Indian movies of yester years vis a vis Censor Board.

India has produced its own stock of great actors, actresses and stuff like that.. Please note that "and stuff like that is a filler and doesn't really mean anything unless you assume whatever it pleases you.."

If I start comparing our own actors (actresses are included when I say actors) with the western counterparts and their movies, I can bring out glaring contrasts in a variety of ways. But I would like to stick to the love, affection, kissing and the very of act of love making..

When Gregory Peck felt like kissing (as needed in the movie Guns of Navarone), he simply kisses Gia Scala (Anna - the traitor in the squad). And suppose, if you want to show that in an Indian movie in the yester years, god knows how much discussions might have taken place. I am sure, the producer (who simply and non cholantly wants a much bigger bang for his buck) wants it as explicitly as possible, and would even prefer if the heroine exposes as much as possible in the due course. The director might want it as artistically and as figuratively as possible without antagonizing the censor board.

But the censor board doesn't want anything close to what anybody else wanted it to be. In plain words, board doesn't want any of that thing, and ironically boards words are final.

With this background, the reader might have got a clue as what could be the plight of the actors (again both actor and actress are included) in enacting a kiss scene. They have to show the emotions leading to the action and yet refrain from the very act in the culminating moments. At that particular instance, the camera shifts to a long shot where in two flowers mostly roses or marigolds rustled together symbolising a kiss.

In this way, our Indian actors have a much tougher task in depicting these emotions and actions in stark contrast to a western actor whose job is much simpler.