Bollywood
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Movie poster for one of Bollywood's most popular films"Sholay (1975) |
Bollywood (
Hindi: बॉलीवुड,
Urdu: بالیوُڈ) is the informal name given to the popular
Mumbai-based
Hindi language film industry in
India. The term is sometimes used by non-Indians to refer to the whole of
Indian cinema.
The name is a
portmanteau of
Bombay, the old name of Mumbai, and
Hollywood, the center of the
United States film industry. Though some
purists deplore the name (arguing that it makes the industry look like a poor cousin to Hollywood), it seems likely to persist and now has its own entry in the
Oxford English Dictionary.
Bollywood and the other major cinematic hubs (
Tamil -
Kollywood,
Bengali,
Telugu, and
Malayalam) constitute the broader
Indian film industry, whose output is the largest in the world in terms of number of
films produced and in number of tickets sold. Bollywood is a strong part of popular culture of not only India and the rest of the
Indian subcontinent, but also of the
Middle East, parts of
Africa, parts of
Southeast Asia, and among the
South Asian
diaspora worldwide. Bollywood has its largest diasporic audiences in the UK, Canada, and the U.S., all of which have large Indian immigrant populations.
Bollywood is also commonly referred to as "
Hindi cinema", even though use of poetic
Urdu words is fairly common. (
Linguists would call both Hindi and Urdu variants of
Hindustani. This is a political debate; see the articles on the various languages/dialects.) There has been a growing presence of
English in dialogues and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see movies which feature dialogues with English words and phrases, even whole sentences. A few movies are also made in two or even three languages (either using subtitles, or several
soundtracks).
Westerners would tend to classify most Bollywood films as
musicals, because few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. However, such labelling fails to recognise the unique nature of the genre. In the Western tradition, a "standard" movie has no songs, at least none that are sung by the protagonists. A movie with such songs is therefore a "musical". To understand the Bollywood genre, it is necessary to unlearn this straightforward concept. The standard Bollywood movie is
expected to contain a number of elements, and one of the essentials is catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script. Indeed, a movie's music often sells the film through advance release — a populace that is already humming the songs from a movie is far more likely to troop into theatres to see the movie when it is finally released. A Bollywood movie
without songs and dances would need to be particularly strong in other departments to avoid being considered a rip-off.
Indian audiences expect full value for their money, with a good entertainer generally referred to as
paisa vasool, (literally, "money's worth"). Songs and dances, love triangles,
comedy and dare-devil thrills — all are mixed up in a three-hour-long extravaganza with an intermission. Such movies are called
masala movies, after the Hindi word for a spice mixture,
masala. Like
masalas, these movies are a mixture of many things. If a movie lacks an ingredient (such as songs), the audience has not received its full money's worth.
Bollywood plots have tended to be
melodramatic. They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers and angry parents, love triangles, family ties, sacrifice, corrupt politicians, kidnappers, conniving villains,
courtesans with hearts of gold, long-lost relatives and siblings separated by fate, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.
There have always been Indian films with more "artistic" aims and more sophisticated stories, both inside and outside the Bollywood tradition (see
Indian art cinema). They often lost out at the box office to movies with more mass appeal.
Bollywood conventions are changing, however. A large Indian diaspora in English speaking countries, and increased
Western influence at home, have nudged Bollywood films closer to Hollywood models. Film kisses are no longer banned; the once-ubiquitous "wet" scenes, with damp
saris molded to an actress's curvaceous form, have been replaced by skin, pure and simple. Plots now tend to feature Westernized urbanites dating and dancing in discos rather than arranged marriages. Plots can be less melodramatic, more sophisticated. Some Indians think that this is "progress"; others miss the masala films of yore.
Bollywood film music is called
filmi music (from
Hindi, meaning "of films").
Songs from Bollywood movies are generally pre-recorded by professional playback singers, with the
actors then
lip synching the words to the song on-screen, often while dancing. While most actors, especially today, are excellent dancers, few are also singers. One notable exception was
Kishore Kumar, who starred in several major films in the 1950s while also having a stellar career as a playback singer.
K. L. Saigal, Suraiyya and
Noor Jehan were also known as both singers and actors.
Of late, a few actors have again tried singing for themselves:
*
Amitabh Bachchan, sang "Mere Angane Mein" in "Lawaaris" in the mid-80's, and has also sung in "Silsila", "Mahaan" "
Toofan",
Baghban, and
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham starring Dixie Harkhani and Rohit Malhotra, as well as doing a duet with Adnan Sami in the song Kabhi Nahin (Never).
