Indian Film Expert Answers Bollywood Questions

I'm Aparita Bhandari,

arts and culture reporter

and the host of Khabardaar Podcast

Let's answer some questions from the internet.

This is Bollywood Support.

[upbeat music]

littlepastel wants to know

why is Bollywood called Bollywood?

The Indian film industry,

the major part of it,

the Hindi language cinema,

is based out of Mumbai,

which at one point,

after India was colonized and such,

was known as Bombay in west of India

in a state or province called Maharashtra.

So this is, you know,

where these big budget blockbuster movies are made.

Now, Bollywood outside of India is often thought of

as all of the movies being made in India.

So that would be that 1000-plus movies juggernaut

that we often talk about when we talk about Indian movies.

Now, a lot of people in India

often don't like the term Bollywood.

They think it's a little pejorative.

So they will often call it Indian cinema

or Hindi language cinema,

kind of trying to define it that way.

But really, everybody calls it Bollywood.

All right, next question.

bellhopgirl wants to know why do all Bollywood movies

have songs in them?

Most Bollywood movies do have songs in them.

There are even some that are entirely in song.

If you look at any of our traditional arts,

folk arts, music and song is a big part of that.

The Parsi Theater tradition, especially,

from which the Indian film industry drew quite a bit,

or many other regional plays or other forms of storytelling,

they all have definitely a lot of song and dance involved.

If you look at Hollywood cinema,

like, often you have a background score, right?

You'll hear the music going on in the background.

So in Bollywood,

it's very much the foreground.

Often the actors and actresses will break into song.

This is especially true of the movies of a prior era,

so for, you know, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s,

even up to the '90s.

If you look at contemporary cinema coming out

of India these days, even Bollywood,

which is the sort of big commercial cinema,

you'll notice that a lot of those aesthetics

of having these songs more as background score has come.

But we still retain that idea of the movies

often breaking for song and dance,

especially if there's an event like a family wedding

or some kind of a talent show or something,

you'll definitely have a song and dance break.

lol_panda is saying,

Today I learned that the majority of Bollywood films

use a playback singer to sing the song in the films.

Bollywood has kind of perfected

that whole art of lip syncing.

So most of our actors and actresses,

I can only think of maybe one or two

who in one or two movies have actually sung their own songs,

but most of them have actually never sung a song.

They're not trained.

So what we do have is playback singers,

like Lata Mangeshkar.

She was known as the Nightingale of India

'cause she has this lovely, sweet, thrilling,

very soprano voice.

She sang for most of the actresses

right until the late '90s into the kind of early 2000s.

So you have this entire industry of playback singers.

So these are actually trained vocalists.

Lata Mangeshkar was one,

her younger sister Asha Bhosle was another.

And then, you know, there's a whole legion

of male playback singers.

Oftentimes what would happen in fact

is that these playback singers would become

synonymous with a particular actor.

So for instance, Mukesh was often known

as the voice of Raj Kapoor.

When Mukesh died, Raj Kapoor said that his voice has died.

So there is this very close relationship

between often playback singers and actors,

and then playback singers in their own right

have become legitimate stars.

They're celebrities.

These days, of course, there are a lot

of these singing shows that happen,

and so these playback singers come on there.

But, yeah, Bollywood playback singing

is a whole industry in itself.

Nik7654 is asking, Who is the Brad Pitt of Bollywood?

That would probably be Amitabh Bachchan.

He's still one of the biggest superstars,

a kind of mix of maybe Clint Eastwood and Al Pacino,

that's the kind of vibe.

But a more Brad Pitt contemporary

would probably be Shah Rukh Khan.

He is currently the biggest superstar

of Indian commercial cinema,

mainstream cinema, Bollywood.

There was a time when there were the three Khans

that ruled Bollywood,

Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan,

but Shah Rukh Khan without doubt is definitely the king.

lordofabyss is asking,

Essential art house or non-conventional cinemas

of '80s, '90s era of Hindi film industry?

So I would say that the '50s, '60s kind of is

what a lot of people would call the golden age,

but then after that in the '70s comes a lot

of the masala films,

the commercial films,

what we truly associate with Bollywood films these days,

you know, that whole sort of mishmash of action,

and romance, and comedy, and drama,

that whole kind of melodramatic piece.

So really, in the '70s,

I would say, you know, there was this establishment

of what was called parallel cinema.

So that's what we used to call our art house

or indie cinema.

You have a lot of directors, you know,

Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani,

like, a lot of people that were making these kind of movies

that weren't necessarily that mainstream masala film.

I'm thinking of movies like Ankur or Manthan,

or, you know, there's a movie called Mandi.

Really powerful movies that are talking about class issues,

caste issues, issues about women's rights,

you know, depicting life in rural India.

And then, more recently,

I would say in the '80s or '90s that you're referring to,

there was also this movement

of these kind of independent cinema coming out

of that sort of mainstream industry.

