Page 227 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

224 ART AND CRAFTS

they are used for the publicity of Eunani or
Ayurvedic medicine. Sometimes
photographs of the actors and actresses in
one color were used in leaflets of cinemas.
There is no change in the political
pamphlets or the leaflets of Eunani
medicine or of meetings and conferences.
However, the photograph of the election
nominee has been added to the leaflets for
electoral campaigning –which was not
used before.
However, in the last few decades extensive
changes in the tradition of leaflet design
can be noticed. With the development of
technology, leaflets are now sometimes
beautifully designed and printed in four
fig. 4.25 Film colors on glossy papers. Leaflets advertising different products use excellent graphics.
advertisement published These leaflets, designed by advertising firms or the creative teams of different
from Kolkata companies, are distributed in the posh shopping malls or in houses of consumers
through the newspaper hawkers.
The booklet or small books were introduced for the sake of publicity, as usual.
However, apart from the publicity of film and drama, booklets are used for advertising
different products, institutions or people. From the evidence and information that we
have in our hands, it can be seen that the booklets related to films were introduced in
the 30s of the 20th century. 63
In the black and white leaflet printed on the occasion of screening the silent feature
film on the life of Gautama Buddha, Prem Sanyas (1926, Director: Franz Austin,
Himangshu Ray), it was seen that beside the summary of the film there were some still
photos of the film. Most probably it was done for the distributors and the owners of the
cinema halls, not for the audience. In the 30s, when it became possible to add music
to films, the lyrics of the songs were added in the booklet. They were used as the pre-
campaigning program of the film before release. Sometimes, in small cities or suburbs,
the owners of the cinema halls reprinted these books themselves and made them
available to the mass people. These were usually sold in front of the cinema halls.
We cannot say for sure if there were any booklets published from Dhaka before the
partition. Most of the booklets of the films that were available in Dhaka in the 50s
and 60s came from Bombay, Lahore, Karachi or Kolkata (fig. 4.25). These Urdu,
Bengali or Hindi booklets had summary, lyrics, photographs etc. The covers of these
were usually hand-painted. Naturally, either the photographs of the actors and
actresses or scenes from the film were used on the cover. Stylistically, it can be
identified as an extended version of European realistic painting and the style created
by Raja Ravi Varma. 64