*
Aamir Khan took a turn singing "Aati Kya Khandala" in
Ghulam but only because "the character had attitude that only Aamir could do justice to", according to director Vikram Bhatt.
* In 2005,
Abhishek Bachchan sang a popular rap song in
Rohan Sippy's film
Bluffmaster.
*
Shah Rukh Khan sang Apun Bola in
Josh, (Year 2000)
These forays, while well-received at the time, have not led to real singing careers for the actors.
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 favourites. One of the most recorded of these playback singers is
Lata Mangeshkar who, through the course of a career spanning over six decades, has recorded thousands of songs for Indian movies. Most of the female songs in films from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were sung by Lata.
Mohammed Rafi and
Yesudas are the notable legendary singers in
Hindi Cinema. The
composers of film music, known as music directors, are also well-known. Their songs can make or break a film and usually do.
Remixing of filmi songs with modern beats and rhythms is a common occurrence today, and producers may even release remixed versions of some of their films' songs along with the films' regular
soundtrack albums.
The dancing in Bollywood films, especially older ones, is primarily modeled on Indian dance: classical dance styles, dances of historic northern Indian courtesans (
tawaif), or
folk dances. 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. The hero or heroine will often perform with a troupe of supporting dancers, usually of the same sex. Many song-and-dance routines in Indian films feature unrealistically instantaneous shifts of location and/or changes of costume between verses of a song. If the hero and heroine dance and sing a pas-de-deux (a dance and
ballet term, meaning "dance of two"), it is often staged in beautiful natural surroundings or architecturally grand settings. This staging is referred to as a "picturisation."
Switzerland has become a popular setting for these picturisations, largely because its Alpine valleys are reminiscent of
Kashmir. Though considered by many to be one of India's most beautiful regions, Kashmir has been generally off-limits for quite some time due to armed conflict and terrorism.
Songs typically comment on the action taking place in the movie, in several ways. Sometimes, a song is worked into the plot, so that a character has a reason to sing; other times, a song is an externalization of a character's thoughts, or presages an event that has not occurred yet in the plot of the movie. In this case, the event is almost always two characters' falling in love.
Bollywood films have always used what are now called "
item numbers". A physically attractive female character (the "item girl"), often completely unrelated to the main cast and plot of the film, performs a catchy song and dance number in the film. In older films, the "item number" may be performed by a courtesan (
tawaif) dancing for a rich client or as part of a cabaret show. The dancer
Helen was famous for her cabaret numbers. In modern films, item numbers may be inserted as
discotheque sequences, dancing at celebrations, or as stage shows.
The film script or lines of dialogue (called "dialogues" in
Indian English) and the song lyrics are often written by different people. The lines of dialogue are mostly written in Hindi, with use of Urdu in situations which require poetic speech. Contemporary mainstream movies also make great use of English. The language is often melodramatic and invokes God, family, mother, duty, and self-sacrifice liberally.
Music directors often prefer working with certain lyricists, to the point that the lyricist and composer are seen as a team. This phenomenon is not unlike the pairings of American composers and songwriters that created old-time Broadway musicals (e.g.,
Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II, or
Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe). Song lyrics are usually about love. Bollywood song lyrics, especially in the old movies, frequently use Urdu or Hindustani vocabulary which has many elegant and poetic Arabic and Persian loan-words. Here's a sample from the 1983 film
Hero, written by the lyricist
Anand Bakshi:
Bichhdey abhi to hum, bas kal parso,:
jiyoongi main kaisey, is haal mein barson?:
Maut na aayi, teri yaad kyon aayi,:
Haaye, lambi judaayi!:(
Hindi: "बिछड़े अभी तो हम, बस कल परसों,"::"जियूँगी मैं कैसे, इस हाल में बरसों?"::"मौत न आई, तेरी याद कयों आई?"::"हाय, लंबी जुदाई!")
:We have been separated just a day or two,::How am I going to go on this way for years?::Death doesn't come; why, instead, do these memories of you?::Oh, this long separation!
Another source for love lyrics is the long
Hindu tradition of poetry about the mythological amours of
Krishna,
Radha, and the
gopis. Many lyrics compare the singer to a devotee and the object of his or her passion to Krishna or Radha.
Bollywood employs people from all parts of India. It attracts thousands of aspiring actors and actresses, all hoping for a break in the industry. Models and beauty contestants, television actors, theatre actors and even common people come to
Mumbai with the hope and dream of becoming a star. Just as in Hollywood, very few succeed.
