Over the years, Bollywood has emerged as its own distinct identity in the global Film industry. Bollywood is the global leader in production of movies with a staggering 27,000 featured films and thousands of short films. ( Pillania 1) However, Hollywood is still the leader in revenues generated. Due to the growth of the Indian market and globalization, Bollywood has made its way to the international markets. Globalization is often misrepresented as the growing influence of the western culture in the world and so we tend to state that Hollywood is influencing Bollywood to a great extent. An argument can be made to justify the validity of that statement. However, this paper aims at presenting the influence of Bollywood on Hollywood in terms of music, dance and visual representation. This papers deals with a specific part of globalization, providing evidence that it is not only related to the spreading influence of the western culture but also of eastern culture.
Feature film produced in 2009
Courtesy: UNESCO
Indian movies began production in the beginning of the 20th century and were, much like American films, in black and white. The very first movie produced with sound was Alam Ara which was released in 1931 and was directed by Ardeshir Irani. The first color Hindi movie was released in 1937 which is known to be the starting of the “golden Age “of the Indian film industry. It was referred as the golden age due to the release of many classical Indian music and popular films being released. In the 1970s, Indian film industry beat United States as the largest producer of movies in the world. Since then, it has become its own identity and is now termed as “Bollywood” which is mere combination of two words, Bombay (now known...
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Cultural exchange in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries was revolutionized by new forms of contact and stronger connections between civilizations. The documents provided demonstrate facets of cultural diffusion that formed each culture, and ultimately the future. The explosion of the Mongol empire, accounted for in documents 1 and 4, tied together the entire continent of Eurasia, linking one end to another and creating ties to spread culture and technology. Documents 1 and 3 demonstrate the inestimable value of religion in the spread of regional ideas, from missionaries to crusades. Finally, commerce and adventure provided another key road to expansion in documents 2, 4, and 5, expanding the scope of Christianity and the culture that
fragmented by the interruptions of song and dance, lending a sense of unreality. I believe Mira Nair successfully achieved her aim to make a Bollywood film on her own terms. As a director, she effectively combined the techniques of sound, editing, costume, colour and location to produce a fairly unique Bollywood film. Her message of the continuing modernisation of India, and her criticisms of both the societies she illustrates in the film comes across clearly, as do the more controversial points she brings up that Bollywood, as a film industry, does not typically address. Its appeal and effectiveness can be measured by the huge range of global audiences it has attracted, both Western and Eastern, which indicates that she accomplished her goal of making a realistic movie, breaking the traditional Bollywood mould.
Throughout the world when many people think of India the first thing that comes to mind is Bollywood. Bollywood has created a major mark in India and around the world. In 2011 CNBS reported Indian cinema as being $2.2 billion industry which creates 1,200 movies yearly, provides over 1.8 million people with jobs, and has more than 14 million theater viewers daily (Jetley). People who have had little to no expose with Bollywood films may wonder what makes Bollywood films stand out in the global market, and the answer is easily the presence of songs and dances in the films. Song and dance is a creative form of art and has been embedded in Bollywood cinema since the 1930s (Marcoux, and College). Every popular Bollywood film has at least 3 songs and dances sequences , and these sequences allow the characters to freely express their emotions in what is seen to be a “dream sequence” (Marcoux, and College). In Indian films women are represented as the object of men’s desires, and are often seen and not heard. Song and dance in Bollywood cinema allows women to express their sexual desires in a non-disruptive way, specifically I argue that this is attained through women who are rendered as respectable.
The Impact of Hollywood on the World In this piece of writing I will be looking at the impact of 'Hollywood' on the world. The word 'Hollywood' is used as a collective word across most of the world when we talk about media throughout the world such as; films, television programmes, music and global broadcasters such as MTV and Disney. It is believed that Hollywoodaffects a lot of things people do, think and say. I will be looking at whether Hollywood affects the world in a positive or negative way.
