GENRES AND STYLES

MASALA FILMS

Masala is a style of Indian cinema, especially in Bollywood and South Indian films, in which there is a mix of various genres in one film. For example, a film can portray action, comedy, drama, romance and melodrama all together. Many of these films also tend to be musicals, including songs filmed in picturesque locations, which is now very common in Bollywood films. Plots for such movies may seem illogical and improbable to unfamiliar viewers. The genre is named after the masala, a term used to describe a mixture of spices in Indian cuisine.

PARALLEL CINEMA

Parallel Cinema, also known as Art Cinema or the Indian New Wave, is a specific movement in Indian cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the social-political climate of the times. This movement is distinct from mainstream Bollywood cinema and began around the same time as the French New Wave and Japanese New Wave. The movement was initially led by Bengali cinema (which has produced internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, and others) and then gained prominence in the other film industries of India. Some of the films in this movement have garnered commercial success, successfully straddling art and commercial cinema. An early example of this was Bimal Roy's Two Acres of Land (1953), which was both a commercial success and a critical success, winning the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. The film's success paved the way for the Indian New Wave.

The most famous Indian "neo-realist" was the Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, closely followed by Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Girish Kasaravalli. Ray's most famous films were The Apu Trilogy, consisting of Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959). The three films won major prizes at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film Festivals, and are frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.

Film music

Indian film dances usually follow filmi songs.

Music in Indian cinema is a substantial revenue generator, with the music rights alone accounting for 4–5% of the net revenues generated by a film in India. The major film music companies of India are Saregama, Sony Music etc. Commercially, film music accounts for 48% India's net music sales. A film in India may have many choreographed songs spread throughout its length. The demands of a multicultural, increasingly globalized Indian audience often led to a mixing of various local and international musical traditions. Local dance and music nevertheless remain a time tested and recurring theme in India and have made their way outside of India's borders with its diaspora. Playback singers such as Lata Mangeshkar drew large crowds with national and international film music stage shows. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st saw extensive interaction between artists from India and the western world. Artists from Indian diaspora blended the traditions of their heritage to those of their country to give rise to popular contemporary music.

GLOBAL DISCOURSE

Indians during the colonial rule bought film equipment from Europe. The British funded wartime propaganda films during the second world war, some of which showed the Indian army pitted against the axis powers, specifically the Empire of Japan, which had managed to infiltrate into India. One such story was Burma Rani, which depicted civilian resistance offered to Japanese occupation by the British and Indians present in Myanmar. Pre-independence businessmen such as J. F. Madan and Abdulally Esoofally traded in global cinema.

Indian cinema's early contacts with other regions became visible with its films making early inroads into the Soviet Union, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and China. Mainstream Hindi film stars like Raj Kapoor gained international fame across Asia and Eastern Europe. Indian films also appeared in international fora and film festivals. This allowed 'Parallel' Bengali filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray to achieve worldwide fame, with his films gaining success among European, American and Asian audiences. Ray's work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Steven Spielberg, Carlos Saura, Jean-Luc Godard, Isao Takahata, Gregory Nava, Ira Sachs and Wes Anderson being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising his work. The "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy". Subrata Mitra's cinematographic technique of bounce lighting also originates from The Apu Trilogy. Since the 1980s, some previously overlooked Indian filmmakers such as Ritwik Ghatak and Guru Dutt have posthumously gained international acclaim.

Many Asian and 'South Asian' countries increasingly came to find Indian cinema as more suited to their sensibilities than Western cinema. Jigna Desai holds that by the 21st century Indian cinema had managed to become 'deterritorialized', spreading over to the many parts of the world where Indian diaspora was present in significant numbers, and becoming an alternative to other international cinema.

Indian cinema has more recently begun influencing Western musical films, and played a particularly instrumental role in the revival of the genre in the Western world. Baz Luhrmann stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals.^[124] The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! Renewed interest in the then-moribund Western musical genre, subsequently fueling a renaissance of the genre. Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008) was also directly inspired by Indian films, and is considered to be a "homage to Hindi commercial cinema". Other Indian filmmakers are also making attempts at reaching a more global audience, with upcoming films by directors such as Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Jahnu Barua, Sudhir Mishra and Pan Nalin

PARALLEL CINEMA also known as Art films or New Wave Cinema is a specific genre of Indian cinema which is known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the socio-political climate of the times. This genre is distinct from usual Bollywood cinema.

Origins

Pioneers of this movement were Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Chetan Anand, V. Shantaram, and Bimal Roy in the 40s. This was the beginning of the golden era of Indian cinema that lasted nearly two decades. Film makers of this era have collectively created a body of work that is known of its technical brilliance as well as for his artistic simplicity and thematic grandeur.

This cinema borrowed heavily from the literature of the times, hence became an important study of the contemporary Indian society, and is now used by scholars and historians alike to map the changing demographics the and socio-economic as well political temperament of the Indian populace.

Right from its inception, Indian cinema has had people who wanted to, and did use the medium for more than entertainment, they used to highlight prevalent issues and sometimes to throw open new issues for the public.

Many of the films in this genre have also garnered commercial success in an industry known for its surrealism or 'fantastical' movies, and successful stradled art or commercial cinema.

During the 1950s and the 60s, intellectual film makers and story writers became frustrated with mindless dance and song genre of the typical Bollywood film. To counter this, they created a genre of films which depicted reality from an artful perspective. Most films made during this period were funded by state governments to promote an authentic art genre from Indian cinema fraternity.

In the 1960s, the Indian government started financing such films, on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the FTII (Film and Television Institute of India), in Pune. Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director. The most-known Indian "neo-realist" is Satyajit Ray, closely followed by Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Girish Kasaravalli.

In the 1970s and the 80s, parallel cinema gave careers to a whole new breed of young actors, including, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amol Palekar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Amrish Puri, Pankaj Kapoor, and even actors from commercial cinema like Rekha and Hema Malini ventured into Art cinema.

In other languages

Abraham’s Agrahaarathil Kazhudhai, Editor-B.Lenin’s Oorukku Nooru Paer in Tamil cinema industry

Adoor Gopalakrishnan extended the Indian new wave to Malayalam cinema with his Swayamvaram in 1972. Aravindan, Padmarajan and T.V. Chandran was the other notable names in Malayalam region.

Girish Kasaravalli, Girish Karnad and B. V. Karanth lead the way for parallel cinema in the Kannada film industry.

Other uses of "Parallel cinema"

Parallel cinema may also refer to the offbeat Bollywood films. Recently notable films are

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Joggers' Park, Chandni Bar and Dor.

Fate of parallel cinema

The rising costs involved in film production and the recent commercialization of the films have had a negative impact on the so called art-films. The fact that investment returns cannot be guaranteed makes art films less popular amongst filmmakers. Unlike the European art film industry (which had a major influence on Indian art cinema), there is less of an art film audience in India.

Directors

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas G Aravindan Jahnu Barua Shyam Benegal T. V. Chandran Budhdhadeb Dasgupta Adoor Gopalakrishnan Ritwik Ghatak Rituparno Ghosh Subhash Ghai Sonali Gulati Prakash Jha Shaji N. Karun

Girish Kasaravalli Mani Kaul Kalpana Lazmi Mira Nair Govind Nihalani Dasari Narayana Rao Jabbar Patel Dada Saheb Phalke Sridhar Rangayan Mani Ratnam Nikhil Anand Giri Sohail Azam

Satyajit Ray S.V. S. V. Krishna Reddy Bimal Roy M. S. Sathyu Aparna Sen Mrinal Sen Partho Sen-Gupta V. Shantaram Biju Viswanath Ram Gopal Varma K. Viswanath