Bollywood is not Indian Cinema
The Marathi film industry started the same time as the Hindi film industry. In fact many Indian regional film industries started at the same time. The Marathi film industry competed with Hindi film industry to a large extent. Around the mid-90s, the Marathi film industry started churning out mindless stuff, mostly insane comedies. The audience started declining. At one time when having a Marathi movie poster shown predominantly in billboards, it was reduced to a mere 1 -2 release a year. The Marathi actors started working in Bollywood.
The government then introduced schemes and incentives for the film industry. Although still not producing that many movies, the Marathi movie industry has recovered a lot. A “Shwaas” even made it to the Oscar. A “Bhook” was a contender for Oscars this year. The movies were released in rest of Maharahstra instead of Mumbai where the crowd was metropolitan and more diverse. Marathi movies did get released but in multiplexes. Instead of competing with main stream bollywood drama, Marathi movies are achieving moderate to huge success in smaller interior towns then trying to compete with Bollywood movies in Metropolitian cities.
Now the question is, are the regional movies losing the battle with Bollywood. Hollywood is hardly any competition even though a large number of people do speak English, Bollywood is still hot in spite of all the problems it has. The Marathi film industry has stabilized a lot after the downfall in 90s. Although not the same as its pre-90s glory, it still has a firm hold. The south is doing well in terms of regional movies. Rajnikant commands the highest fee among all the actors in India. Tamil movies make big business and more than bollywood and Hollywood movies.
Malayalam cinema also is surviving and making quality movies. Though it did suffer in between, actors like Mammooty and Mohanlal are big names in Kerala. Bhojpuri movies are churning bollywood duplicates and making big money to become lucrative market for others to join in.
Then what happens to others. What about Gujrathi, Oriya, Bengali and even the once in a while kashmiri movies. Do they have a future? The regional movies are like the markets in smaller countries in Europe which produces 10-20 movies a year. They do find a market but do they have the strength to make an impact on the global market. To some extent, they do. Whatever be the language, quality would always be appreciated. The best arguments would be Korean and Chinese movie. Although chinese movies have a big market in China, korean are coming with more surprises. Many Korean movies are being adapted into Hollywood.
So why can’t Indian Regional movies foray into the International market? The most important reason would be of course money. When Shwaas was nominated for Oscars, the producers had to undergo a lot of hardship to promote the film in the Academy. They still fell short to match up to other competitors. Another important reason has to be the language. As there are many Hindi speaking audience or people who know Hindi, Bollywood will always find a audience. Regional film will suffer that handicap, always.
If it is a good film, audience will surely appreciate it but if the movie is in foreign language, then the subtitles have to be good. I found out in some Marathi movies that the subtitles tell a different story altogether. What the character say and what the subtitles covey is totally different. We have to promote movies in all languages to global audience rather than just Bollywood. Indian movies do not have a good reputation and the global audience always thinks it as being a song and dance routine. These are the comments I have heard from my Dutch colleagues.
When I look at Marathi movies, I find that the treatment and the stories are different. The same I find with Bengali and Malayalam cinema. Bollywood is not very keen on experiments nor is the bollywood audience keen to accept experiment movies. The regional movies meanwhile can find fine balance between creativity and commercialization and a better representative of Indian Cinema
After all, Bollywood is not Indian Cinema!
Tags: Medium
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
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Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
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Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Gujarati Cinema? It’s a joke; it does not even exist anymore.
Punjabi Cinema is another hot market cos of the heaps of punjabis (from India and Pakistan) living in UK and ‘umrica’. They just flog out “Bollywood” movies and make decent profit from it.
Hindi Cinema Industry use to remake a lot of South Indian films before, but recently they have cut it down. Don’t know why? Is it cos the quality of South Indian cinema is going down as well?
Gujarthi Cinema was not a joke once. They mostly made family fare and even though I did not like them, the same fare can be seen in the saas bahu serials nowadays.
Punjabi cinema is like Bhojpuri, recycling Bollywood.
I haven’t had to see South Indian cinema that much because as I said, no subtitles. I am not going to learn all languages to see the movies in that languages. I find even the dutch movies more audience friendly in terms of subtitles.
-Punds
The problem is simple – budgets. The reason why regional cinema is called regional is because of the low acceptability in other places. Hindi films are seen all over the country. How many punjabis give a damn about Jeet (the current heartthrob in Bengali cinema) or how many oriyas care whether Chiranjeevis films are a hit or not? As a result, no one wants to put money in them – as a direct result what you get is crap.