It is no doubt that Martin Scorsese has heavily influenced the emulating of American film making from European influences. He is a prime example of a ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ director, not only from his ethnicity and background, but from his sheer interest in this form
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
Since the creation of films, their main goal was to appeal to mass audiences. However, once, the viewer looks past the appearance of films, the viewer realizes that the all-important purpose of films is to serve as a bridge connecting countries, cultures, and languages. This is because if you compare any two films that are from a foreign country or spoken in another language, there is the possibility of a connection between the two because of the fact that they have a universally understanding or interpretation. This is true for the French New Wave films; Contempt and Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and contemporary Indian films; Earth and Water directed by Deepa Mehta. All four films portray an individual’s role in society using sound and editing.
Rao, S. (2007). The globalization of bollywood: An ethnography of non-elite audiences in india. The communication Review, 10(1), 57-76. doi: 10.1080/10714420601168491
But we should start out by acknowledging its success. In considering some of the reasons for the recent success of South Korean cinema, two further observations can be made. First, if we pay attention to the international export success of South Korean cinema, we can see that it has carved out a new route. This is based on regional markets, at least as much as Europe and the United States. Second, unlike the successes of the Taiwanese and Chinese “new waves” since the 1980s, it is not based on the old European art cinema model.
The film industry has always been somewhat of a dichotomy. Grounded firmly in both the worlds of art and business the balance of artistic expression and commercialization has been an issue throughout the history of filmmaking. The distinction of these two differing goals and the fact that neither has truly won out over the other in the span of the industry's existence, demonstrates a lot of information about the nature of capitalism.
...rding to the US Economic Census, motion picture and video production in the United States as a whole generated revenues of $20.15 billion in 1997, with Hollywood alone being responsible for close to 60% of this total.” (US Census) Hollywood’s success has come with no great competition to push for more, and with the emergence of film globalization, it should be very interesting going forth seeing if they can maintain the ideal motion picture headquarters. Its unique pool of talent drawn from many different countries cultural impact of Hollywood films is now felt in all parts of the world.
The history of Indian music extends back many centuries. Traditionally in that period, there were various kingdoms, in which the power was held equally by the king and the temples. This was the division of music. The temples presented religious music to all that wanted it while the kings patronized the separate artists. Music also formed a major part of the theatre. It was very famous as nearly all of India's people had access to it. There were full scale musicals in the ancient Indian theatres. This tradition has been carried into till the recent days, where Bollywood (the Indian Hollywood) films are very music-friendly. Music is an integral part of the movies that are being made. But many movies are now being targeted at the Western society, movies with less music. This is killing India's musical background.
This might seem all too extreme and foreign to individuals if they had not been exposed to the eastern culture (e.g:
It all involved actors doing dramatic and overly animated movements to attract the eyes of the audience. Live music was provided by musicians in the theaters; and to narrate the story of the film, words and titles were written to pop up in the film. Charlie Chaplin was an English actor who was one most famous and known in silent films. This era was very big for a while, but they then began to diminish around the late 1920’s. In 1920, Warner Bros. was just a small company looking for ways to expand. So they took a chance on the idea of talking films when they heard of a device called the Vitaphone going for sale. It was a sound-on-disc system that had no interest from the bigger film industries. In 1926, Warner Bros. deputed their first release of film with sound of Don Juan. This became a major breakthrough, earning Warner Bros. millions of dollars and spreading to theaters all over the country. By next year, they came out with their second sound film, The Jazz Singer. This era was the birth of the “talkie”, causing an increase of audience members coming back into the cinema. By 1930, silent film was a thing of the past (The history of movies). Because of the introduction of sound into film, this created new genres such as action, documentaries, musicals, westerns, comedies, horror movies, etc. Now as time goes on, not only is sound added on, but color begins to as well. Around the
In conclusion, it is worth stating that there are certain characteristics that stand out in a great film. For one, there should be a strong cast and a dominant director. With these two aspects, the standard of a film is greatly increased. Also the musical score and special effects added to a film, can raise the plateau in making it notable. It can also be seen that the criteria for making a film great, has changed over the years. What once made a film stand out in the past, doesn’t make it at present. However, this generally goes to the special effect features. Nevertheless, it can be said overall, that all these characteristics resulted in the creation of a great film, in ground breaking style and as a result, this has helped us define cinema or a film as we know it.