What is the present scenario of the Indian films?

Answer 1

Change is the law of nature, the spice of life and every change brings forth something new and innovative which may be beneficial, useful and refreshing for the people at large and the society to adopt.

Though every change brings with it something new, there are some areas where it has not proved so useful.

The silver screen or bollywood has completely transformed itself during the past three to four decades emerging completely in a new avatar. The art of film making has seen a total overhaul right from storyline, action, music to technological innovations and up gradations, marketing strategy and publicity.

Though in some way it may seem as a welcome step, but it has proved more harmful and the benefits derived from this change are much less.

It is not the case that good movies are not produced now-a-days. But looking at the overall social scenario and the typical tastes, preferences, values and emotions of Indian people, their number is negligible when compared to the situation four decades back.

In order to completely understand this phenomenon, it would be wise to look at the overall scenario of the Indian film industry, the movies produced during the past six decades, the different eras of bollywood and the success rates of movies in such period.

The present times of bollywood seems to have completely transformed from the earlier periods. It seems the film industry wants to go in consonance with the technological developments and information technology revolutions that have been taking place in society completely forgetting and misunderstanding that the people still thrive on the same emotional values and morals as were decades back and these modern day developments are for making their lives convenient and not for fulfilling their emotional needs. The citizens still crave for movies with which they can have an emotional bonding and which is more real to their lives with which they can relate.

The present day bollywood movies seem to have forgotten this as technology has now become an integral and indispensable part of bollywood. Movies relying heavily on technology and fantasy became a complete disaster. The examples being Abhay and Love Story 2050.

The present day bollywood can be said to be the period from the late 1990's to the present times.

While the late 1990's was still a period where some good movies were produced, the coming years saw a gradual decline in films success.

This can be attributed to a number of factors. An analysis of the present day movies will make the picture clear.

As mentioned earlier, this era is witnessing a complete makeover from the films produced during the earlier periods. Technology played a dominant part in every aspect of film making and the audiences witnessed cutting edge technology not only in action packed thrillers but also got a chance to have a feel of it even in music.

With more and more sophisticated instruments being invented, the soft music of yesteryears was lost in oblivion and the music started to get processed through these technological instruments and the end product resulted in mechanised music with the sound of these gadgets overpowering the voice of the playback singers. Perhaps this might be the reason that the greatest title conferment's [Nightingale of India-Lata Mangeshkar] and the best award honours-Manna Dey [Padma Shri 1971, Padma Bhushan 2005, and Dadasaheb Phalke 2009] and Late Pandit Bhimsen Joshi [Bharat Ratna] were conferred upon the greatest singers of the golden period.

The advent of commercialisation and globalisation has given ample scope for Indian film makers to release their movies globally as the international market may have many lucrative chances for them.

The provision of 100% FDI has made the Indian film industry attractive for foreign enterprises and in the 20th Century, Indian cinema, along with American and Chinese film industries became a global enterprise.

Many global players like 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures entered the Indian market.

It cannot be said that the present times is a complete debacle in terms of movies but their number and success rate as compared to earlier decades has become very less.

Some of the good movies during early 2000's were Lagaan [2001], Koi Mil Gaya [2003], Munnabhai MBBS [2006], Ghajini [2008] and 3 Idiots [2009]. These movies did fairly well at the box office.

The present decade also saw a new genre of film making- the realistic cinema i.e. films based on real life events which to a considerable extent helped the cash registers ringing and were appreciated by people from all walks of life.

Realistic cinema can be broadly categorized in two categories:

1. films base on underworld.

2. Films base on other real life events.

While the late 1990's saw a plethora of films being released on Mumbai underworld and majority of them being widely acclaimed.

Ram Gopal Varma's Satya [1998] and Company [2002] and Mahesh Manjrekar's Vaastav [1999] becoming a runaway hit.

The early and later part of 2000 Saw Movies being released on other real life events. Black Friday [2004] based on Mumbai blasts of 1993 and Shootout at Lokhandwala [2007] based on 1991 Lokhandwala Complex shootout were welcomed with good response.

The latest in the real life event movies -No One Killed Jessica [2011] based on the famous Jessica Lal murder case of 1999 won huge accolades.

But despite all this, bollywood began loosing its sheen in the present decade as these successful movies did not constitute the major chunk of the total movies produced in a year and the number of disastrous movies steadily began rising.

One of the major reasons being the openness, boldness and vulgarity both in terms of scenes and dialogues which today's movie portray. Though the society has modernized and progressed in the present times our moral values have always remained the same. But the producers and directors have completely misjudged the tastes and choices of the audiences and leaving aside the piety and sanctity of the movies they went ahead to bank upon the voyeuristic appetite and prurient interests of the viewers which proved a complete fiasco.

This was the only reason of films like Style, Tauba-tauba and Love, sex aur Dhokha being a debacle.

Movies which had the 'sex only mantra' as its formula for success neither appealed to the audiences at the cerebral nor at the carnal level. Mr Sing and Mrs Mehta [2010] was one such movie which was crushed down. And in these dark times whenever any topical film with some meaningful social message was released it earned huge success. Taare Zameen Pe and 3 Idiots thus became instant hits Singham released in2011 was a commercial movie of the 1990's genre and earned huge laurels. .

To bring the old glory of the film industry, thus, the films of the Golden era like Mughal-e-Azam and Hum Dono have been re-released in colour and many more are in the pipeline

Thus amongst all this glitterati, the bollywood film makers have changed the way of making films. .

The producers and directors have forgotten that they are making movies for the Indian audience who are not used to see movies without a good story.

The result is obvious, out of all the movies released in a year, more than ninety percent can be put in the category of not successful or flop, and the rest are of an average nature. Many movies find it hard to stay in a theatre even for two weeks. Only a few movies are able to create a big impression on the viewers.

A peek at the movies released during 2010 will give us a more clear picture. Out of the total movies released last year, only four were major hits which included Once Upon a time in Mumbai, Peepli Live, Golmaal 3 and Dabangg. Overall bollywood suffered a net loss of Rs 300 crore. The list of flop movies is endless and included Kites, Raavan, Rakta Charitra, Veer, Action Replay, Guzaarish, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se, Pyaar Impossible, Paathshaala, Rann, Teen Patti, Khatta Meetha, Jhoota Hi Sahi, We are Family, Knock Out, Phoonk 2 etc

The gradual extinction of single screen cinema halls and the birth of multiplex culture [tax exemptions to multiplex has resulted in multiplex boom in India] have also to a considerable extent caused a dent on the style of making films. The multiplex audience being limited, many of the producers are making films catering exclusively to the needs of those limited audience. These movies are in many cases not more than one and a half to two hours duration and most of the times go unheard and unnoticed by a large section of the population. The style of these movies is also very different and can be easily compared with the Hollywood movies with the only difference that the dialogues being delivered in Hindi.

The cumulative effect of all these factors is that the Indian film industry is running into huge losses and a large section of the audience losing interest in the movies of the present times.

It is high time that the bollywood producers and directors revive the old way of making films with a good storyline so that the golden days of the movies and bollywood can be brought back.

Answer 2

Change is coming in the Indian cinema scenario. More and more westernization is seen in the movies being made. Various movies on global issues are made too.