He is the subject of a documentary film ‘Celluloid Man’. But more than that, P K Nair was one of the main men involved in the setting up of two institutions in India that continue to preserve and promote cinema – the National Film Archive and the Film and Television Institute
PK Nair ambles along looking at images on the walls of theart gallery in Kala Academy, recognising familiar stills from old black andwhite movies. For Nair, films were a hobby, an interest that culminated in himspearheading the movement towards the National Film Archive, which today housesover 10,000 films, 10,000 books, 10,000 film scripts, and more than 50,000photographs – all espousing Indian cinema.
As a child he was fascinated by moving images. But he slowlybegan to understand different aspects of film and wondered why things weredifferent in different states. For instance, Tamil films usually had paintedbackdrops, quite similar to the sets during a play. “I didn’t know about thelimitations or restrictions that studios had then. I noticed the differencebetween European and Indian cinema, later finding out that the stages here instudios were not very large,” says Nair. It was in his later years that hebegan to study the techniques of film-making and it was clear where he wantedto work once he finished college.
In 1955, he moved to Bombay, where he began working withsome of the stalwarts of Indian cinema – Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan and HrishikeshMukherjee, the latter he considers his great teacher, who taught him most ofwhat he needed to know about cinema. “What was interesting then, was that manyfilmmakers, like Raj Kapoor and Bimal Roy, also realised the value of making afew regional films,” Nair explains, going on to explain how many directors andwriters were inspired by European films like ‘Bicycle Thieves’ and‘Shoe-shine’. “In fact, (Raj) Kapoor’s ‘Boot Polish’ was an Indian remake of‘Shoe-shine.”
After five years of working in films, as an unpaidapprentice, Nair journeyed to Pune and met someone at Films Division. Afternarrating the story of his history and connection with film, he was offered achance to work at Films Division. In March 1961, Nair, after interacting withvarious film institutes across the world, helped set up the Film and TelevisionInstitute of India (FTII). His next project was to draw a blueprint for a filmarchive. “Much earlier, at the National Awards in 1954, there was a suggestionto preserve the award winning films. I corresponded with many internationalarchives and was told that just preserving award winning films wasn’t enough.It was imperative to collect as many as possible. We also had to have aseparate identity and budget too.” So, Nair did the spadework and on February1, 1964, the National Film Archive of India was born, with a budget of Rs25,000.
The archive grew, with the help of film societies and filmmakers. “I would often get a call telling me that a few reels were lyingsomewhere in places like Kolhapur. So I would head there, pick them out andpreserve them.”
His love for art and regional cinema comes through when hetalks about films like Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ and others. “Inmainstream cinema, there was a lot of stereotyping. But regional films,especially Bengali and Malayalam films, looked at things differently. Iremember, in Bombay, they would show Bengali films every Sunday for the matineeshow,” he reminisces, as he starts travelling back in time, back to black andwhite.