Stardom in the entertainment industry is very fickle, and Bollywood is no exception. The popularity of the stars can rise and fall rapidly, even based on a single movie. Very few people become national icons, who are unaffected by success or failure of their movies, like
Amitabh Bachchan and now recently
Shahrukh Khan.
Directors compete to hire the most popular stars of the day, who are believed to guarantee the success of a movie (though this belief is not always supported by box-office results). Hence many stars make the most of their fame, once they become popular, by making several movies simultaneously.
Bollywood from time to time will cast non-Indians; one recent example is the hit film
Rang de Basanti, where the lead actress is a white Englishwoman.
Kisna and
Lagaan also featured white actors.
Bollywood can be very clannish, and the relatives of film-industry insiders have an edge in getting coveted roles in films and/or being part of a film's crew. However, industry connections are no guarantee of a long career: competition is brutal and if film industry scions don't succeed at the box office, their careers will falter. Some of the biggest stars, such as
Dharmendra,
Amitabh Bachchan, and
Shah Rukh Khan have succeeded despite total lack of show biz connections. For film clans, see
List of Bollywood film clans.
Bollywood budgets are usually modest by Hollywood standards.
Sets,
costumes,
special effects, and
cinematography were less than world-class up until the mid-to-late 1990s. But as Western films and
television gain wider distribution in India itself, there is increasing pressure for Bollywood films to attain the same production levels. Sequences shot overseas have proved a real
box office draw, so Mumbai film crews are increasingly filming in
Australia,
Canada,
New Zealand, the
United Kingdom, the
United States,
continental Europe and elsewhere. Nowadays, Indian producers are drawing in more and more funding for big-budget films shot within India as well, such as
Lagaan,
Devdas and
Mangal Pandey.
Funding for Bollywood films often comes from private distributors and a few large
studios. Indian
banks and
financial institutions were forbidden from lending money to movie studios. However, this ban has now been lifted [
1]. As finances are not regulated, some funding also comes from illegitimate sources, such as the
Mumbai underworld. The Mumbai underworld has been known to be involved in the production of several films, and are notorious for their patronization of several prominent film personalities; On occasion, they have known to use money and muscle power to get their way in cinematic deals. In January, 2000, Mumbai mafia hitmen shot Rakesh Roshan, film director and father of star
Hrithik Roshan; It had been reported that he had rebuffed mob attempts to meddle with his film distribution. In 2001, the
Central Bureau of Investigation seized all prints of the movie
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke after the movie was found to be funded by members of the Mumbai underworld.
Another problem facing Bollywood is widespread
copyright infringement of its films. Often, bootleg
DVD copies of movies are available before the prints are officially released in
movie theaters. Manufacturing of bootleg DVD, VCD, and VHS copies of the latest movie titles is a well established 'small scale industry' in parts of the
Indian Subcontinent and
South East Asia. Besides catering to the homegrown market, demand for these copies is large amongst some sections of the
Indian diaspora, too. (In fact, bootleg copies are the only way people in Pakistan can watch Bollywood movies, since the
Government of Pakistan has banned their sale, distribution and telecast). Films are frequently broadcast without compensation by countless small cable TV companies in India and other parts of South Asia. Small convenience stores run by members of the Indian diaspora in the U.S. and the UK regularly stock tapes and DVDs of dubious provenance, while consumer copying adds to the problem. The availability of illegal copies of movies on the Internet also contributes to the piracy problem.
Satellite TV, television and imported foreign films are making huge inroads into the domestic Indian entertainment market. In the past, most Bollywood films could make money; now fewer tend to do so. Balanced against this are the increasing returns from theatres in Western countries like the
United Kingdom,
Canada, and the
United States, where Bollywood is slowly getting noticed. As more Indians migrate to these countries, they form a growing market for upscale Indian films. 'Foreign' audiences"in Asian and Western countries"are also growing, if more slowly.
For an interesting comparison of Hollywood and Bollywood financial figures, see this chart: [
2]. It shows tickets sold in 2002 and total revenue estimates. Bollywood sold 3.6 billion tickets and had total revenues (theater tickets, DVDs, television etc) of
US$1.3 billion, whereas Hollywood films sold 2.6 billion tickets and generated total revenues (again from all formats) of US$51 billion.
Many Indian artists, including M.F.Hussain, used to make a living by hand-painting movie billboards and posters. This was because human labor was found to be cheaper than printing and distributing publicity material. Now, a majority of the huge and ubiquitous billboards in India's major cities are created with computer-printed vinyl. The old hand-painted posters, once regarded as ephemera, are becoming increasingly collectible as
folk artBollywood movie stars also appear in print and television advertisements for other products, such as watches or soap. Advertisers say that a star endorsement boosts sales.
