BOLLYWOOD Money or Morals?
October 13th 2008 12:03
With all the hype surrounding the Bollywood system and the growth of the Indian Film Industry through mergers with major Hollywood studios, it is probably imprtant that we remind what provided the impetous for the film industry on the sub continent in the early years. With todays efforts becoming more and more risque with more ‘revealing’ storylines combined with the iconic singing and dancing sequences it seems Indian culture is becoming more trendy by the moment. Cricket stars liike Brett Lee write and appear in Bollywood music videos. Tanya Zaetta could only manage B-grade TV shows the likes of ‘WHO DARES WINS’ over here in Australia but is now a huge name in the Bollywood system. A recent attempt to revive her career in Oz resulted in a Middle East scandal when rumours abounded of an indescretion while entertaining the troops.
AlamAra first Bollywood talky 1931
India's film industry has expanded over the last two years as several foreign studios such as Sony Corp., Viacom and Walt Disney Co. have signed co-production deals with Indian movie houses.
"It's powerful mix: a top Indian business house with one of the world's finest filmmakers," said Neeraj Roy, managing director of Hungama Mobile, a leading digital entertainment company, referring to Spielberg. "It makes imminent sense for Hollywood to collaborate with Bollywood because there is capital available in India."
While still some time before the deal is finalised it has been rumoured for some time that Dreamworks has been looking to severe ties with its parent company Paramount and become an independant studio again. The partnership with Reliance could be just the ticket, but in what direction will the partnership head. Dreamworks, formed in 1994 has had great success in recent years with movies like ‘DREAMGIRLS’ and ‘TRANSFORMERS’, but is this the path ‘Bollywood’ wants to head down.
The company has 100 films in production and development in India and would provide about $1 billion to develop and co-produce movies with top Hollywood stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Nicholas Cage, Tom Hanks and filmmakers Chris Columbus' 1492 Pictureswhich helmed three of the HARRY POTTERS. Could we soon see a BOLLY Potter on the screens in the bear future and what moral issue would he be dealing with?
In an article written just over 6 years ago, Yasmin Alibhai- Brown of the UK INDEPENDENT newspaper discussed the changes to the morality of the Indian Film Industry.
Below is a copy of the 02 article with all sources duly credited.
Bollywood is about morality as well as musicals
Indian films are vehicles of moral training – none of us brought up on them could ever neglect or insult our elders
By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Monday, 1 July 2002
You have just lived through "Bollywood month", declared so mostly by people who know nothing about the Indian film industry but who can spot a fad 10,000 miles away. Selfridges has devoted itself to Bollywood fashions, good for business as the shop is these days teeming with nouveau riche Indians and Pakistanis dying to part with their money just so they can feel part of the trendy world. They would rather wear a shalwar khameez costing a fortune with a Jemima Khan label that was bought in England than have a nicer one made for half the price by the matchless tailors in the bazaars of Bombay or Karachi. As an acquaintance of mine, an Indian management consultant, told me: "It's to do with confidence, yaar. We are just so excited that our fashions are now appealing here, that we can go into such big name stores and buy this stuff. It kinda feels like we are now accepted." To her, a boundless enthusiast of globalisation, this is the brave new world where the east is no longer seen as forever "backward" (her word). Cringe.
Suddenly it is cool to be Bollywood if you are white. Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Indian director Shekhar Kapoor came up with the idea that Britain was ready for a musical based on formulaic Bollywood films. Lloyd Webber brought in the composer A R Rahman, whose filmy music records are bought in their millions in India and around the world by diasporic Indians. Bombay Dreams hit the West End this month, and at one of the launch parties I attended with my daughter we saw Hello! magazine photographers chasing after little white cherubs, who, like their Asian peers, were bedecked in teeny silk and richly embroidered Indian clothes, too quickly ripped and ruined by ice cream, alas.
