Letters
I hate N’Sync

To begin with, lets get something straight – P. Ramlee should not have wallowed in poverty or died penniless. However, the Ampas Man seems to have forgotten that such tragedies are still happening everyday to famous artists all around the world. The author seems to have conveniently forgotten that P. Ramlee signed contracts with Shaw Brothers who produced his films and any royalty from his body of work would have been subjected to the original terms. Recording companies own the right for most of his songs, and till this day, that’s how the way music royalties work. Isaac Hayes, Goo Goo Dolls, TLC, Toni Braxton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Marvin Gaye, Run DMC are but some notable examples of multiplatinum artists who have declared bankruptcy or was in financial trouble.

The great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died penniless and left beind a huge debt too.

Some may have rightly noted that the fortunes of our stars (and their profligacy, where applicable) should not be guaranteed by the government, especially since it is also your money as well (if you are a tax payer like myself). However, to insinuate that P. Ramlee made a wrong move to leave Singapore and blame all his subsequent box office failures on the Malaysian government (and the lack of local expertise and “talent”) speak volumes of the author’s lack of knowledge, understanding and misguided imagination about the history of modern cinema in Malaysia. The Ampas Man must have forgotten how the Malay cinema, or cinema in the Malayan region operated at that time.

During the studio era (1947 – 1977), Shaw Brothers and Cathay-Keris “virtually controlled the whole industry” and “the distributive/ exhibition sector in Malaysia largely remained monopolistic because the same companies distributed local and imported films and also owned the cinema chains throughout the country” (William Van der Heide, 2002, p. 117). Kahn (2001) pointed out that “Shaw Brothers prevented the productions of other companies from showing in peninsular cinemas which they effectively monopolised” (p. 101). Van der Heide (2002) even went as far as to claim that “the success of these films, was undoubtedly the result of Shaw Brother’s stranglehold on the exhibition sector that they had bought up before the war” (p. 133). It was pure business when Shaw Brothers crippled Seruan Merdeka at the box office. In the 1950s, the typical pattern was “for films to be produced by Chinese capital (Shaw Brothers), directed by Indians, with ‘Malay-ised’ versions of Indian and Chinese plots, and acted by Malaysia speaking in Malay” (Kahn, 2001). P. Ramlee was aboard MFB (Malay Film Productions) during this period (1948 – 1955) and rode on its formulaic popularity.

It was not until P. Ramlee’s arrival in his directorial debut (Penarik Becha, 1956) that truly marked the beginning of the rise of “Malay creative control” (Van der Heide, 2002). This happened within the studio system. Merdeka studio came into being in the early 1960s and is the first production company headed by mostly Malay Malaysians. To say that it had no talent is an insult to the likes of L. Krishnan, who was with Shaw Brothers and directed the first film P. Ramlee starred in. L. Krishnan was also with Cathay-Keris before joining Merdeka Studio in KL. To quote Wikipedia, “It had a meagre beginning, but once the top stars started their exodus from the two Singapore studios, its growth surged dramatically. …The Shaw Brothers dispatched some of their Singapore film directors, among them L. Krishnan, P. Ramlee and Salleh Ghani, Jamil Sulong, Omer Rojik, S. Kadarisman, Sudarmaji, Naz Achnas, M. Amin and Datuk Jins Shamsudin, to make films at Merdeka”.

What really killed the studio business was the increase in production cost (including colour films), regional competition (Indonesian, Indian and Hongkong) and the influx of foreign films, not to mention the advent of the idiot box (television). Shaw Brothers actually took over Merdeka Studio itself in 1966, but local films have already lost its competitiveness by then. Shaw Brothers would close its studies in 1968 and Cathay-Keris did the same in 1972, as the local Malay film scene shifted to Kuala Lumpur into the hands of independent (Bumiputera) filmakers. Please, it wasn’t a Singapore-based or Malayan-based problem. Raj Kapoor would soon make a storm with Bobby in 1973, and together with Bruce Lee in the Big Boss, 1971, they all but wiped out the demand for local films who already have trouble keeping up. The Malaysian government bought the Merdeka studio in 1985 to house FINAS.

Rather than harping on the past and making non-existent connections, we should look carefully at what has been happening to the local film industry. Recently, local films started to make money because the audience and demand grew. However, most of the quality is uneven because it is still a relatively risky investment (unless you have strong financial backing). The late Yasmin Ahmad has shown us that with the Orked trilogy (Sepet, Gubra and Mukhsin) that we have many capable filmakers (or dabblers, as she used to say) with beautiful stories to tell. Today, independent Malaysian filmakers are making a comeback against the rising tide of box-office driven spiel made by some local production houses that, to borrow Hishamuddin Rais’s expression, “bonsified” the Malaysian audience. If the Ampas Man read anything about the current FINAS board controversy, he would realize the problem that P. Ramlee faced back then is still around today, which is financing films and struggling for creative control – a norm of the industry worldwide (Hollywood included). It is true that P. Ramlee’s films after 1964 with Merdeka Studio was not as big as his past successes, but times change and he did enjoyed a good run. P. Ramlee’s creative successes was with comedies and melodramas, and perhaps it wasn’t easy to find financial commitment to bankroll his subsequent films. One thing we DO know is that after Shaw Brothers and Cathay-Keris closed shop, Singapore’s local filmaking industry did not really quite recover (please don’t give me Jack Neo’s films as examples).

If history of filmaking in Malaysia has anything to offer, it is the lesson that we need to groom local talent to produce quality films. Some movies sell better than others, but performance at the box-office is not the one-all indicator of success. You want a thriving, vibrant and inclusive local film industry, you need to invest in it. P. Ramlee, like Sudirman after him, are all great Malaysians beloved by many. Stop abusing our memory of him to further narrow and parochial political games. He could have been a politician, true, but luckily he remained true to his art and profession. Instead of taking the opportunity to shine the spotlight on the local filmaking and music industry in Malaysia, the Ampas Man unfortunately decided to make P. Ramlee a case study to disparage the Malaysian government over the recently launched Talent Corporation. Whether it is for brain gain or brain circulation, please leave P. Ramlee out of this, thank you. With Malaysians (or ex-Malaysians?) like these, who need enemies?