Journal Entry

11/1/2005

Indian Cinema Bollywood

Dr. Mary Brodnax

Department of Humanities and Philosophy

Indian Cinema also called Bollywood, is the name given to the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry in India. Overall this term is combined with other Indian film industries such as Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada. It is now considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced, and maybe also the number of tickets sold. India is a major regional center for cinema. The Indian film industry is considered the largest in the world with 1200 movies released in the year 2002 alone.

The term Bollywood was created by conflating Bombay the city now called Mumbai and Hollywood the famous center of the United States film industry. The rapid growth of the film industry is said to come from lounger’s money in the Indian Cinema.

A general rule Bollywood films are usually musicals. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. In the Indian culture audiences expect full value for their money, in that they want songs and dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil thrills, all mixed up in a three hour long extravaganza with intermission. These kinds of movies are called masala movies. This is because of the spice mixture masala, which like masala, have everything.

Where to the western we may find at first the plots which are often melodramatic to how they see films. The Bollywood films often employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.

One of the things Bollywood is noted for is its song and dance, this in the Indian most actors, today, are excellent dancers, however; few are also singers. Because of this, songs are generally pre-recorded by professional playback singers with actors lip-synching the words, often while dancing. Of course there are the notable exceptions, one of the super stars Kishore Kumar who starred in several major films in the 1950’s, while also having a stellar career as a playback singer.

Where playback singers are prominently featured in the opening credits and have their own fans, who will go to an otherwise lackluster movie just to hear their favorites. The composers of film music, known as music directors, are also well-known. Their songs can make or break a film and usually do.

The dancing in Bollywood films, this holds truest to older ones, dancing is primarily modeled on Indian dance, the classical dance styles, dances of historic northern Indian courtesan’s tawaif, or folk dances. Now days in modern films, Indian dance elements often blend with Western dance styles (as seen on MTV or in Broadway musicals), though it is not unusual to see Western pop and pure classical dance numbers side by side in the same film.

Bollywood dancing is the commercial name for modern Indian dancing. This form of dance is a combination of classical Indian dance, which work for the base, with folk dancing such as Bhangra and sometimes has a Latino and Arabic influence in the dance. Understanding of Indian classical dance in film is fun and very expressive and there's a lot of deep meaning behind music in the films. You soon realize that there is actually a lot of expression done with what the music means, and another level through the graceful movements of the body in the dance.(A)

Genre conventions of commercial films in Bollywood have these things as commercial films, in whatever regional center they are made, tend to be, longer around three hours, with an intermission. They are usually musical with action which is periodically interrupted by song-and-dance routines. Good movies use the routines to move the story forward, mediocre movies have them only because the audience demands them. Songs are sung by professional play-back singers and lip-synched by dancing actors and actresses. The have a melodramatic, sentimental, of mixed genre, they often mix romance, comedy, action, suspense, etc.

More today sometimes Indian-styled remakes of popular Hollywood movies, thus continuing a long film-making tradition global in scope of imitations and creative remixes. (B)

In addition to commercial cinema, there is also a high-minded Indian art cinema, known to film critics as "New Indian Cinema", or sometimes "the Indian New Wave", or "art films", as opposed to mainstream commercial cinema. From the 1960’s through the 1980’s, the art film was usually government-supported cinema. Aspiring directors could get federal or state government grants to produce non-commercial films on Indian themes. Many of these directors were graduates of the government film school FTII or Film and Television Institute of India. Their films were showcased at government film festivals and on the government-run TV station, Doordarshan. These films also had limited runs in art house theatres in India and overseas.

