While most of the film is shot in black-and-white, the songs are in colour, including the spectacular dance in the hall of mirrors. In order to win her hand, Salim leads a military campaign against his father and is condemned to death, but it is Anarkali who pays the price and is buried alive вЂ“ though in this version she escapes. This one concerns his son Salim (later Emperor Jahangir), played by Dilip Kumar, who falls in love with a slave girl, Anarkali. The story of Akbar, the Great Mughal (reign 1556-1605) has been told countless times in India and several film versions were made. Sant Tukaram (Sheikh Fattelal and Vishnupant Govind Damle, 1936, Marathi) An old man tells the story of the life of the Buddha, from his royal childhood to his death, allowing the film-makers to juxtapose Orientalist fantasies alongside fascinating, if anachronistic, images of Rajasthan in the 20s. The film shows westerners touring India (Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi) who come to Bodh Gaya, the site of Gautam Buddha's Enlightenment. The script was adapted from Sir Edwin Arnold's epic poem The Light of Asia (1861) while the opening credits proclaim it was 'Shown by Royal Command at Windsor Castle, April 27 1926' and that it benefited greatly from help offered by the Maharaja of Jaipur. The Light of Asia was shot in India but edited and processed in Germany and intertitled in English. Reading this on mobile? Click here to viewДЄmong the few silent films that remain are three Indo-German co-productions that predate the arrival of the German technicians and directors who worked in the Bombay Talkies studio in the 1930s.

Tamil cinema 1950 1970