Raja Harishchandra, 1917 was the first feature film made in India.It was made by
Dadasahib Phalke. By the 1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per annum. The first Indian sound film,
Ardeshir Irani's
Alam Ara (1931), was a super hit. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming.
The 1930s and 1940s were tumultuous times: India was buffeted by the
Great Depression,
World War II, the
Indian independence movement, and the violence of the
Partition. Most Bollywood films were unabashedly escapist, but there were also a number of filmmakers who tackled tough social issues, or used the struggle for Indian independence as a backdrop for their plots.
In the late 1950s, Bollywood films moved from black-and-white to color. Lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were the staple fare at the cinema. Successful actors included
Dev Anand,
Dilip Kumar and
Raj Kapoor. In late 1960s and mid 1970s, violent movies's era was started but romantic movies also co-existed and
Dharmendra was a major star. In the late 1970s and 1980s, romantic confections made way for gritty, violent, films about gangsters and bandits.
Amitabh Bachchan, the star known for his "angry young man" roles, rode the crest of this trend. In the early 1990s, the pendulum swung back towards family-centric romantic musicals with the success of such films as
Hum Aapke Hain Koun (
1994) and
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995).
The Indian film industry has preferred films that appeal to all segments of the audience (see the discussion in Ganti, 2004, cited in references), and has resisted making films that target narrow audiences. It was believed that aiming for a broad spectrum would maximize box office receipts. However, filmmakers may be moving towards accepting some box-office segmentation, between films that appeal to rural Indians, and films that appeal to urban and overseas audiences.
Accusations of Plagiarism
Constrained by rushed production schedules and small budgets, some Bollywood writers and musicians have been known to resort to plagiarism. They copy ideas, plot lines, tunes or
riffs from sources close at hand ([
3]
Tamil or
Telugu film industry) or far away (
Hollywood and other Western movies, Western pop hits).
In past times, this could be done with impunity. Copyright enforcement was lax in South Asia. As for the Western sources, the Bollywood film industry was largely unknown to Westerners, who would not even be aware that their material was being copied. Audiences also may not have been aware of the plagiarism, since many in the Indian audience were unfamiliar with Western films and tunes.
While copyright enforcement in South Asia is still hit or miss, Bollywood and Hollywood are much more aware of each other now, and Indian audiences are more familiar with foreign movies and music. Blatant plagiarism
may have diminished -- however, there is no general agreement that it has.
The Indian screen magazine
Filmfare started the first
Filmfare Awards in 1953. Modeled after the poll-based merit format of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, individuals may submit their votes in separate categories; The awards are presented at a glamorous, star-studded ceremony. However, unlike the
Oscars, voting is not restricted to members of a specific club or academy, but is open to all people. Like the
Oscars, they are frequently accused of bias towards commercial success, rather than artistic merit.
Lately, other companies, such as Stardust Magazine,
Zee TV, etc have joined the movie award bandwagon. Some of the other popular awards are:
*
Zee Cine Awards*
Star Screen Awards*
Stardust Awards*
IIFA Awards*
Apsara AwardsMost of these award ceremonies are lavishly staged spectacles, featuring singing, dancing, and lots of stars and starlets.
Since 1973, the Indian government has sponsored the
National Film Awards, awarded by the government run Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF). The DFF screens not only Bollywood films, but films from all the other regional movie industries and independent/art films. These awards are handed out at an annual ceremony presided over by the
President of India.
*
Bollywood and the portrayal of the economy of India*
Bollywood songs*
popular Hindi films*
Cinema of India*
History of Indian cinema*
Indian film directors*
Indian film music directors*
Indian playback singers*
Indian movie actors*
Indian movie actresses*
Bombay Dreams* Ganti, Tejaswini.
Bollywood, Routledge, New York and London, 2004.
* Kabir, Nasreen Munni.
Bollywood, Channel 4 Books, 2001.
* Rajadhyaksha, Ashish and Willemen, Paul.
Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, Oxford University Press, revised and expanded, 1999.
* An article on
Bollywood, National Geographic issue: February 2005.
General guides*
Upperstall - Film history and reviews*
Bollywhat? - The Guide for Clueless Fans of Bollywood Films*
IMDB - A database for International Movies*
An article on Bollywood in National Geographic archivesPhotos
* Photos of Indian film industry
;Songs*
Giitaayan - Hindi lyrics archive *
hindi movie songs*
Geetmanjusha lyrics archive
