Everything about Bollywood totally explained
Bollywood (
Hindi: ), is the informal term popularly used for
Mumbai-based
Hindi-language film industry in
India. Bollywood is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of
Indian cinema; it's only a part of the Indian film industry. Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in the world.
The name is a
portmanteau of Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and
Hollywood, the center of the American film industry. However, unlike Hollywood, Bollywood doesn't exist as a real physical place. Though some 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 is commonly referred to as
Hindi cinema, even though
Hindustani, understood as the colloquial base common to both Hindi and Urdu, might be more accurate. The use of poetic
Urdu words is fairly common. There has been a growing presence of
Indian English in dialogue and songs as well. It isn't uncommon to see films that feature dialogue with English words and phrases, even whole sentences. There is a growing number of films made entirely in English.
History
Raja Harishchandra (1913) was the first silent feature film made in India.
It was made by
Dadasaheb 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 released its first color films; however, the majority of films continued to be black-and-white until the mid-1960s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were the staple fare at the cinema. Successful actors included
Dev Anand,
Dilip Kumar and
Raj Kapoor and actresses like
Nargis,
Meena Kumari,
Nutan and
Madhubala. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, romance movies and action films starred actors like
Rajesh Khanna and
Dharmendra. In the mid-1970s, 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 with actors like
Mithun Chakraborty and
Anil Kapoor, which lasted into the early 1990s. Actresses from this era included
Hema Malini,
Jaya Bachchan and
Rekha.
In the mid-1990s, the pendulum swung back towards family-centric romantic musicals with the success of such films as
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) and
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) making stars out of a new generation of actors (such as
Aamir Khan,
Salman Khan and
Shahrukh Khan) and actresses (such as
Sridevi,
Madhuri Dixit and
Kajol). In that point of time, action and comedy films were also going strong with actors like
Govinda and
Akshay Kumar and actresses such as
Raveena Tandon and
Karisma Kapoor. Furthermore, this decade marked the entry of new performers in
art and independent films, some of which were successful at the box-office, with critically acclaimed performances by actors like
Nana Patekar,
Ajay Devgan,
Manisha Koirala,
Tabu and
Urmila Matondkar.
The 2000s meant a growth in Bollywood's popularity in the world. This led the filmmaking to new heights in terms of quality, cinematography and innovative story lines as well as technical quality advances. Some of the largest production houses, among them
Yash Raj Films and
Dharma Productions were the producers of new modern films. Indeed, a film's music is often released before the movie itself and helps increase the audience.
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 films, after the
Hindustani word for a spice mixture. Like
masalas, these movies are a mixture of many things.
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
Art cinema in India). 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 taboo. Plots now tend to feature Westernised urbanites dating and dancing in clubs rather than arranged marriages.
Film critic Lata Khubchandani writes,"..our earliest films...[had] liberal doses of sex and kissing scenes in them. Strangely, it was after Independence the censor board came into being and so did all the strictures."
Cast and crew
» for further details see Indian movie actors, Indian movie actresses, Indian film directors, Indian film music directors and Indian playback singers
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.
Directors compete to hire the most popular stars of the day, who are believed to guarantee the success of a movie (though this belief isn't always supported by box-office results). Hence many stars make the most of their fame, once they become popular, by making several movies simultaneously.
Only a very few non-Indian actors are able to make a mark in Bollywood, though many have tried from time to time. There have been some exceptions, one recent example is the hit film
Rang de Basanti, where the lead actress is
Alice Patten, an Englishwoman.
Kisna,
Lagaan, and
The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey also featured foreign 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
Shahrukh Khan have succeeded despite total lack of show business connections. For film clans, see
List of Bollywood film clans.
Sound
Sound in Bollywood films is rarely recorded on location (otherwise known as sync sound). Therefore, the sound is usually created (or recreated) entirely in the studio, with the actors reciting their lines as their images appear on-screen in the studio in the process known as "looping in the sound" or
ADR—with the
foley and sound effects added later. This creates several problems, since the sound in these films usually occurs a frame or two earlier or later than the mouth movements or gestures. The actors have to act twice—once on-location, once in the studio—and the emotional level on set is often very difficult to recreate. Commercial Indian films—not just the Hindi-language variety—are known for their lack of ambient sound, so there's a strange silence underlying everything instead of the proper sound to create some sort of depth.
