Bombay: The Other Hollywood
Originally published in The West Australian
Deep in the wilds of Bombay’s Film City, past a trail of dirt tracks and bribed security guards, there is a crisis. The makers of Badhai Ho Badhai, a new vehicle for Bollywood hero Anil Kapoor, are missing a priest — he missed the morning call, and it’s now one o’clock; the crew, who haven’t made a shot all day, are demanding a lunch break.
With the opportunity to get one shot finished, the cinematographer, sitting at the camera ready to roll, realises he has committed a devastating error, which must be immediately remedied. From across the set, past a sea of runners and cablewallahs, he calls to us: “can I get you a cup of tea?”
With the cinema of Bombay (now Mumbai) in the North, lovingly referred to as Bollywood, and the Tamil films of Madras (now Chennai) in the South, India is well known as the most prolific movie producer in the world. Known for their insistence on incongruous song-and-dance numbers in the middle of gangster films, over 700 three-hour movies are turned out each year.
“India is a country which is not unified,” says writer, producer and director Ravi Rai. “It is divided into 26 states, and these are 26 small countries with 26 languages. If I go 45 miles from Mumbai, I’ll land up in another place where I do not know the language, it’s like France for me.”
The need for Bombay’s films to speak to as much of this audience as possible, in the generic language of Hindi, is what creates the rigid formula of the Bollywood film. Highly conservative high-caste Hindus in particular see the invasion of a foreign, more violent style of movie, and American ideals, as an offence to Indian culture.
“They’re against American culture, they’re against English culture, they’re against nudity, they’re against everything,” Rai says. “It would take years to come to terms with a woman wearing a bikini o they have banned Baywatch in the past.”
Heroes such as Shah Rukh Khan and Anil Kapoor complete several films a year, singing and dancing their way to the heroine’s heart over and over. In recent times, however, Bollywood has been hit hard by two concerns all too familiar to the rest of the world. Rare is the year when a star does not end up in jail or wearing lead boots at the bottom of Bombay’s heavily polluted waterways, as the Bombay mafia’s influence on the industry increases, but it is nothing compared to the effect of television. The global juggernaut of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has reshaped Indian culture — families all over the country now gather around the television on weeknights to hear the immortal words: “is that your final answer?”
“India’s number one film star [Amitabh Bachchan] is the host of that show,” says Karuna Samtani, television producer and former director of programming at Zee TV, India’s largest cable network.
“The man was ill during our festival of Lord Ganesh. Everywhere, his pictures were put next to pictures of Ganesh and he was prayed for. The nation was praying for him to live, and placing him next to God. It’s not the game show, it’s God on television.”
Before the Gulf War, television in India was a dire, government-produced information service. CNN’s satellite broadcasts of the Middle East on fire, however, opened up the eyes of several dollar-hungry entrepreneurs, realising they could circumvent government regulation by broadcasting from Hong Kong. India’s first satellite entertainment channels were launched in 1992, and nine years later, television has exploded into the Indian consciousness.
Fears that India’s Eddie Maguire would destroy the box-office of the cinema industry have not proved entirely founded, but in the last ten years Bollywood has had to grow up:
“Cinema has had a new lease of life in the last ten years,” Samtani says. “There was a very short time when cinema houses were not to be visited, but not any more. There have always been distractions o when there’s a cricket match, the entertainment channel does not have any viewership. This country is crazy about cricket: the phone lines are down, and people don’t go to work.”
In a country where film stars wield enormous power, and superstars end up in politics or game shows, there is still an insatiable demand for the great Bollywood formulas, and for that peculiar Indian breed of hero.
Back at Film City, a sprawling National Park of Cinema set aside by the government for films in need of luscious countryside, the makers of Badhai Ho Badhai are hard at work reshooting scenes with a new priest. Anil Kapoor is making the most of his time posing with groups of children who have, like us, lubricated their way past security with a little “baksheesh”.
Superstars like Kapoor, worshipped as Gods in their own country, know all too well that abroad they are part of an industry that is the butt of the world’s jokes. One day, it is hoped, the sleeping giant of world cinema may make its counterpart in America sit up and take notice.
“Being a country which produces the largest number of films in the world, it is sad that we have not been able to achieve even an iota of what Hong Kong, Mexico or China has in international cinema,” Rai says. “We just have not been there.”