Hindi cinema
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to India's Hindi-language film industry, based in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" and "Hollywood". The industry, producing films in the Hindi language, is a part of the larger Indian cinema industry, which also includes South Indian cinema and other smaller film industries. The term 'Bollywood', often mistakenly used to refer to Indian cinema as a whole, only refers to Hindi-language films, with Indian cinema being an umbrella term that includes all the film industries in the country, each offering films in diverse languages and styles.
In 2017, Indian cinema produced 1,986 feature films, of which the largest number, 364, have been in Hindi. In 2022, Hindi cinema represented 33% of box office revenue, followed by Telugu and Tamil representing 20% and 16% respectively. Mumbai is one of the largest centres for film production in the world. Hindi films sold an estimated 341 million tickets in India in 2019. Earlier Hindi films tended to use vernacular Hindustani, mutually intelligible by speakers of either Hindi or Urdu, while modern Hindi productions increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish.
The most popular commercial genre in Hindi cinema since the 1970s has been the masala film, which freely mixes different genres including action, comedy, romance, drama and melodrama along with musical numbers. 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 talkie, Alam Ara, was produced in the Hindustani language, four years after Hollywood's first sound film, The Jazz Singer.
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.
Etymology
"Bollywood" is a portmanteau derived from Bombay and "Hollywood", a shorthand reference for the American film industry which is based in Hollywood, California.The term "Tollywood", for the Tollygunge-based cinema of West Bengal, predated "Bollywood". It was used in a 1932 American Cinematographer article by Wilford E. Deming, an American engineer who helped produce the first Indian sound picture.
"Bollywood" was probably invented in Bombay-based film trade journals in the 1960s or 1970s, though the exact inventor varies by account. Film journalist Bevinda Collaco claims she coined the term for the title of her column in Screen magazine. Her column entitled "On the Bollywood Beat" covered studio news and celebrity gossip. Other sources state that lyricist, filmmaker and scholar Amit Khanna was its creator. It is unknown if it was derived from "Hollywood" through "Tollywood", or was inspired directly by "Hollywood".
The term has been criticised by some film journalists and critics, who believe it implies that the industry is a poor cousin of Hollywood.
History
Early history (1890s–1930s)
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. The Wrestlers by H. S. Bhatavdekar showed a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay.Dadasaheb Phalke's silent film Raja Harishchandra is the first feature-length film made in India. The film, being silent, had English, Marathi, and Hindi-language intertitles. By the 1930s, the Indian film industry as a whole was producing over 200 films per year. The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara, made in Hindustani language, was commercially successful. With a great demand for talkies and musicals, Hindustani cinema and the other language 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 early Bombay 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. 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.The decade of the 1940s saw an expansion of Bombay cinema's commercial market and its presence in the national consciousness. The year 1943 saw the arrival of Indian cinema's first 'blockbuster' offering, the movie Kismet, which grossed in excess of the important barrier of one crore rupees, made on a budget of only two lakh rupees. The film tackled contemporary issues, especially those arising from the Indian Independence movement, and went on to become "the longest running hit of Indian cinema", a title it held till the 1970s. Film personalities like Bimal Roy, Sahir Ludhianvi and Prithviraj Kapoor participated in the creation of a national movement against colonial rule in India, while simultaneously leveraging the popular political movement to increase their own visibility and popularity. Themes from the Independence Movement deeply influenced Bombay film directors, screen-play writers, and lyricists, who saw their films in the context of social reform and the problems of the common people.
Before the Partition, the Bombay film industry was closely linked to the Lahore film industry ; both produced films in Hindustani, the lingua franca of northern and central India. Another centre of Hindustani-language film production was the Bengal film industry in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, which produced Hindustani-language films and local Bengali language films. Around the same time, filmmakers and actors from the Calcutta film industry began migrating to Bombay; as a result, Bombay became the center of Hindustani-language film production.
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. Some of the most critically acclaimed Hindi films of all time were produced during this time. Examples include Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, directed by Guru Dutt; Awaara and Shree 420, directed by Raj Kapoor, and Aan, directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Dilip Kumar. The films explored social themes, primarily dealing with working-class life in India in the first two examples. Awaara presented the city as both nightmare and dream, and Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of urban life.Guru Dutt was lauded for his artistry, notably his usage of close-up shots, lighting, and depictions of melancholia. He directed a total of Hindi films, several of which have gained a cult following internationally. This includes Pyaasa, which made its way onto Time magazine's 100 Greatest Movies list, as well as Kaagaz Ke Phool, all of which are frequently listed among the greatest films in Hindi cinema. He was included among CNN's "Top 25 Asian Actors" in 2012.
Mehboob Khan's Mother India, a remake of his earlier Aurat, was the first Indian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; it lost by a single vote. Mother India defined conventional Hindi cinema for decades. It spawned a genre of dacoit films, in turn defined by Gunga Jumna. Written and produced by Dilip Kumar, Gunga Jumna was a dacoit crime drama about two brothers on opposite sides of the law. Some of the best-known epic films of Hindi cinema were also produced at this time, such as K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam. Other acclaimed mainstream Hindi filmmakers during this period included Kamal Amrohi and Vijay Bhatt.
The three most popular male Indian actors of the 1950s and 1960s were Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Dev Anand, each with a unique acting style. Kapoor adopted Charlie Chaplin's tramp persona; Anand modeled himself on suave Hollywood stars like Gregory Peck and Cary Grant, and Kumar pioneered a form of method acting which predated Hollywood method actors such as Marlon Brando. Kumar, who was described as "the ultimate method actor" by Satyajit Ray, inspired future generations of Indian actors. Much like Brando's influence on Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, Kumar had a similar influence on Amitabh Bachchan, Naseeruddin Shah, Shah Rukh Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Veteran actresses such as Suraiya, Nargis, Sumitra Devi, Vyjayanthimala, Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Waheeda Rehman, Nutan, Sadhana and Mala Sinha have had their share of influence on Hindi cinema.
While commercial Hindi cinema was thriving, the 1950s also saw the emergence of a parallel cinema movement. Although the movement was led by Bengali cinema, it also began gaining prominence in Hindi cinema. Early examples of parallel cinema include Dharti Ke Lal, directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and based on the Bengal famine of 1943, Neecha Nagar directed by Chetan Anand and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, and Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin. Their critical acclaim and the latter's commercial success paved the way for Indian neorealism and the Indian New Wave. Internationally acclaimed Hindi filmmakers involved in the movement included Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal, and Vijaya Mehta.
After the social-realist film Neecha Nagar received the Palme d'Or at the inaugural 1946 Cannes Film Festival, Hindi films were frequently in competition for Cannes' top prize during the 1950s and early 1960s and some won major prizes at the festival. Guru Dutt, overlooked during his lifetime, received belated international recognition during the 1980s. Film critics polled by the British magazine Sight & Sound included several of Dutt's films in a 2002 list of greatest films, and Time's All-Time 100 Movies lists Pyaasa as one of the greatest films of all time.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the industry was dominated by musical romance films with romantic-hero leads.