FSM # 23: Let’s talk Bollywood, for crying out loud!
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I mean, seriously, I can’t even remember ONCE when that has been a topic…and I’ve been here since the beginning in 1997. Not really surprising, though, since we’re mostly Westerners on a US-based board and since – to tell you the truth – 90% of the films are crap (how can they NOT be considering how many films are produced each year). But there are some excellent films as well, and what more appropriate time to talk about this than now, with LAGAAN being Oscar-nominated and all.
And it just so happens that I saw this one yesterday. What a film! Although it – being one of the most expensive films in Bollywood’s history – is obviously produced to cater to American and Western audiences, there were plenty of typical traits – such as the many musical numbers that are apparently not sung by the characters, but rather “mimed”.
The film is a whopping four hours long and tells the story of a few native villagers that enter into a cricket competition with the British military, stationed in the region. If they lose, they’ll have to pay triple “lagaan” (taxes). If they win: no lagaan for the next three years. It’s really a typical “sports” movie about the underdog fighting for its rights. So of course it’s gonna resonate neatly with Americans.
4 hours about cricket in India might sound dull, but it’s actually very entertaining and has lots of good humour. Visually dazzling as well. A couple of moments are a little “awkward” and border on clichée, but different conventions will have to take some of the blame.
The music – by A.R. Rahman – is absolutely fantastic! The underscore is lush and heroic – mixing Western and arabic harmonies. Same goes for the songs. From heart-breaking to the stupendous “training montage” song (“ROCKY tandoori”). I’m not sure if Rahman utilized an orchestra or if the music is sampled, but it SOUNDS real (most probably, he mixed the two). And the funky ethnic grooves are catchy. I want the soundtrack.
Has anyone else seen this one? If not, you should. Also, can anyone recommend any OTHER Bollywood films or film music?
The above post was written right at the cusp of my interest in Bollywood films and scores, 24 years ago. In fact, Indian cinema in general, also beyond Bollywood (especially Satyjajit Ray). It petered out a bit some 10 years ago; it’s simply such an enormous industry of which to keep abreast. But I do have some recommendations, should they be necessary.
By the way, we have a separate topic for A.R. Rahman.
I’ve seen very few “real” Bollywood movies, and remember hardly any of it… nor the music.
But I’ve got a nice anecdote. Years ago, I had a colleague within a befriended company; I didn’t work with him on any projects, but we sometimes met in various locations. Anyway, he was from India. One day, we talked about some movies we enjoyed. And he told me about his first experience when he went to the movies in Germany. He went with some colleagues of his, don’t recall the movie, but after a while he sat there and wondered: when are they going to start singing and dancing! We had some good laughs about that. Because he had been just puzzled there was no singing and dancing in the movie, whereas I would have probably been puzzled the other way around.Cute story.
I remember the first time I went to Germany, I was taken aback by the fact that you dub everything. That was alien to me, like the absence of song and dance was to him. In Norway, we only dub children’s films and programs imported from abroad, and I rarely thought much about that as a kid (except maybe a few live action examples, like THREE NUTS FOR CINDERELLA). But in Germany, it was everything not in German.
It should be noted that India has a lot of films OUTSIDE Bollywood, with no song or dance. Previously mentioned Ray being one such example, maybe the most famous one.
Somewhere in the 90s or early 2000 a friend of mine with whom I went to see movies at cinema more or less every week had a Bollywood phase and took me regularly to cinemas showing Bollywood films.
Two things I found interesting.
Apart from the singing and dancing there didn’t seem to be something like a Bollywood genre. Of course there were lots of family dramas, but also gangster movies, action movies, we once saw a kind of martial arts movie.
Second thing, you saw that these movies had a big production value, were produced with much effort. But as soon as the actors were supposed to do something apart from singing and dancing like playing football, playing an instrument or handling any kind of tool it looked like they did this for the first time in their life. They don’t seem to have coaches for such things to make it look real. Exception Was that fighting movie. That was quite good.I don’t remember any of the movie titles apart from that super popular SOMETIMES HAPPY SOMETIMES SAD.
And I never paid much attention to the scores.
he sat there and wondered: when are they going to start singing and dancing!
Funny story indeed, Nick 😉
I am not really familar with Bollywood movies and haven’t seen any completely I think. It became a bit of a parody of itself by now. But I surely can value/honor the logistics/choreography of all the mass dancing and the overall production efforts GerateWohl mentioned already, too.
I haven’t seen any Bollywood movies as the idea of the format doesn’t appeal to me.
I have seen dozens and dozens of digital albums on places such as Amazon – sometimes with 20-30 being ‘dumped’ at any one time. I never check them out now because, in my experience, they are usually only song albums. Occasionally there are ‘background score’ albums featuring the score. And some of them are quite catchy.
But it’s a genre I am happy to miss out on. So much other stuff to listen to!
I think Lagaan is the only Bollywood film I’ve seen. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I haven’t seen all that many Indian films, for that matter; probably more than half of them would be Satyajit Ray films. The general reception for RRR a couple of years ago was so ecstatic that I have been somewhat interested in seeing it, despite my reservations about its style, but it seems the only easily available version has dialogue dubbed into Hindi…
I definitely understand the alienating effect of Bollywood films on western audiences. I felt the same, and in many ways still do (I was never a big musical fan to begin with, animated Disney films notwithstanding). But once you get under the skin of them, the whole ‘massala’ approach that Gerate mentions (every genre thrown into the mix) is very appealing, as are the approximations or incorporations of western pop culture elements in a local dressing.
There are also darker and more nuanced undercurrents in many of them — it’s not all surface gloss — as exemplified by Mani Ratnam’s “terrorist trilogy” comprising ROJA (1992), BOMBAY (1995) and DIL SE (1998). All scored by Rahman, ROJA being his debut feature film score. And BOMBAY – with its supremely beautiful and popular “Bombay Theme” – is a complex, interesting film about rivalry and reconciliation between Hindu and Muslim communities.
I could mention some classics that are worth exploring for all film buffs. The 50s is an interesting period. The rise of star culture (Raj Kapoor, Nargis etc.), and lots of social films in Hindi that dominated. Primary among them Mehboob Khan’s MOTHER INDIA (1957), with a soaring song score by Naushad. The harvesting scene in that film (which I own on DVD) is very moving – a lone mother singing her heart out while trying to sustain her two children in difficult times.
But I wanted to highlight SHOLAY (1975), which I also have on DVD, another of Bollywood’s greatest successes, and the breakthrough film for superstar actor Amitabh Bachchan. Great, funky score by R.D. Burman that is mixed a bit “shrill” in the film here and there, but is well worth exploring.
If memory serves, Josh/American Nightmare, who recently registered, is a bit of a Bollywood soundtrack buff? Am I remembering right, Josh (if you’re still around)?
But I wanted to highlight SHOLAY (1975), which I also have on DVD, another of Bollywood’s greatest successes, and the breakthrough film for superstar actor Amitabh Bachchan. Great, funky score by R.D. Burman that is mixed a bit “shrill” in the film here and there, but is well worth exploring.
Indeed sounds nice. A compilation of such tracks would surely be a great listen.
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