Indian Film Industry: What is Bollywood?

Bollywood can be easily defined as the equivalent to Hollywood in India. Bollywood is formally known as the Indian film industry which is based in Mumbai, India, much like it's American counterpart. Bollywood films use the Hindi language for dialogue and produce more movies each year than Hollywood. It is estimated that Bollywood produces over 1,000 movies a year, most of which being musicals. The popularity of Bollywood is quite vast across many Arab countries though the typical Bollywood film has a small shooting and casting budget in comparison to a typical Hollywood or western film. An underlying aspect of most Bollywood films is that they are usually musicals or at least have a musical aspect with one or more dance numbers present in the film.

The name Bollywood, as it sounds, is derived from the word Hollywood, the epicenter of the American film industry. The first letter of Hollywood is interchanged with the first letter of the city name at the time Bollywood was formed, which at the time was called Bombay. Though the Bollywood name still exists today, Bombay is now known as Mumbai.

Though the dance in a Bollywood film is real, most singing in the films is prerecorded before the film is produced by playback singers with the actors lip-synching the lyrics on screen. The professional playback singers have their own fans who often times decide to watch a movie based upon their singing abilities alone. Music in the Bollywood film industry is a vital part of the movie, if the movie has a poor soundtrack or bad recording the movie may fail to garner any sales or interest among the population. The people of India have grown up listening to musicals and this is a pivotal reason that determines the success or failure of any Bollywood movie.

Bollywood films have a conservative approach to on scene antics that most Americans would consider tame in nature. For example, most Bollywood films have no kissing scenes. This is based on the social values that are still expected in their culture. The same could be said about the American film industry years ago though times have changed along with our social values in America. What was once considered taboo in America may now be a integral part of a plot or scene in a typical American Film. Bollywood still shares the values we came to expect in the Hollywood film industry years ago.

Sources:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-bollywood.htm

www.bollywoodworld.com/whatisbollywood

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/23/bollywood.hollywood/index.html