India produces more films each year than any other country in the world. And Bollywood, the colloquial name given to the centre of the Hindi film industry in Mumbai, India—coined by blending the old name of the city, Bombay, and Hollywood, the heart of the American film industry—is the dream factory for a great many of them. This specially commissioned short essay examines the rise and immense contemporary importance of Bollywood in Indian culture; the original American usage has been retained.

Bollywood: India's Star Machine

By Anupama Chopra

On July 24, 1982, in the library of Bangalore University, Hindi film superstar Amitabh Bachchan, known in the media as “a one-man industry,” and around film studios—in mingled tones of envy and awe—as “God,” was shooting a film called Coolie. He spun around from a kick administered by a stuntman, fell heavily on a steel table, and ruptured his intestine. In the ensuing two weeks, while Bachchan, his body wrecked by serious medical complications, battled for his life, India came to a halt.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi flew to Mumbai to see the stricken star, and her son, future prime minister, Rajiv, cut short a trip to the United States to visit his childhood friend. Directors and producers thronged to Breach Candy Hospital, fans kept a constant vigil, offering their blood, organs, anything that might save Bachchan’s life. Thousands more flocked to prayer meetings held across the city, in temples and mosques, to invoke blessings. An eight-year-old child reportedly fainted on the street when she heard the false rumor that Bachchan had succumbed. Indians living in Singapore closed up businesses when they heard the same report. Film director Ramesh Sippy noted: “The kind of emotion Amitabh has evoked among Indians across the globe is absolutely phenomenal.”

But it’s not surprising. In India, cinema is not entertainment. It’s a passion. Every day, millions of moviegoers flock to the 13,000-odd cinema halls scattered across the country to partake of a movable feast of spectacle, song, and dance. Since film production began in India in the early 1900s, India has made over 27,000 films in 52 languages. Today, India is the largest film-producing country in the world, making around 800 films annually.

Of these, 110-odd films come from the dream factories of Mumbai, also known as Bombay. The Bombay film industry or Bollywood, as it’s popularly known, is India’s Hindi film capital. Mumbai, home to more than 10 sprawling studios, churns out a variety of spectacles, ranging from big budget, multi-star movies to C-grade quickies made on threadbare budgets in 10 to 15 days. At any given time, 200-plus films are under production, with budgets ranging from $50,000 to over $5 million. The approximately $500-million industry employs around 100,000 people. Bollywood pays $15 million annually to the Mahārāshtra state treasury, but its contribution to the vitality of Mumbai is immeasurable.

Mumbai has occupied center stage in film history since the arrival of cinema in India. On July 7, 1896, the first ever film to be screened in India, six Lumière Brothers shorts, was shown at Mumbai’s Watson Hotel. Soon, enterprising Indians like Hiralal Sen in Calcutta and H. S. Bhatavdekar in Mumbai were making similar shorts. By 1912 there were efforts at filming stage plays, and Dadasaheb Phalke, widely acknowledged as the father of Indian cinema, had established Phalke Films in Mumbai. One year later, after pawning his wife’s jewelry and risking physical and financial ruin, he made Raja Harishchandra, India’s first feature film. A resounding success, it ran for over three weeks. In 1931 Ardeshir Marwan Irani, a Mumbai studio mogul, directed the first Indian talkie Alam Ara; in 1937 he produced India’s first indigenously processed color film, Kisan Kanya.

Since then, the Hindi film industry has grown in scale and ambition. Today, Bollywood resembles its products in its larger-than-life aura, colorful personalities, and grand contradictions. It remains an unorganized cottage-industrylike business, marred by transactions in unreported “black” money carried in suitcases, a disorderly work culture, and murky doings. Since the 1980s the powerful Mumbai mafia has established a presence in the industry, mostly through financing films. And yet, Bollywood survived admirably the advent of video in the 1980s, satellite television in the early 1990s, and even assaults by Hollywood. The Hindi-dubbed Jurassic Park was a monster hit, but subsequent efforts like Braveheart and Schindler’s List have played to near empty houses.

Although Chennai (Madras), Hyderābād, and Calcutta are also important film production centers, Bollywood films, with a wider reach, retain an almost hypnotic hold on Indians across the world. Its stars are modern gods. None so far have matched Bachchan’s charisma. The actor survived and at 50-plus is still playing hero. But actors like Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan and actresses like Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor have a global fan following. Over the years, Hindi films have taken giant strides technically but baby steps thematically. While it isn’t unusual to find modern equipment like Arriflex cameras and Avid editing systems in Mumbai’s dusty studios, unconventional themes are rare. Most mainstream movies subscribe to the two cardinal rules of Mumbai moviemaking: there must be a love angle and there must be songs.

Music has been an integral part of Indian cinema since Alam Ara, which had seven songs. Historians believe the musical form comes from Indian theater, both the high classical traditions and the nautanki, or street theater. Whether it be a thriller, an action film, a horror shocker, or a teen romance, characters eventually break into song—often against the backdrop of an impossibly beautiful location (Switzerland is the current favorite). Film songs, which are played at weddings, festivals, celebrations, and in discos, are national anthems. Today, film music is a big business, with successful soundtracks selling as many as 10 million cassettes. And the various composers, singers, and choreographers are stars themselves.

But Bollywood’s “masala mix” productions are often denounced by the educated elite as escapist entertainment. In the 1970s and 1980s a dedicated band of filmmakers, weaned on Western cinema and inspired by director Satyajit Ray’s 1955 neorealist classic Pather Panchali, attempted to create a more realistic, songless art-house Hindi cinema. The parallel movement threw up a few good films and a few outstanding talents—directors Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani, actors Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi—but it eventually petered out by the early 1990s. Indian audiences seemingly prefer their own brand of cinema—gaudy, grand, sublime, a potpourri of influences and yet unmistakably Indian.

So Bollywood thrives, in all its chaotic splendor. As the legendary filmmaker, the late Raj Kapoor put it: “Jeena yahan, marna yahan, iske siva, jaanaa kahaan” (“It’s here to live, it’s here to die. There is no other earth and no other sky”).

About the author: Anupama Chopra is the film critic for India Today.

Appears in

Indian Cinema; Mumbai; India