Bollywood, here we come?
About 15 years ago, I went over to Berkeley a couple of times to catch a double feature of Bollywood films. One time, only one of the movies had English sub-titles, but I diverted myself during the incomprehensible sequences with a trip to the snack bar for some chaat.
But even without a translation, it was still entertainment-squared, like someone had tossed a big genre salad on-screen, with no regard for complementary ingredients. Murder, romance, gunplay, sex, and of course, singing and dancing - all in one crazy film, and without a trace of self-consciousness, to boot. The crowd - mostly Indians but inclusive of a few arty types like me - loved it, and I wondered what influence such lively cinema would or could have on American movies.
Some time later, Hong Kong, not India, was capturing the imagination and dollars of the forward-thinking American cinephile. Quentin Tarantino was re-working Hong Kong scenarios; early adopters were lionizing far-east icons like Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Chow Yun Fat, prompting them to cross over into the American mainstream; and action maven John Woo brought his game to the States. A big-budget production like Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon helped make the genre palatable for American audiences, and eventually Hong Kong style crept into American actioners so that every fight looked like it was choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping (see The Matrix, which he actually did choreograph).
As far as I can tell, no such trajectory for Indian influence exists. Is this because Hong Kong films have in part baked in American movie style that's then hybridized just enough to make them ripe for import? Is it because popular Indian storytelling, with its saturated stew of melodramatic story tropes, plays as simultaneously too exotic and too mundane for American audiences? Or is it it something more prosaic, like demographics and/or marketing? (continued)
That was inspiring,
I think that the indian film market is too sparse films cannot be defined to just one genre... this is why i believe slumdog was so succesful, its different. The entertaining fact about bollywood films is the random singing and dancing but if you dont understand the language its hard to understand why they are dancing at all and it just gets over the top... bring on more films like slumdog... it has the right mix of subtitles and english! its perfect... nobody likes to miss action because they have to read subtitles on the bottom of the screen..
Keep up the good work
Posted by: Software companies UK | January 05, 2010 at 02:03 AM