Bollywood
Hindi cinema, often known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema,[4] is the Indian Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The term is a portmanteau of "Bombay" and "Hollywood". The industry is related to Cinema of South India and other Indian film industries, making up Indian cinema—the world's largest by number of feature films produced.[3][5][6]
In 2017, Indian cinema produced 1,986 feature films, with Bollywood as its largest filmmaker, producing 364 Hindi films the same year.[3] Bollywood represents 43 percent of Indian net box-office revenue; Tamil and Telugu cinema represent 36 percent, and the remaining regional cinema constituted 21 percent in 2014.[7] Bollywood is one of the largest centres of film production in the world.[8][9][10] In 2001 ticket sales, Indian cinema (including Bollywood) reportedly sold an estimated 3.6 billion tickets worldwide, compared to Hollywood's 2.6 billion tickets sold.[11][12][13] Bollywood films tend to use vernacular Hindustani, mutually intelligible by people who self-identify as speaking either Hindi or Urdu,[14][15][16] and modern Bollywood movies[17] increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish.[14]
The most popular commercial genre in Bollywood since the 1970s has been the masala film, which freely mixes different genres including action, comedy, romance, drama and melodrama along with musical numbers.[18][19][20][21] Masala films generally fall under the musical film genre, of which Indian cinema has been the largest producer since the 1960s when it exceeded the American film industry's total musical output after musical films declined in the West; the first Indian musical talkie was Alam Ara (1931), several years after the first Hollywood musical talkie The Jazz Singer (1927). Alongside commercial masala films, a distinctive genre of art films known as parallel cinema has also existed, presenting realistic content and avoidance of musical numbers. In more recent years, the distinction between commercial masala and parallel cinema has been gradually blurring, with an increasing number of mainstream films adopting the conventions which were once strictly associated with parallel cinema.
History
Early history (1890s–1940s)
In 1897, a film presentation by Professor Stevenson featured a stage show at Calcutta's Star Theatre. With Stevenson's encouragement and camera, Hiralal Sen, an Indian photographer, made a film of scenes from that show, The Flower of Persia (1898).[29] The Wrestlers (1899) by H. S. Bhatavdekar showed a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay.[30]
Dadasaheb Phalke's silent Raja Harishchandra (1913) is the first feature film made in India. By the 1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per year.[34] The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara (1931), was commercially successful.[35] With a great demand for talkies and musicals, Bollywood and the other regional film industries quickly switched to sound films.
Challenges and Market Expansion (1930s-1940s)
The 1930s and 1940s were tumultuous times; India was buffeted by the Great Depression, World War II, the Indian independence movement, and the violence of the Partition. Although most Bollywood films were unabashedly escapist, a number of filmmakers tackled tough social issues or used the struggle for Indian independence as a backdrop for their films.[34] Irani made the first Hindi colour film, Kisan Kanya, in 1937. The following year, he made a colour version of Mother India. However, colour did not become a popular feature until the late 1950s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were cinematic staples.
Golden Age (late 1940s–1960s)
The period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, after India's independence, is regarded by film historians as the Golden Age of Hindi cinema.[44][45][46] Some of the most critically acclaimed Hindi films of all time were produced during this time. Examples include Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), directed by Guru Dutt and written by Abrar Alvi; Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955), directed by Raj Kapoor and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, and Aan (1952), directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Dilip Kumar. The films explored social themes, primarily dealing with working-class life in India (particularly urban life) in the first two examples. Awaara presented the city as both nightmare and dream, and Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of urban life.[47]
Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957), a remake of his earlier Aurat (1940), was the first Indian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; it lost by a single vote.[48] Mother India defined conventional Hindi cinema for decades.[49][50][51] It spawned a genre of dacoit films, in turn defined by Gunga Jumna (1961).[52] Written and produced by Dilip Kumar, Gunga Jumna was a dacoit crime drama about two brothers on opposite sides of the law (a theme which became common in Indian films during the 1970s).[53] Some of the best-known epic films of Hindi cinema were also produced at this time, such as K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960).[54] Other acclaimed mainstream Hindi filmmakers during this period included Kamal Amrohi and Vijay Bhatt.