India: Culture “Bollywood”

Introduction India leads the world in film production, a staggering 1000 movies a year, in many different languages The Hindi movie industry based out of Mumbai (Bombay) is the biggest of these and is called Bollywood (Bombay + Hollywood)

The whole movie industry spent $531M in 2001 which is lower than the cost of production of one Hollywood blockbuster A population of 1B but average ticket price of 20 cents results in low revenues

History The movie industry is more than 100 years old, but is still a largely unorganized industry with no formal source of public financing This has led to allegations that most of the money invested in the industry has its sources from the underworld There are few public companies today but there is still no bank financing, insurance against a flop is rare

Context of Bollywood Cinema evolved capturing social themes From movies capturing social injustice in the 1930s to exploring sexuality in 2005, the industry has seen it all The turbulent 70s were filled with anger and revenge dramas that were flavors of the day The 90s saw a revival of romantic musicals and Bollywood movies are notorious for 2.5 hr movies with 7-10 songs Sexuality and nudity are taboo topics and very few movies in main stream cinema have explored these topic.

What types of movies are made? Mostly musicals Include dancing and singing At least 5 sing along dance routines Plots often involve characters from different classes Produce action, drama, comedy and romance All include singing and dancing Very colorful with elaborate costumes

People in Bollywood Cinema is a medium of escape to the millions of men and women who toil all the day to earn less than $1 is a compelling aspect of the culture Movie stars attain demi-god status and often have used this charisma and fanaticism to become successful politicians Amitab Bachan is considered the greatest super stars Bollywood ever had Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Preety Zinta, Rani Mukherjee are main stars today

Aishwarya Rai (The L’oreal girl)

Bollywood Abroad The growing Indian diaspora in the US and rest of the world has made overseas market a lucrative market for Bollywood A few Indian movie personalities have made an impact outside India, Aishwarya Rai, Amitab Bachan, Deepa Mehta, Satyajit Rai, Ismail Merchant, Shyam Benegal are some of the most famous names Crossover movies such as Bend it like Beckham and others are the newest rage.

Activity Create a movie trailer for a Bollywood film (using a series of pictures), design a poster, write part of a script, create a photo essay on Bollywood, or present a paper on Bollywood.