Other than some directors who make films that get more recognition abroad – like aparna sen, mrinal sen, adoor gopalakrishnan, etc, regional cinema in India is in quite a pathetic state. Though some directors experiment, it is very few and far between.
One thing I agree with F2F is if we can have subtitles. I would live to see a Chiranjeevi potboiler if I could atleast understand something. Plus, this would give it a larger audience.
However, I must say – that at present, Bollywood is Indian Cinema.
As I said Marathi movies are experementing a lot although they still dish out crap.
Also I recently saw telegu movie “Godavari” and to tell the truth, I liked it. I am looking forward to watch Bengali movie “Titli” and saw Malayalam “Manchitrakatazu” which i wanted to see for a long time. I could watch all these because of the subtitles.
Also Indian cinema needs to be promoted outside India if not so much in India. even commercial regional cinema can bennifit by the global audience.
But that brings us to the main problem, budget!
You are right Sophocles. currently Bollywood is Indian Cinema.
-Punds
Malayalam, Tamil & Telgu films will never end up in the same state as Marathi & Gujarati film industry is in. They hae huge fan following and because of this lots of revenue is generated. The money is again reclyled for making more movies. In the three its majorly Malayalam cinema that actually makes sensible movies. Tamil cinema can do better but Chennai loves the usual son and dance routines with larger than life Heros.
movies that represent ‘indian’ culture are Indian Cinema.
movies that represent the culture of indians who want to become more like americans cant be called as indian cinema. almost all bollywood movies in the recent years fall in this category.
to say bollywood is indian cinema is relative to who you are. if you’re talking on a global scale, then yes, bollywood = indian cinema, since that’s pretty much all any “outsider” can think of as soon as indian films is brought up as a topic. but certainly not to me, and i would hope not for others on here. for most indians who are at least somewhat knowledgeable about cinema (which i believe is most people on here) i’d hope that they think of indian cinema as more than just bollywood. it doesn’t mean you have to rush to the stores when a bhojpuri or tamil film’s DVD is released, but at least recognize the fact that india is diverse enough to come up with movies in god knows how many languages and STILL have a niche market for themselves.
as for the need to be accepted globally.. the only safe method is film festivals.. p.vasu isn’t going to care to show his “chandramukhi” to a festival audience so he hopes for a release at AMC theaters in the US, just as tom cruise isn’t going to aim for an MI3 to release in some random village in UP. of course, budget comes into play here.. but like somebody said earlier, a good, quality film does get noticed. and those that don’t for whatever reason… well, that’s why we have PFC :d
i’d like to rephrase my earlier comment.. “for most indians who are at least somewhat knowledgeable about cinema…”
to
“for most people who are at least somewhat knowledgeable about indian cinema…”
i know t! isn’t indian, but she’s still very updated with the happenings of indian cinema, so this one’s for her
Lets face this: How many would go to a cinema hall to watch a movie who’s language is alien to them…very few( counting out the fanatics). How many would dish out xyz amount of money to watch a regional film with subtitles in movie hall…very few. So, what’s the other alternative…DVD’s. So, if the filmakers take that much bit of effort in promoting their own movie thru DVd’s..maybe we can see regional movies being accepted wide over. Come up with something unique on DVD’s..promote them..sell them…Face it.. You are not going to make enough money on wide screen release in states/countries where your language is alien..you are going to make money thru DVD’s…channel your sources in this direction…create a wide range of audience for it..
@ Punds… As usual…fantastic article my man.. You dish out so many though provoking ideas..consistently..keep it Up.
Muzzy
You are right about South Indian cinema being in better condition. I haven’t heard about a new Gujrati film in a long time, although gujrathi theatre is rocking like anything.
Kalki
You have a point here. Imagine if we become same as Hollywood cinema, then what is our USP?
Striker
I do find many non-indians looking for Indian cinema. My dutch and New Zealander colleague are just a few. I guess there will be many out there. But sadly unfortunately, Bollywood is Indian Cinema for others.
Om
Good point there. Promote regional cinema through DVDs. Although I don’t expect much magic in the initial stage, it will pick up if the right films are promoted. When I go to DVD shops here, i see the same hollywood stuff but I was surprised to find a small section dedicated to Chinese and Japanese movies. Now imagine seeing an Indian section. Now that would be cool
Thanks
-Punds
Hindi film industry is based in Bombay the capital city of Maharashtra. Is this the reason why marathi films dont get that kind of success. and is the reason that hindi belt UP, MP, Rajsthan, Haryana dont have regional film Industry of their own? In this cable TV era and with so expensive cinema halls tickets how many films can be watched by a person? He has to chose and he goes with films having wider perspectives. He knows he can see low budget films on TV. Multiplexes might have brought smiles on the faces of film makers becasue now they dont need house full tag to make profit but Multiplexes have certainly reduced the number of people going to cinema hall. Earlier if one is having 4 hours in his train or bus in any city then it was possible that he would spend this time in watching a film in near by cinema hall. But with ticket cost more than 150 Rs, few can think about that. Ticket cost should be lower for low budget films and state govts can do a bit here. Marathi films can be given tax benefits and then marathi cinema will flourish along with hindi films in same city.
