The Hindi Film industry of India has the highest viewership in the whole world. Yet the total amount of money that Bollywood makes in a year is just half of what one studio of Hollywood, Warner Bros, makes in a year.
What is wrong with Indian cinema?
Imagine this typical Bollywood movie scene. The hero rescues the heroine from a bunch of ugly goons, showing his superhuman fighting skills. In the process, the heroine falls into his arms and their eyes meet. They suddenly find themselves in Switzerland, singing and dancing to the tune of their love song. Such musical love stories are the most popular genre of the Hindi films. These films have given an impression of Indian cinema being loud and melodramatic to international audiences.
Most Indian films, even from other languages, are ‘inspired’ from foreign cinema. The biggest culprits include Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose award winning Black is a word-to-word rip off from the movie, The Miracle Worker. Most of Sanjay Gupta’s films, including Kaante, Zinda, Musafir, and Dus Kahaaniyan have been copied from English movies not just in terms of script, but also costumes, location and scenery. Sony Pictures planned to sue the makers of the film Partner for plagiarizing it from the Will Smith starrer Hitch in 2007.
Another major reason for the low quality of Indian cinema is funding. Indian films are made from a budget that is a thirtieth of an average Hollywood film. The cost of marketing makes the margin even greater. And hence, even though Indian cinema is watched by an audience that is a third greater than that of Hollywood, it accounts for just 15 percent of the world revenues, while Hollywood rakes in 75 percent.
The reason for this is the absence of the corporate studio system as in the USA. Bollywood was granted the status of an industry by the government as recently as in 1998. Till then, funding was provided by a few private distributors, studios and also by the Mumbai underworld. In 2001, the police seized copies of the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke after it discovered that the film had been funded by illegitimate sources.
Despite the hype surrounding Bollywood’s increasing influence in World cinema, it still has a long way to go before being a threat to Hollywood’s existence. Lack of original storylines, low class direction, special effects, cinematography, and worse of all, low reserves of acting talent make 9 out of 10 Bollywood movies fail at the box office. This shows that the Indian moviegoer is aware, and wants more.
Sources: www.textonthebeach.com, www.mutiny.wordpress.com, Wikipedia, The Times of India
Posted by akashgupta88 
