Cinema of India
From ArticleWorld
Dadasaheb Phalke is considered to be the Father of Cinema of India. In an era of silent, black and white movies, “Alam Ara” was produced and it opened a channel for entertainment as well as contentious social issues.
Movie types
The cinema of India revolves around the largest film industry in the world – “Bollywood”. With the huge number of films produced and revenues also lucrative. Bollywood lures talent from all over the country and of late from international film industries, too.
There are two main types of films made in India:
- Commercial films
- Art or new cinema
- Commercial cinema tends to long, generally of three hours duration, with an interval. These kinds of films have a song and dance sequence invariably and are generally used to cater to add to entertainment value, also known as “item number”. Alternatively, song dance-numbers are a continuity of the basic storyline at the same time breaking the monotony and keeping a certain section entertained. Indian commercial cinema, generally have drama, comedy, action, stunts, and songs all packed into a not so short story line. Sometimes, to veer away from routine themes, Hollywood remakes are styled in Indian form and are also very popular and successful.
- Art or Serious or New Wave Cinema as it is variously called is a serious kind of movie addressing social issues and is traumatic. Amateur directors, fresh from the school of film institutes, generally use this kind of platform to prove their point and use it as a landing retried to get noticed. Art cinema is generally on a shoe-strip budget and funded by the government. Many notable directors and actors made their mark in national cinema threshold
Regional films
India is a very diverse country having many languages, so regional films also contribute towards the Indian cinema in a huge way. The south Indian film industry plays a major part in the regional film arena as movies are constantly being minted out, which follows the basic principle of Bollywood in making films. Hyderabad is where the Ramoji Film City is located, churning out great south Indian block-busters. Telgu, Kannad, Tamil and Malyalam are some of the regional language movies made. Movies are also made in other languages of India like Marathi, Gujarathi, Punjabi, Bengali and Oriya which have a popular following in their respective states.