Wow, so much to think about here.
I work in independent films, and it is difficult to tell the average person here in the US that independent films are NOT Hollywood films (and I will strangle the next person that thinks Independent = Porn). But, Hollywood is the frame of reference of most moviegoers here, as Bollywood is in India, even thought both countries are making amazing movies outside of the mainstream (in the US), and outside of the mainstream distribution process (as in India).
F2F, you answered your own question when mentioning the money needed to expose regional cinema outside of its area. More money means more exposure, which means more ticket sales. But, I don’t think it will change the fact that the average moviegoer only wants to see something in their comfort zone. More exposure means more cinema fans will be exposed to a film, but while we cinematic explorers are overrepresented on a site like PFC, we are underrepresented in the mainstream. When reading this post and comments, I thought of how regional Indian cinema (and “art” movies in Hindi) are like independent film here in the states; there are a lot of great movies to see, many great and new stories, but without a big star and someone who will plug the movie on Oprah, these movies will never get the exposure they deserve.
It is the mainstream moviegoer’s frame of reference that I don’t think will ever change. This isn’t only in reference to movies, but literature, music, food, etc. The average person likes what they know and doesn’t experiment much outside of those experiences. And, throwing all the money in a state to promote a movie outside of a region will probably do little to change how many people still get exposed to it. It isn’t the distribution process that is the issue, it is the average person who drives the ticket sales who only wants to see Brad Pitt or SRK on the big screen.
And, because of this, Bollywood will probably always equal Indian cinema in the minds of most, even though if you are reading this comment you already know better….
Om’s point (promoting through DVDs) is very good. Recently I’ve been seeing the likes of Crossword having a rack for Bengali, Tamil, and Marathi movies, and I’ve bought some of these DVDs too.
But I guess the problem with these is the same problem facing non-western literature in India – there’s no forum or way for a beginner to know which movies are the classics, which movies are worth purchasing, and what to watch out for. Forums such as PFC are a very good idea – Wish we had more reviews of Indian Language movies!
I’ll confess to gaining most of my meagre knowledge of such cinema from film festivals and film clubs. More of these would also help…
Sudarshan, even I noticed such sections in places like planet m n music world.
but when i ve asked frens of mine who belong to those places i.e. bengali n other languages, they say that these places do not have the best of films. moreover, i feel we should have all films available at a lower price in india, since the dvd scene is not that developed.
pricing a pather panchali at 400 bucks, just makes it more unreachable for the masses rather than making it look more ‘elite’. so many times i ve asked these places to contact the companies to make more films available….
its a pity that i can buy a fellini on a pirated dvd for just 100 bucks, but cant buy a ghatak or a ray even when i am willing to shell out more…
moreover, amny of these prints do not cater to the ‘other’ audience i.e. they do not have subtitles…
@Tushar This is not good…is there any chance that you can talk to these Planet M and Crossroad guys and ask them to open a Library kinda thingy…put some deposit, and have a monthly membership fee..say like 4-5 movies a month kinda thing… If they say no to this…get in touch via e-mail, phone, or any other way with the MD of these places or any bigshot of this place.. and throw him a suggestion for this. If they dont make things convinient to us…i wud say..lets take the initiative and try to do something ourself. Afterall if we dont try it..loss is ours..No harm in trying..whats the least you cud fear a “NO”, which what we began with..so always a win-win( Am i right T!..lol)
good thought OM.
i suspect that they would entertain any thing which doesnt spell moolah for them. an independent initiative is a better idea.
that reminds me how we, at the bangalore film society(bfs) had tried to contact girish kasaravalli, for dvd’s of his films(we had also contacted ms sathyu, as he is also from the city), and he told us that NONE of his films are on an original DVD release!
that reminds me, next weekend we are calling kundan shah for a retrospective on his films, to be followed by a discussion. we will be screening jaane bhi do yaaron, kabhi haan kabhi naa, and his new film-three sisters. i am looking forward to that, and might also post something on PFC regarding his cinema.