Cinema in India

India has one of the oldest film industries in the world. Nine decades ago, the pioneer of Indian Cinema, a man by the name of Dundiraj Govind Phalke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke encountered several years of persistent struggle but, the untiring devotion and determination by this great genius, culminated in the first ever film of Indian cinema, called Raja Harishchandra in 1913-a silent film with four reels with inter titles in Hindi and English.

Raja Harishchandra was a mythological film about a benevolent king who sacrificed his kingdom, wealth and family to uphold his ideals, "truth and integrity". This film was reflective of the standards of a society with strong religious roots. This was so because, technology made it possible tell stories through moving images, it was but natural that the Indian film pioneer turned to his own cultural heritage-the epics and Puranas for source material.

Alam Ara produced in 1913 was the genesis of the talkie feature films. The film's popular dialogues and introduction of songs appealed to the public immensely such that in a movie called "Indrasabha", the number of songs were increased to 71!! Film songs became a Pan-Indian phenomenon. This resulted in the craving to see and hear films in their regional language and thus a burgeoning of regional film industries sprouted.

Today, the Indian film industry is the biggest film industry in the world and produces around 800 films per year! A reasonably budgeted Hindi film would cost around US$ 1 million. Apart from the Hindi cinema popularly called Bollywood, there are others-Kollywood (Tamil cinema), Tollywood (Telugu cinema) and Mallywood (Malayalam cinema). The regional film industries like Tamil, Telegu, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Asamese and English reflect the cultural diversity of the Indian cinema. However, it should be noted here that the cost of making a commercial Hindi film varies from the regional films.

The post-independence period saw the Golden Era of Indian cinema, where one witnessed a shift in focus from mythological issues to melodious socials and melodramas. Films like Pather Panchali produced by Satyajit Ray in 1955, gained international recognition. Satayajit Ray emerged as one of India's best directors and was awarded an Oscar in 1995 for lifetime achievement. The 70's witnessed the dawn of parallel cinema, which promoted realistic cinema. Films like Sholay, Deewar, Amar Prem, Seeta Aur Geeta created waves in the film industry, so did parallel cinema like Ijjazat. Some famous names, who have contributed to the conceptualization and development of parallel cinema are Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Guru Dutt, Shyam Benegal, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar and others.

The 90's saw a different genre of films evolve, the film industry having completed a full circle. The mega blockbuster like "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun", followed by "Dilwale Dulanhiya Le Jayenge" crossed the biggest gross ever, proving that Indian cinema has come a full circle from the rickety iridescent images to a very classy state-of-the-art technology for creation and projection of image and sound track.

So many decades old now, Indian cinema has transcended many facets and genres of films. Bollywood has had a chain of distinct categories of films. A typical Bollywood film can be a musical (a film whose action and dialogue is interspersed with singing and dancing) or a melodrama characterized by moon-struck lovers, angry parents, fraudulent politicians, conniving villains, long lost siblings separated by fate and convenient coincidences etc.

Apart from acting skills, a requisite for all aspiring and established actors in Bollywood these days is the ability to dance. As far as songs are concerned, the professional playback singers record songs in the studio, while the actors lip-sync the words. A new fad in Bollywood is that of the actors singing at least one song in a movie themselves.

Dialogues in Indian cinema are powerful and quixotic. The dialogues in Indian cinema are primarily composed in Hindi, though frequent use of poetic Urdu words are pretty common. Contemporary mainstream movies incorporate a lot of English.

Since 1913, from the time it was created until now, we thus observe how the film industry has grown multi-dimensionally with a inimitable blend of business, art, glamour, social interaction, legendary adjuncts, artistic expression, performing arts, folk forms and above all, a wide-ranging and abiding appeal to the heart, the mind and the conscience.

Source: National Portal Content Management Team Reviewed on: 22-02-2008