Richard Byrne, music critic for “The Globalist”, explains several points why and how Bollywood becomes more and more known throughout the world, and what impact this might have on our Western society.
First of all, the name “Bollywood” is not yet recognized everywhere, especially in the United States, in contrast to “parts of the world where the British Empire once held sway” (Byrne, 2002). Bollywood describes the Indian movie industry. It got this name by coincidence because it was compared to Hollywood but was produced in Bombay. So it was the Bombay Hollywood – Bollywood (Grant, 2009).
It probably spread less quickly than Hollywood because it was not an official name until recently and also because Indian movies were not shown everywhere. However, within the last decade this changed dramatically due to people like Ronnie Screwvala, who is re-creating Bollywood, making it an international competitive industry (Overdorf, 2007). Furthermore, some Bollywood companies might have already had the chance to cooperate with other Hollywood companies, entering actual partnerships, such as Anil Ambani with Stephen Spielberg (Mathur, 2009) or Screwvala’s UTV Software Communications with Sony Pictures and Fox Searchlight (Overdorf, 2007). And although the deal between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) and the Bollywood company Sahara India Pariwar (Spector, 2010) was not closed because Sony got the deal (Fritz, 2011) it still shows Bollywood’s competitiveness. So therefore, the number of people not knowing the term Bollywood is constantly decreasing, I truly believe. When I asked friends a couple of years ago if they knew “Bollywood”, most of them did not – when I ask today the answer is completely different!
The next point is going to discuss Byrne’s view that Bollywood already influences people across the world via different channels of communication. Not only the actual Indian movies available on TV, internet or cinema but especially music (videos) on the internet or radio. Byrne mentions that “Slowly but surely, however, Bollywood's visual style is starting to infiltrate the Hollywood sensibility as well. The first wave was through music videos such as the one that British DJ combo Basement Jaxx made for the group's recent hit ‘Romeo’” (Byrne, 2002). Probably, this influence was predominate in Great Britain due to their high numbers of Indian descended citizens, but this development could also spread over to the United States. When Bollywood is ready in terms of music (e.g. when more music producers such as “DJ Basement Jaxx” combine Indian and Western music styles, or Soundtracks like “Monsoon Wedding” are released worldwide (Byrne, 2002)) and of course when Indian movies are shown in the United States because of more fusions such as between UTV and Sony Pictures (Overdorf, 2007).
Moulin Rouge was most likely the first film that brought impressions about Indian dance scenes and singing to the United States, in a glamorous, fast, intoxicating way – in my opinion this was a fantastic way of introducing the heavy, colorful style of Bollywood to the Western audience. It was communicated as luxurious, special, expensive (not only because the story takes place in the most famous brothel in Paris) and magical. Richard Byrne perfectly describes: “When Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman suddenly break into song, or when the singers and dancers seem to drop out of nowhere into a scene, you're getting a strong stylistic flavor of Bollywood.”
Richard Byrne has opened my eyes when he stated that “one of Hollywood’s main successes has been assimilating and broadening the film styles of other countries”, e.g. the “Italian spaghetti Western or the stylized violence of Hong Kong thrillers." So how long will it take for Hollywood to copy the unique Bollywood style? As already discussed: Bollywood is a huge potential market which is most likely quite attractive to the American movie industry. I could describe the resulting influence on the Western society better than Mr. Byrne: “With the recent Bollywood invasion, can the day be too far off when people around the world see a singing dancing love story come from Hollywood — and not Bombay?!”
List of References:
Byrne, R. (2002, July 13). Hollywood Vs. Bollywood. theglobalist.com. Retrieved April 28, 2011 from http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2565.
Fritz, B. (2011, February 08). Sony finalizing distribution and co-financing deal with MGM. Latimes.com. Retrieved April 28, 2011 from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/02/sony-mgm-distribution-bond.html.
Grant, A. (2009). What is Bollywood? – A bried summary of Indian cinema from 1913 to the Present. Worldfilm.About.com. Retrieved April 25, 2011 from http://worldfilm.about.com/od/bollywood/a/historyofbollywood.htm.
Mathur, T. (2009, July 16). Hollywood to Bollywood. Bollywoodt20.com. Retrieved April 25, 2011 from http://www.bollywoodt20.com/2009/07/hollywood-to-bollywood.html.
Overdorf, J. (2007, November 30). “Hooray for Bollywood. Newsweek.com. Retrieved April 25, 2011 from http://www.newsweek.com/2007/11/30/hooray-for-bollywood.html
Spector, M. (2010, September 19). Indian Firm in Early Talks to Buy MGM. Theerant.yuku.com. Retrieved April 28, 2011 from http://theerant.yuku.com/topic/34416/Bollywood-Takes--Hollywood-Indian-Conglomerate--Buy---Great-.
Trailer Moulin Rouge
Hindi Sad Diamonds - Bollywood scene Moulin Rouge
DJ combo Basement Jaxx - ‘Romeo’
wow, i have never really noticed that something like that happened, especially in moulin rouge! i thought that was just a new style of musical production and not that it was secretly connected to the Bollywood production. Although I didn't know known that Hollywood and Bollywood studios were entering so many new partnerships, thinking of Globalization it makes sense that the world is interconnecting more and more. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Bollywood will take over Hollywood, or become equal in the west, because Hollywood knows it's position and is probably eager to keep their "first place". I think the cooperation is rather more mutually beneficial, however it is impressive to what extend Bollywood made it's way up to Hollywood!
AntwortenLöschen