So it's not completely art house,

but a more gentle kind of more realistic kinda cinema,

which often we were calling Hindi cinema,

because get it, Hindi Hindi.

There was a movie that came out by Kiran Rao

a while ago called Mumbai Diaries.

There was another movie

called The Lunchbox by Ritesh Batra.

Even some of the bigger directors have taken that approach.

Most recently there was a movie called Masaan

that dealt with caste.

And the director of that film, Neeraj Ghaywan,

himself is a Dalit filmmaker,

somebody who would, you know,

one would classify him as previously known as untouchable.

He now has become somebody to watch out for

in the Indian industry,

and recently had a film called Homebound,

which is now available to watch on a streaming platform.

Sanat Gersappa is asking,

Why do Bollywood stars who talk normally in Hindi

when they're speaking suddenly switch to Punjabi,

tainu, mainu, et cetera, when singing?

Really, this is a reflection of who is writing the songs.

And if you think about it,

the Indian film industry is really reflecting the diversity,

the multiethnic backdrop that is India, right?

So a lot of the people who make up the industry

come from these backgrounds.

And in fact, if you look at some of the beginnings

of the Indian film industry or of Bollywood,

there is a lot of Muslim influence.

It was the kind of high art of poetry was in Urdu,

so that's what they would often write in,

and then, you know, you had different writers come in.

Neeraj was one who was once asked

to just write songs in Hindi.

So a lot of lovely Hindi songs,

like Rangilare, became a part of cinema history.

And then, of course, there is a strong Punjabi influence,

like the Indian film industry

is made up of a lot of Punjabis.

They will bring their kinda language to it, as well.

So, suddenly they are switching from Hindi

to Punjabi in the songs.

But then, if you have a movie set,

or with Bengali characters, for instance,

there might be a little bit of Bengali that comes in

or there might be a little bit of Gujarati that comes in.

Or, these days, there might be a little bit

of Tamil that comes in.

India is a multiethnic country,

so naturally some of that will be reflected

in its songs and dialogues.

Hari Kondabolu is saying,

RRR is Tollywood, not Bollywood.

#Telugu.

So, Hari, yes, I agree.

RRR is definitely Telugu cinema,

and really has taken the world, I guess, by storm.

It's interesting though,

Tollywood is Telugu Cinema for sure,

but also in India, the Bengali film industry,

because it was based out of Tollygunge,

is often also called Tollywood,

so it's a little confusing.

So in India, you've got Bollywood,

you've got Tollywood,

so Telugu film industry,

but also Bengali film industry.

You've got Collywood,

which is the Tamil cinema,

which is based out of Chennai.

So you've got a whole range of films

that are being made in India across regionally.

You've got Gujarati films, Punjabi films,

Assamese films, films from Kannada films,

all sorts of films being made,

and they're not all Bollywood.

But outside of India,

Bollywood has kind of become this catchall

kinda phrase for all the films

that are being made from India.

So often it gets confusing,

but you're right, RRR is not Bollywood,

although Bollywood is now taking a lot

of lessons from Telugu Cinema

and trying to make blockbusters of their own.

@CetarisParish, with a wonderful owl icon, asking,

Tell me one mainstream Bollywood movie

with Dalit characters.

India has a very stringent caste system,

which still is observed to this day,

according to which people were divided

into different sections of the society.

And so, the Dalits were the ones who were out of caste,

or they used to be called the untouchables.

A Dalit person would, for instance,

not be allowed to eat from the same plate

or drink from the same well.

They wouldn't be allowed to enter the temple premises.

Dalit characters have been a part of Indian films

in a sense that sometimes when they would show ideas

of oppression, then you would have Dalit characters shown.

These days to say whether there's

a mainstream Bollywood movie with Dalit characters

would be really tough.

But within the last couple of years,

especially after there was a real reckoning

in the Indian political landscape,

there were some movies that have come up,

like Article 15, which showed some Dalit issues,

but again, made by a Savarna, or upper caste, filmmaker.

There have been some other movies

that are now being made by Dalit filmmakers.

So, Masaan, which is made by Neeraj Ghaywan.

He's one of the few people in Bollywood,

so this is the Hindi film industry,

the big mainstream industry,

who self-identifies as Dalit.

And he very recently made another movie called Homebound

in which he depicted three characters who are Dalit.

So you had three young actors,

Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khatter, and Vishal Jethwa

playing Dalit characters in this movie.

He wanted to make this movie as mainstream as possible,

so he cast these actors who personally themselves

had a wide reach, you know,

young up and coming actors.

It's a beautiful movie,

you should try watching it.

But there's also other filmmakers in regional cinema,

in Marathi Cinema, in Tamil cinema,

who are similarly identify as Dalit,

and they're making some real interesting movies.

