Bombastic, Fantastic... Bollywood
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Ressort: Special interest Bombastic, Fantastic... Bollywood Berlin, 22.05.2019 [ENA] Over a century ago, the world's largest film industry was born: Bollywood. The shiny world of Bollywood films is more ridiculed than loved in Germany. But who does not take Bollywood seriously is mistaken: the Indian film industry not only offers colourful costumes, singing, dancing and lively film sets, but also artisan films that are in no way inferior to the Western movies. Non-Indians understand "Bollywood" as a synonym for the entire Indian film industry, which is actually incorrect. The word "Bollywood" is made up of "Bombay" and "Hollywood" (In 1996, the city council in Bombay decided to change the name to Mumbai).The local film industry produces more films than the USA, China and Japan. Only in 2016 more than 2.2 billion movie tickets were sold in India, making it the world's leading film market - German cinema can only dream of that! In India, "Bollywood" is the name for the Hindi-language film that exists alongside the Tamil film, the Telugu cinema (Tollywood), the Punjabi film (Pollywood), Malayalam cinema (Mollywood) and other cinemas. In total, 1721 languages are spoken on the subcontinent, of which 122 are main languages. Between 2014 and 2015, the Indian film industry shot 1827 films in over 39 languages, of which 297 were in Tamil, 297 in Hindi and 284 in Telugu. Despite the variety of languages the Indian entertainment films, regardless of which region they originate from have a lot in common. Indian cinema is a phenomenon that reflects the cultural pattern of Indian society. An emerging nation on the way to becoming an industrialised country, full of spirituality, a 5000-year culture of 1.3 billion people, including 1 billion Hindus, 200 million Muslims, nearly 28 million Christians, more than 20 million Sikhs, over 8 million Buddhists, among them the most famous refugee in the world, the Dalai Lama, some 69,000 Parses and less than five thousand Jews. India is also the birthplace of three world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism and the youngest world religion, Sikhism. Among the major influences which have shaped Indian cinema are the ancient Indian epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana. They have always made a deep impression on the works as well as the ancient Sanskrit drama, which focused on an action combining music, dance and gesture. Another element is the traditional folk theatre of India, which became popular in the 10th century after the decline of the Sanskrit theatre. The Parsi Theatre is another component which shaped the cinematic tradition of India. Realism and fantasy, Redaktioneller Programmdienst: Haftungsausschluss: European News Agency Der Herausgeber übernimmt keine Haftung für die Richtigkeit oder Vollständigkeit der veröffentlichten Meldung, sondern Annette-Kolb-Str. 16 stellt lediglich den Speicherplatz für die Bereitstellung und D-85055 Ingolstadt den Zugriff auf Inhalte Dritter zur Verfügung. Für den Inhalt Telefon: +49 (0) 841-951. 99.660 der Meldung ist der allein jeweilige Autor verantwortlich. Telefax: +49 (0) 841-951. 99.661 Email: [email protected] Internet: european-news-agency.com - Seite 1 von 6 - music and dance, narrative, plot, elemental dialogues, rough humour and the ingenuity of stage presentation are combined with melodrama. The Parsis originally come from ancient Persia, from which they fled to India after the decline of the Sassanid Empire and the following Islamisation in the 8th century. The most famous Parsi in the Western Hemisphere was Freddy Mercury. Hollywood musicals, which were popular until the 1950s, served as a guideline for Indian feature films as there is a deep-rooted tradition of narrating myths, stories, fairy tales, and the like through song and dance. Western musical television, especially MTV, shaped factors such as speed, camera angles, dance sequences and music in the 1990s. Indian films are much longer than Western films: two to three hours of running time is the rule, interrupted by a compulsory interval, due to the script, which is based on the guidelines of the Victorian script structure. The typical feature is still the interval in the middle of the film. Most movies are a mixture of romantic melodrama, comedy and action. Bollywood plots tend to be melodramatic. They often use content such as lovers and angry parents, love triangles, family ties, relatives, corrupt politicians, kidnappers, seductive scoundrels, lost loved ones and lovers who have parted fate and of course lots of music and dancing. It is expected that actors know how to dance. The vocal part is often - but not always - taken over by professional playback singers. The history of Indian Film began in 1896 with the first cinematographic performance of the brothers Lumière in Bombay. From 1898, the Bengale Hiralal Sen filmed theatrical performances. In December 1901, the first