Bollywood
Bollywood is the name given to the Mumbai-based film industry in India. It is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced.
The films it produces are mostly in Hindi. They are generally lively, energetic musicals. Bollywood films often have their own sense of internal logic and can be as surreal as any musical produced by American or European studios. The music is generally pre-recorded, sung by a core group of singers, with actors miming the words (known as playback singing). The standards for accuracy in the playback singing are far lower then found on American MTV, with the words primarily delayed from the music. Generally, professional playback singers provide the voices but of late there's a trend of the actors singing for themselves, like Aamir Khan in Ghulam. Bollywood films are often engaging spectacles that tell timeless stories of love and turmoil.
Bollywood films usually feature caucasian looking indians (Aryan as opposed to Dravidic), usually from the northern regions of India. The dancing usually involves very strong and quick body movements, and large groups of dancers.
During the period that Bollywood was not known outside of India and the various Indian communities, a lot of licences were probably used without permission.
Currently due to increased visibility and increasingly large audiences, some Bollywood films can have fairly large budgets, allowing them to use famous film sets such as Hatfield House and Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom. In modern Bollywood films, location shooting is the main focus, where as many good looking locations as possible are sought regardless to the plot. However, funding for Bollywood films remains hit-and-miss. There are no large studios which fund films. Often funding comes from private distributors. In 2001 the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's national police agency, seized all prints of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke after the movie was found to be funded by members of the Mumbai underworld.
Another problem facing Bollywood is piracy of its films. Often pirated DVDss arrive before the print for the picture.
The term Bollywood was created by conflating Bombay (the city now called Mumbai) and "Hollywood". Mumbai is a major centre for the production and editing of Indian films.
Noted playback singers in Bollywood films:
- Kishore Kumar
- Lata Mangeshkar
- Asha Bhonsle
- Mohammed Rafi
- Mukesh
- Hemant Kumar
- Kumar Sanu
- Udit Narayan
- Yesudas
- Dilip Kumar
- Amitabh Bachchan
- Raj Kapoor
- Guru Dutt
- Kishore Kumar
- Rajesh Khanna
- Anil Kapoor
- Shabana Azmi
- Hema Malini
- Naseeruddin Shah
- Madhuri Dixit
- Aamir Khan
- Shahrukh Khan
- Govinda
- Salman Khan
- Manisha Koirala
- Kajol
- Ajay Devgan
- Karisma Kapoor
- Hrithik Roshan
- Vivek Oberoi
- Aishwariya Rai
- Rani Mukerjee
- Bipasha Basu
- Preity Zinta
- Kareena Kapoor
- Urmila Matondkar
- Devdas (2002): Based on a classic Bengali novel about a young man who is torn between the woman he loves and a prostitute and is driven to drink and despair.
- Laagan (2001): Indian villagers struggle to defeat a cruel British District Officer and free themselves from land tax by organizing a cricket team and taking on the British.
- Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Ghum (2001): Family drama starring Amitabh Bachchan as the family patriarch who disowns his son (Shah Rukh Khan) for marrying a girl (Kajol) from a poor neighborhood, and how his brother (Hrithik Roshan) attempts to bring the family together again.
- Mohabbatein (2000)
- Taal (1999)
- Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1997)
- Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
- Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge(1995)