The parents, too, had thrown themselves into the moment with class. Dads, magnificent in Nehru jackets their hair slicked back, escorted their partners trying their best in beautiful saris, lenghas and shalwar khameezes. This musical has been described as the zenith, the ultimate accolade to Bollywood, too long ignored by the gatekeepers of popular culture in London, Paris, Toronto, New York and elsewhere, people for whom eastern countries are merely reservoirs of old histories and customs and humbug spirituality. Reviewers, on the whole, have not raved. I think the show works though it sometimes lacks authenticity. The majority of the punters I talked to – white and Asian – thought it was wonderful because it brought together two great traditions and created something unexpected.
shah-rukh-khan
A part of me, too, rejoices at this discovery of something I have loved all my life. It is great that it is becoming more than OK to be a "Paki" and that the clothes which used to provoke relentless abuse are now sometimes worn by powerful white people who seem to love them. And this is yet another example of how vibrant and promiscuous British culture is today, endlessly remaking itself, unlike anywhere else in the world. But as ever, scepticism, misgivings, doubts have started to come up, bilious thoughts, rising after a particularly rich and spicy experience.
Maybe this is inevitable, given the long and complicated relationship between the Indian subcontinent and the British isles and the even more vexatious relationship between Hollywood and the rest of the world. According to the film historian Nasreen Munni Kabir, the Indian film industry has retained its unique characteristics, and so far won "comfortably over Hollywood" when it comes to audiences. Around 12 million people watch a film in India every day and 800 films are made in Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Bangalore.
The first silent movie in India was shown just six months after the Lumière brothers showed their moving images at the end of the 19th century. After that the films grew to become vehicles of moral training – none of us brought up on these can ever easily neglect or insult our elders. The songs and stories have drummed into us the absolute duty we have to respect them, not to sleep around, to beware of Johnnie Walker whisky and nightclub goers smoking cigarettes. Deeply conservative in many ways, the films also never shirked from taking society to task for the caste system and hypocrisy. Two of my favourite films, Pakeezah and Umrao Jaan, are both about beautiful courtesans who challenge the values which make them loathed outsiders.
During the days of the Raj, subversive films challenged British power, landlords and exploiters in general. Neecha Nagar won the Grand Prix in Cannes in 1946 and was hugely popular even though it was a dark film about class, caste, anti-colonialism and nationalism. It told the story of water, and how it was claimed and then polluted by the powerful. There were uncompromising films about anti-Semitism, about the virtues of simplicity and vile politicians, all making even more lasting impressions through the songs which stay in our hearts for ever.
But this new global Bollywood (even the name is objectionable, indicative that the Indian film industry can be taken seriously only if it associates itself with Hollywood) may in fact be an act of terrible surrender to the might of the US which can make and break products wilfully. Supporters of globalisation such as Anthony Giddens may see this development as another example of "reverse colonisation", uppity Third World countries grabbing markets, marching on the powerful countries thereby asserting their independence, but I fear that what is happening is capitulation.
After decades of holding out (though there were always a few films which imitated English and American blockbusters), Indian cinema finally may have bartered its soul to become only a third-rate copycat of an already second-rate Hollywood. All the actors are now as light skinned as it is possible for Asians to be. The women who make it to the top also have green or light brown eyes and bodies like Madonna. Old Hindi movies had their heroines plump and round and of every age, deliciously dark too. Now they are mass produced like the interchangeable singers of S Club 7 and Hear'Say.
Dead or alive, the pioneers of this, the world's biggest film industry surely must see this as a betrayal. There are still examples of integrity and independence in the Indian film industry and directors such as Shyam Benegal who, like Satyajit Ray, carry on making compelling films for connoisseurs, films which are in the same league as the striking films now emerging from Iran. But can popular Indian films survive without becoming Bollywood? Yes. Lagaan (2001) is one example. It is a beautifully made historical film about villagers playing a cricket match against British administrators as a wager to relieve themselves of punitive taxes. It reached the UK Top 20 and without any embarrassing red leather trouser suits prancing on an expensive sports car, the staple of so many silly Bolly films today.
y.alibhai-brown@independent.c o.uk [/COLOR]
| 21 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Subscribe to this blog