Indian documentary recording of a recent political event was made by Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar. In addition to short documentary films, theatre films were also produced during the first years. The turning point of the Indian feature film is “ Raja Harishchandra, filmed in 1912 and premiered in May 1913 movie by Dhundiraj Govind Phalke. The film was not a film adaptation of a play, but a sophisticated feature film and became a success because the audience got to see a story that was known to it. But it was the Jews of India who pushed the boundaries of Indian cinema: the first film kiss, the first dance, the first talkie and the first color film. Ezra Mir, a Jew from Calcutta, who had learned his craft in the USA, recognised the importance of sound film together with Ardeshir Irani and became the first Indian talkie. “Alam Ara” is a 1931 Indian Bollywood Hindi / Urdu film directed by Ardeshir Irani. Ezra Mir produced the film. “Alam Ara” made his debut at the Majestic Cinema in Mumbai in March 1931. The first Indian talkie was so popular that the police were called to keep the masses under control. In the beginning, just like in the theatre, women rarely appeared as actors, since the acting profession for women was considered disreputable at the time. Therefore men performed, dressed as women. One of the "female actors" was the cinematographer Anna Hari Salunke, also known as A. Salunke and Annasaheb Redaktioneller Programmdienst: Haftungsausschluss: European News Agency Der Herausgeber übernimmt keine Haftung für die Richtigkeit oder Vollständigkeit der veröffentlichten Meldung, sondern Annette-Kolb-Str. 16 stellt lediglich den Speicherplatz für die Bereitstellung und D-85055 Ingolstadt den Zugriff auf Inhalte Dritter zur Verfügung. Für den Inhalt Telefon: +49 (0) 841-951. 99.660 der Meldung ist der allein jeweilige Autor verantwortlich. Telefax: +49 (0) 841-951. 99.661 Email: [email protected] Internet: european-news-agency.com - Seite 2 von 6 - Salunke. Between 1913 and 1931 he performed many female roles. Nevertheless, male female actors could not meet the demand for female protagonists. It was the women of a small minority who went to Mumbai to conquer Bollywood. For Jews it was not taboo when women showed themselves in public. For more than 2000 years, Jews have lived on the Indian subcontinent. Presumably the first Jews arrived more than 2500 years ago. In fact the oldest Jewish cemetery in India is far older than 2000 years. Jews came to India in several waves over the centuries, sometimes as merchants but often on the run. Jewish women were more independent and progressive and conquered the silver screen by storm. The Indians believed they were descendants of Islamic conquerors or Anglo-Indian women because of their look and their stage names. Sulochana who was in actual fact Ruby Meyers, was the first female superstar of Indian cinema in the silent movie era. She was so famous that the films of Gandhi were shown before hers in order to increase his popularity. Rose Musleah was born in 1911 in Calcutta, where she was a dance teacher. After her divorce, she decided to try her luck in the film industry. As "Miss Rose" she made a career and played a major role in many films. When the family of Rachel Sofaer was financially struck by the economic crisis, she began working under the name Arati Devi as a film actress. After her marriage in 1933 she gave up her film career. Esther Abraham aka Pramila, was the star of Indian cinema in the 1930s. In 1947 she became the first "Miss India". One of Pramila´s films, "Mother India" from 1938 was shown as the first Indian movie at Buckingham Palace. In the late 1940s, especially after independence, the profession of "actress" no longer represented any moral concerns. Again it was a Jewish actress who set new standards. Farhat Ezekiel chose the stage name "Nadira" and established a new type of woman: the vamp. Smoking cigarettes, with unusual costumes and hairdoes she was considered the prototype of the vamp of Indian cinema. She often played the role of the seductress, the counterpart to the chaste heroine, favored by the Bollywood industry. A Jewish actor even became the father figure of Indian film. Known as "David" performer David Abraham Cheulkar could look back on a career spanning over four decades and more than 110 films. However the period in which Jews influenced the Indian film industry is long gone. The Jewish community of India which once numbered 90,000 souls has decreased to less than 5,000. After Israel's Independence in 1948, most of them left the country. The period following India's Independence from 1947 to the 1960s is regarded by film historians as the "golden age" of Hindi cinema. Some of the most critically acclaimed Hindi films of all times were Redaktioneller Programmdienst: Haftungsausschluss: European News Agency Der Herausgeber übernimmt keine Haftung für die Richtigkeit oder Vollständigkeit der veröffentlichten Meldung, sondern Annette-Kolb-Str.