You've got Pa. Ranjith in the South

making a lot of movies in Tamil that raise Dalit issues.

And then, you have Marathi filmmaker Nagraj Manjule

who made Sairat in Marathi,

which then was remade into Hindi as Dhadak,

again featuring Janhvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter

in a story that features Dalit characters.

tylekurner is saying,

There's a Bollywood remake of Hannah and Her Sisters

called Kapoor and Sons,

and I need it in my life.

I'm not entirely sure whether Kapoor and Sons

is the remake of Hannah and Her Sisters,

but queerness in Bollywood movies has existed

for a very long time,

if you wanted to look for it.

There have been queer characters,

there have been kind of subtle queer storylines.

There is a lot of homoeroticism that often goes on,

but an out and out kind of a queer movie

is something that's still a bit of a rarity.

But if we really wanted to look at contemporary Bollywood

or Indian cinema,

I will point you to 2019

and a movie called Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga.

Now, this star is Sonam Kapoor,

who you could say is quasi-Bollywood royalty.

She's the daughter of Anil Kapoor,

a well-known actor of the Indian film industry,

but she starred in this movie as a lesbian character.

And this was a big deal for, like,

a mainstream, you know, proper sort of Bollywood heroine

to take on this role.

The script was written by Ghazal Dhaliwal,

who identifies as being a trans woman,

and it really was based on a lot

of her experiences growing up in India as a queer person.

And since then, there have been quite a few movies

that feature queer roles.

I'm thinking about movies

like Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan.

I'm thinking about movies like Badhaai Do.

And in the art house kind of sphere,

there are really some really wonderfully nuanced movies

that explore queer identity in India.

Hrithik_Ki_Patni is saying,

Rekha was a baddie before it was even a thing.

Hrithik_Ki_Patni, I totally agree with you.

If you have, you know, Cher or Madonna, we have Rekha.

She's this kind of style icon.

She's a queer icon.

There's this kind of mystery,

this kind of je ne sais quoi about her.

She's always been this object of desire,

and yet it seems like nobody could ever come close to her.

Now, she was married once,

and unfortunately that ended in a tragedy.

So Rekha actually came to the Hindi film industry

to Bollywood from the South

and made a name for herself,

and pretty much kind of ruled the box office for decades.

Like you could have movies that really were centered on her.

She was equal billing almost, you know,

as the male co-stars,

which was almost unheard of in those times.

WhoDebi asks, Bollywood generally stereotype Muslims

by always playing the good Muslim-bad Muslim trope.

Either Muslims prove their loyalty to the country

or they are jihadis in most films.

But Gully Boy portrayed them

as any other normal characters

with their dreams and struggles.

Yes, WhoDebi, I do agree that Gully Boy

is an amazing movie.

It stars Ranveer Singh.

It's got Alia Bhatt playing his love interest.

It's a wonderful film.

It's directed by Zoya Akhtar,

beautiful, beautiful film.

But I would say that Muslim identity,

Muslim kind of culture has been an integral part

of Indian cinema for a very long time.

Right from the start,

you had these incredible storytellers,

you had these incredible lyricists,

you had composers, you had all sorts of people

who make up the Indian film industry, or Bollywood,

who are Muslim.

So a lot of the old songs, for instance,

are beautiful lyrically because they were often written

with that wonderful Urdu poetry

or there was a lot of Urdu dialogue.

And in fact, there used to be some of these films

which used to be called Muslim socials

back in the '50s, '60s

that really showed us that whole

kind of life of Muslim people,

just everyday kind of life,

and beautiful romantic kind of films were made in that era.

So there is Gully Boy,

but more recently,

I would point to another smaller film

called The Great Shamsuddin Family.

It really brought a sense of this particular part

of Indian society that is very much there and thriving.

Initial_Economy says,

Will you guys agree if I say Tabu

is the best actress of Indian cinema?

Oh my God, is she a powerhouse?

If you see her in movies like Maqbool,

a adaptation of Macbeth in Hindi cinema,

and she was Lady Macbeth,

and my gosh, the way that she portrayed that character

with so much said just in her eyes.

So Tabu is one of these actresses

who can really shape shift in so many ways.

Like, I'm thinking of a movie called Crew,

which is more recent,

and it's really a masala film,

like a real kind of mass appeal type of a film.

But then, recently, she's also played these kind of

really kick-ass characters, cops.

She played, like, Mrs. Havisham in the remake

of Great Expectations.

If Tabu is in a movie,

I am more than likely going to watch that movie.

@AMPunjani is asking,

Why do Bollywood movies have to be so long

it legit took me three days to finish a movie,

and at the end it wasn't even worth it.

These movies are typically three hours long,

although if you go with a very recent movie

that was released called Dhurandhar,

the second part of it was four hours long.

So, you know, hey, if Martin Scorsese can do it,

I think so can Bollywood.