The ubiquity of ADR in Bollywood cinema became prevalent in the early 1960s with the arrival of the
Arriflex 3 camera, which required a blimp (cover) in order to shield the sound of the camera, for which it was notorious, from on-location filming. Commercial Indian filmmakers, known for their speed, never bothered to blimp the camera, and its excessive noise required that everything had to be recreated in the studio. Eventually, this became the standard for Indian films.
The trend was bucked in 2001, after a 30-year hiatus of synchronized sound, with the film
Lagaan, in which producer-star
Aamir Khan insisted that the sound be done on location. This opened up a heated debate on the use and economic feasibility of on-location sound, and several Bollywood films have employed on-location sound since then.
Bollywood Song and Dance
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. Some actors in the last thirty years have sung one or more songs themselves; for a list, see
Singing actors and actresses in Indian cinema.
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. Going by the quality as well as the quantity of the songs they rendered, most notable singers of Bollywood are Suraiyya, Noor Jehan,
Lata Mangeshkar,
Asha Bhosle,
Geeta Dutt,
Shamshad Begum,
Alka Yagnik, etc among female playback singers and K. L. Saigal, Talat Mahmood,
Mukesh,
Mohammed Rafi,
Manna Dey,
Hemant Kumar,
Kishore Kumar, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam among male playback singers. Mohammed Rafi is often considered arguably the finest of the singers that have lent their voice to Bollywood songs, followed by Lata Mangeshkar, who, through the course of a career spanning over six decades, has recorded thousands of songs for Indian movies. 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 film 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 modelled 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 isn't 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. 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's often staged in beautiful natural surroundings or architecturally grand settings. This staging is referred to as a "picturisation".
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 externalisation of a character's thoughts, or presages an event that hasn't 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.
For the last few decades Bollywood producers have been releasing the film's soundtrack, as tapes or CDs, before the main movie release, hoping that the music will pull audiences into the cinema later. Often the soundtrack is more popular than the movie. In the last few years some producers have also been releasing music videos, usually featuring a song from the film. However, some promotional videos feature a song which isn't included in the movie.
Dialogues and lyrics
The film script or lines of dialogue (called "dialogues" in
Indian English) and the song lyrics are often written by different people.
Dialogues are usually written in an unadorned
Hindi or
Hindustani that would be understood by the largest possible audience. Some movies, however, have used regional dialects to evoke a village setting, or old-fashioned courtly
Urdu in
Mughal-era historical films. Contemporary mainstream movies also make great use of English. In fact, many movie scripts are first written in English, and then translated into
Hindi. Characters may shift from one language to the other to express a certain atmosphere (for example, English in a business setting and Hindi in an informal one).
Cinematic language, whether in dialogues or lyrics, 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 isn't unlike the pairings of American composers and songwriters that created old-time Broadway musicals (for example,
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 Arabo-Persic
Urdu vocabulary. 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.
Finances
Bollywood films are multi-million dollar productions, with the most expensive productions costing up to $10 million. More ambitious projects are reportedly planned, the most expensive of which is an epic film Mahabharata, by Ravi Chopra, estimated to cost up to $30 million and will start rolling in 2008.
Sets,
costumes,
special effects, and
cinematography were less than world-class up until the mid-to-late 1990s, although with some notable exceptions. As Western films and
television gain wider distribution in India itself, there's increasing pressure for Bollywood films to attain the same production levels. In particular, in areas such as action and special effects. Recent Bollywood films have employed international technicians to improve in these areas, such as Krrish(2006) which has action choreographed by Hong Kong based Tony Ching. And Love Story 2050(2007) has 5 international studios doing the special effects for it, including the Oscar winning WETA. The increasing accessibility to professional action and special effects, coupled with rising film budgets, has seen an explosion in the action and sci-fi genres.
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 winning more and more funding for big-budget films shot within India as well, such as
Lagaan,
Devdas and other recent films.
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. 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 patronisation of several prominent film personalities; On occasion, they've been known to use money and muscle power to get their way in cinematic deals. In January, 2000, Mumbai mafia hitmen shot
Rakesh Roshan, a film director and father of star
Hrithik Roshan; it had been reported that he'd 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
cinemas. Manufacturing of bootleg DVD, VCD, and VHS copies of the latest movie titles is a well established 'small scale industry' in parts of
South Asia 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. However, most Bollywood producers make money, recouping their investments from many sources of revenue, including selling ancillary rights. There are also 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.
For an interesting comparison of Hollywood and Bollywood financial figures, see this
chart
. It shows tickets sold in 2002 and total revenue estimates. Bollywood sold 3.6 billion tickets and had total revenues (theatre 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.
