kashmir and a film showing a rope factory in Calcutta, the article argues that the differences in the films’ structures endorse the contrast between traditional crafts and modern industries found in British discourses on India.