ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the way significant Tamil films of the 1970s were distinct from most of the films made by and largely in the major Madras studios Modern Theaters, AVM, Gemini, and Vijaya-Vauhini during earlier decades. MGR and Sivaji established themselves as bankable stars by the end of the 1950s MGR through the huge success of Madurai Veeran and Sivaji through his double role in Uthamaputhiran id. T. Prakash Rao. The mid-1970s was the time when graduates of the Film and Television Institute of India, Poona, and the Institute of Film Technology, Madras, began to make their presence felt. The most enduring influence on Tamil cinema, was to come from films that were not so removed from the mainstream. Bharathiraja redefined popular Tamil cinema with his seminal film 16 Vayathiniley. The 1970s, therefore, was defining decade of Tamil cinema when the classical era of the studios gave way to the post-classical through a radical reorganization of its modes of production.