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1. •  
     CommentAuthoridoru345
   • CommentTimeMar 26th 2006

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   Changing India forces Bollywood to turn down volume
   
   Sun Mar 26, 2006
   
   By Krittivas Mukherjee
   
   MUMBAI (Reuters) - Think Bollywood, and what usually comes to mind are
   kitschy, megawatt musicals with lavish song-and-dance sequences
   largely disconnected from the plot.
   
   In a three-hour film -- it could even be a grisly thriller -- there
   may be as many as 10 songs with leading men and women strutting their
   stuff in settings as diverse as idyllic mountain meadows and grimy
   city streets.
   
   And every time the music starts, the storyline comes to a halt as the
   hero and heroine dance in gaudy attires that change with dizzying
   frequency.
   
   The sophisticated decry them and Western audiences hardly know them,
   but for the vast crowds who pack the cinemas in India's teeming towns
   and cities, and the travelling screens that take the country's dream
   factory to its villages, the songs are the chief attraction.
   
   But change is in the air for the country which leads the world in
   movie production, with a growing band of filmmakers replacing
   "interruptive music" with a soundtrack that blends with the plot
   rather than dominates it.
   
   "New directors are now making shorter films where heroes and heroines
   don't lip-sync songs," said Shankar Mahadevan of the popular Bollywood
   music director trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
   
   "Music happens in these films as background tracks."
   
   [...]
   
   

   full at Reuters

2. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeMar 26th 2006 edited

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   Thanks for the link!
   
   It's interesting to see India transform itself into a globally compatiable culture. I definitely see the recent 'slump' in hollywood as a sign that things are set to change. Maybe as the money for US TV budgets increases, as video games become more widely popular and absorb people at a deeper level of cultural significance then maybe Hollywood will start to take a back seat - welcome to the future of Indian driven cinema!
   
   I've been watching a lot of USA TV dramas this year, and trying to imagine a widescreen world devoid of a cinema going public - its not that difficult anymore.
   
   From the article...

   "The whole scenario has changed now. Today people don't have time for lengthy films. Give them a 1-1/2-hour film that they can connect to," said Taran Adarsh, a leading Bollywood analyst.

   
   Is there something absolute about that length of a good piece of cinema? What is it that makes any medium - books, music, cinema etc - fall into categories like this? It will be interesting to see what Bollywood takes from Hollywood and what it chooses to change. I hope cinema is as malleable as it makes itself out to be, otherwise the biggest cultural medium after television is in for a shake up it might not recover from.