The art directors owed much more to foreign influences, such as Italian Neo-Realism or French New Wave, than they did to the genre conventions of commercial Indian cinema. The best known New Cinema directors were Bengali: Bimal Roy, Ritwik Ghatak, and Satyajit Ray. The best known films of this genre are the Apu Trilogy (Bengali) by Satyajit Ray and Do Bigha Zameen (Hindi) by Bimal Roy

Satyajit Ray was the most successful of the "art" directors. Many Indians knew his name and took pride in his numerous foreign awards. Prestige, however, did not translate to large-scale commercial success. His films played primarily to art-house audiences (students and intelligentsia) in the larger Indian cities, and to film buffs on the international art-house circuit. “ It is doubtless under the influence of the Bengali film-makers Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen, however, that Indian cinema, and not only in Hindi, also began to take a somewhat different turn in the 1970s against the tide of commercial cinema, which was now characterized by song-and-dance routines, trivial plots, and family dramas. No Indian director has had a greater international reputation than Ray, which almost every one of his films, except in the last years of his life, did a great deal to consolidate from the time that he produced Pather Panchali ("Song of the Road", 1955)”.( AA)

Many cinematographers, technicians and actors started in art cinema and moved to commercial cinema. The actor Naseeruddin Shah is one notable example. He has never achieved matinee idol status, but he has turned out a solid body of work as a supporting actor and a star in independent films such as Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding.

Independent films may be the future of art cinema in India, which have, to a great extent lost government patronage. The Indian film market will likely consist of big-budget mass-market films with big stars, and independent films made on a shoestring by aspiring auteurs -- much like today's Western film market.(B)

The Religions in India as they are seen in film, are Buddhism and Hinduism. Hinduism is one of the world's oldest religions, originating in northern India roughly 4,000 years ago. Although superficially, Hinduism would appear to believe in many gods, it has a concept of the supreme spirit, Brahman, above the many divine manifestations. Belief in reincarnation and darma (destiny) are central to Hinduism, and the oldest scriptures are the Vedas, written around 1500-1200 BC. These writings tell of the victory of Brahma over Indra, the god of thunder and battle, and probably refers to the revival of Brahmanism (the predecessor of Hinduism) following the Aryan invasions. There are currently over 805 million Hindus worldwide. As time moves on, Buddhism has its origin in India about 500 BC. The religion derives from the teachings of Buddah, who is regarded as one of a series of such enlightened beings. There are no gods and the chief doctrine is that of karma, whereby good or evil deeds meet an appropriate reward or punishment either in this life or through reincarnation in the next life. There are currently over 247.5 million Buddhists worldwide.

There are two other major religions, Jainism and Sikhism also originated in India. Jainism is contemporary with Buddhism but never really had a following outside India. Sikhism is a much more recent development. There are currently about 14 million Sikhs, living mainly in the Punjab. The religion was founded by Nanak (1469-1539), a Hindu by birth who traveled widely to Hindu and Muslim centers in search of spiritual truth. His doctrine, set out in the Adi-Granth, sought a fusion between Brahmanism and Islam on the grounds that both were monotheistic (the belief in only one God), although his own ideas leaned rather towards pantheism, the belief that god is in everything. Fundamentally Sikhs believe in a single God who is the immortal creator of the universe and who has never been incarnate in any form. They also believe in the equality of all human beings and are strongly opposed to the caste system. ( C )

References

A. India’s Premier Bollywood Portal, http://www.bollywoodworld.com/

AA.Manas Culture Cinema, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Cinema/cinema2.html

B. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, cinema of India, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_India

C. Deepa Mehta’s Earthy, film education, http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/Earth/history.html

jit Ray, The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker, Robinson, A. I.B. Tauris (2003). ISBN 1860649653.

Satyajit Ray: A Vision of Cinema, Robinson, A. I.B. Tauris (2005). ISBN 1845110749.

Satyajit Ray, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/ray.html

Manas Cukture Indian Cinema Satyajit Ray

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Cinema/SRay.html

Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection

Excellent website for the non-profit educational organization dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of Ray's cinematic, literary and artistic oeuvre.

Satyajit Ray

Good overview of the filmmaker as part of Film India's website.

Maanvi Media presents. Satyajit Ray

Great resource for information on his films, awards, books, crews, biography, testimonials.

Satyajit Ray

Good (though basic) site with some enlightening articles.

Reportages - Satyajit Ray

Great French site, consisting mainly of shots of Ray at work on set.

Retrospective Satyajit Ray

Question (in Portuguese) and answer (in English) with the director on his influences and methods.

Pather Panchali

Basic page (with stills, quotations and testimonials) dedicated to this film.

Manas: Culture, Indian Cinema - Satyajit Ray

Great overview of Ray's life and cinema.