Bollywood movies follow that three-act structure,

but then they also have the songs

that are a integral part of the movie,

so that stretches out a little bit.

You have all these elements of the, you know,

Bollywood kind of narrative that happens.

All loose ends need to be tied.

And of course, we have that very famous interval

in the middle of a Bollywood movie,

which sort of really cuts the movie into two halves.

So you have things that happen before the interval

leading to this kind of cliffhanger,

and then the rest of the movie kind of resolves itself.

So that tends to take three hours and change

for Bollywood movies.

But more recently,

I would say that Bollywood movies have actually tried

to become a little bit shorter.

So some of them might be in the 2.5 hour range.

Although, in art house cinema,

you'll get some really tight movies.

Another question on Reddit is,

How would you split the history/legacy/filmography

of Bollywood into different eras?

Indian film actually has a long history

starting right from the late 1800 silent era,

1931 Alam Ara, first talkie.

Then, we come to the '50s and '60s,

which to me, a Gen Xer, is the golden era.

This is, you know, time of Raj Kapoor, Guide,

and these kind of Mughals and that kind of film.

And then you come to the '70s,

which is the masala, the disco era,

that popular culture type of throw everything

into the film action.

And the thing that Bollywood is kind of infamous for,

one would say, that's the whole '70s.

The '80s, I often call the lost decade.

I mean, it's still some real fun movies,

but some quite questionable type of filmmaking

also happening at this particular point of time.

The '90s is when this kind of liberalization happens.

Before the '90s,

when you looked at TV and cinema in general,

you know, you had two TV channels.

But after that, you know,

satellite TV in the '90s came to India,

and MTV came and, you know,

we were watching Friends in Indian houses,

so the filmmaking also kind of changed.

It's much more globalized.

It's also addressing this kind of diaspora

that's living outside of India.

And then, in more contemporary cinema,

there's been this trend of more nationalistic films,

more war films.

There's also a trend of more hyper-masculine films.

And there are also some aspirations

of making that kind of, you know, superhero,

a lot of VFX style cinema that's coming through

in contemporary Indian or Bollywood cinema.

pizza_and_fries is asking,

What are the must-watch Bollywood movies?

Okay, let's give you five movies

that I think you should watch.

There is, of course, Mughal-e-Azam.

It was, of its time, this epic film.

The director went to great lengths

to build the sets of this movie.

It went over budget, took years to make.

It's kind of like a historical drama,

and it's got a great romance in it.

Sholay, big kind of blockbuster,

spaghetti Western, 1975,

the best of kind of movie.

Then in the '90s,

you have Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

This was, I believe, 1995,

and it's got Shah Rukh Khan,

and it's this wonderful kind of rom-com type of movie,

where Shah Rukh Khan is this boy from London.

He's growing up in the diaspora,

meets Simran, played by Kajol.

There's a whole bunch of songs and dances,

which are still performed to this day.

And this movie still, I think,

holds the record in being the longest running,

still playing in some theaters in India.

And then from contemporary films,

maybe I would pick something like Piku.

It's a delightful little family movie

about the central character, Piku,

who needs to take care of a very cantankerous father

played by Amitabh Bachchan.

That was a really fantastic movie

that I would suggest you can watch.

And then just to, you know,

throw a little bit of art house cinema in there,

I would say a movie like Kalyug,

this was in the '80s,

and it takes the Indian epic of Mahabharata,

and it makes it into this really tight,

compact family drama set in contemporary India.

So very relatable characters

and just fantastic acting, stars Rekha.

Those would be my picks.

So many more movies I could tell you about.

KidsMaker is asking,

Best examples of an actor playing two completely

different roles in the same movie?

We have this very common thing of, you know,

the twins, the lost brothers,

that kinda thing,

and, you know, that sort of double role will often happen,

or father-son type of thing.

But there was a movie,

What's Your Raashee?,

that came out in which Priyanka Chopra, Jonas now,

played 12 different characters.

So the premise of the movie was that this guy goes

for this arranged match type of a thing,

and then he meets 12 different women of 12 Zodiac signs.

So the movie's called What's Your Raashee?,

which means what's your Zodiac sign?

So she played 12 different characters

of 12 different Zodiac signs.

We have hsnanak asking,

Why the hell is CGI so bad in Indian movies?

As I said, India's trying to make,

you know, these kinda superhero type

of either trying to make their own cinematic universe.

And it's weird, right?

Because oftentimes the VFX of all of these,

you know, big Hollywood movies,

a part of it is done in India.

The reason it's so bad,

even though that's where a lot of VFX is happening,

is because they just honestly don't have

the time or the budget,

or often the continuities.

Things are done on a very rush basis,

and often not plotted well.

So that part of Indian filmmaking

still needs to really come up to speed, let's say.

Those are all the questions for today.

Thanks for watching Bollywood Support.

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