Cinema of India and Bollywood Films

I. Introduction

Our group is going to lead you in the glamorous world of the Indian film business, which is commonly called Bollywood.

II. What is Bollywood ?

Bollywood is a term used to describe the Indian film industry, the largest in the world in terms of film productions. As we have noticed, Bollywood is a play on the word Hollywood ; the « B » comes from Bombaï, also known as Mumbaï, which is a big city in India. Bollywood, the greatest dream factory on the Indian subcontinent, is the most productive film industry in the world. It makes up to eight hundreds films a year, twice as many as Hollywood, and about fourteen million Indian people go to the cinema everyday. Films are made so fast that sometimes actors on set shoot scenes for four different films at a time, using the same backgrounds and the same storylines.

III. What makes Bollywood films unusual ?

Like any film industry, Bollywood is diverse in its out put. However, there are certain traits that are commonly associated with Bollywood movies. For instance, romantic comedies make the best box-office draws as Bollywood films, formulaic stories with the right mixture of emotional ingredients such as happiness and despair, love, rage and grief, surprise and heroism. Further more, Bollywood films are extremely colourful and crammed with singing, dancing and elaborate decoration and costume. Indeed, there is an extensive use of performance arts such as singing and dancing. The films last three hours on average and include at least six songs in which the singing and dancing hero and heroine swear eternal love for each other, wether this fits in with the plot of the film or not. Finally, the use of mythological and theological characters, particularly Gods and Deities, is extremely abundant. Many popular Bollywood films, particularly earlier in the century, took their stories from religion and folklore. In conclusion, the story is always stick to a formula of a boy meets a girl, they fall in love and they struggle for family approval.

IV. What problems does Bollywood face ?

Bollywood’s biggest problem is piracy, where people copy the films and either sell them or show them to other people for free. At the moment, Bollywood film producers are trying to work out a way to stop this happening. Another problem is that younger generations sometimes find the stories a little bit predictable and are get bored of the similar tales. Long epic romances and dance numbers are not enough for the « young » audience. Film-makers are trying to solve this by changing storylines to reflect real life, like the fact, for exemple, that the children of Indian families now study abroad.

V. What is the future for Bollywood ?

The future looks even brighter for Bollywood. Big US film companies such as Warner Bros and Twentieth-Century Fox are setting up offices in India. Where Indian film makers have found it difficult to compete with Hollywood’s special effects, this is seen as the next big area for Bollywood to develop.

VI. Conclusion

In conclusion, Bollywood is an industry of movies in which you can find elaborate and brightly coloured costume, well-dressed stars and expensive decoration. To make you discover and delve this magic and colourful world, let’s see a scene from The Indian Family, especially chosen by us…