Advertising
Many Indian artists used to make a living by hand-painting movie billboards and posters. (The well-known artist
M.F. Hussain was a poster painter early in his career.) This was because human labour 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 art.
Releasing the film music, or music videos, before the actual release of the film can also be considered a form of advertising. A popular tune is believed to help pull audiences into the theaters.
Bollywood publicists have begun to use the Internet as a venue for advertising. Most of the better-funded film releases now have their own websites, where browsers can view trailers, stills, and information about the story, cast, and crew.
Bollywood is also used to advertise other products.
Product placement, as used in Hollywood, is widely practiced in Bollywood.
Bollywood movie stars appear in print and television advertisements for other products, such as watches or soap (see
Celebrity endorsement). Advertisers say that a star endorsement boosts sales.
Awards
The Filmfare Awards ceremony is one of the most prominent film events given for
Hindi films in
India. The Indian screen magazine
Filmfare started the first Filmfare Awards in 1954, and awards were given to the best films of 1953. The ceremony was referred to as the
Clare Awards after the magazine's editor. Modelled after the poll-based merit format of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, individuals may submit their votes in separate categories. A dual voting system was developed in 1956. Like the Oscars, the Filmfare awards are frequently accused of bias towards commercial success rather than artistic merit.
As the Filmfare, the
National Film Awards were introduced in 1954. 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. Under this system, in contrast to the National Film Awards, which are decided by a panel appointed by Indian Government, the Filmfare Awards are voted for by both the public and a committee of experts.
Additional ceremonies held within
India are:
Ceremonies held overseas are:
Bollywood Movie Awards - Long Island, New York, United States
Global Indian Film Awards - (different country each year)
IIFA Awards - (different country each year)
Zee Cine Awards- (different country each year)
Most of these award ceremonies are lavishly staged spectacles, featuring singing, dancing, and lots of stars and starlets.
Film education
Asian Academy Of Film & Television
Film and Television Institute of India
Satyajit Ray Institute of Film And Television
Popularity and appeal
Over the years, Bollywood, whose annual output of over 800 films a year, and has sold 3.6 billion tickets, has shown progress in its popularity, and has been entering the consciousness of Western audiences and producers., in part because many Pakistanis speak or at least understand Hindi (due to its linguistic similarity to Urdu). Despite a government ban on Indian films Several Bollywood actors have their roots connected to Afghanistan. A number of Bollywood movies were filmed inside Afghanistan while some dealt with the country, including Dharmatma, Kabul Express, Khuda Gawah and Escape From Taliban.
Recently Bollywood has progressed in Israel. Special channels dedicated to Indian films have been displayed on cable.
Indian films have been popular in a few Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf countries. Imported Indian films are usually dubbed in Arabic upon their release.
Africa
Bollywood is recognised in parts of Africa. The Indian population in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Morocco allows for box office successes for Bollywood products.
Russia and Eastern Europe
Bollywood films are particularly popular in the former Soviet Union. Bollywood films were being dubbed to Russian, and shown in prominent theatres such as Mosfilm and Lenfilm.
Ashok Sharma, Indian Ambassador to Suriname, who has served three times in the Commonwealth of Independent States region during his diplomatic career said:
After the collapse of the Soviet film distribution system, Hollywood occupied the void created in the Russian film market. This made things difficult for Bollywood as it was losing market share to Hollywood. However, Russian newspapers report that there's a renewed interest in Bollywood among young Russians.
Europe and the Americas
Bollywood has experienced a marked growth in revenue in North American markets, and is particularly popular amongst the South Asian communities of the larger cities such as Chicago and New York City. Many films, such as Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham have been set in London, the U.K. is also one of the most filmed locations for Bollywood films, however there's no official report claiming this as there are many Indian films shot in the U.K., yet no mention of the U.K. itself in the film.
Bollywood is also appreciated in Germany as well as France. Various Bollywood movies are dubbed in German and shown on the German Television channel RTL II on a regular basis.
Bollywood isn't as popular in South American countries, however it has its recognition in Caribbean nations with large Indian diasporas, such as Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago — all of which have people of Indian descent as a majority of their population. Bollywood culture and dance has also been recognised in Peru. In 2006, Dhoom 2 became the first Bollywood film to be shot in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Oceania
Bollywood isn't as successful in Oceanic Countries such as New Guinea and Indonesia. However, it ranks second to Hollywood in countries such as Fiji, Australia and New Zealand.[Further Information]
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