Talk:Cinema of India/Archive 1

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Duplicate articles

This article has been listed at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles. Cinema of India can incorporate the History of cinema in India. The former has very less content and the latter doesn't talk anything about history. Jay 17:49, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Merged the two pages.

--Wolf530 01:17, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Some comments on Satyajit Ray

As per his book "Our Films, Their Films", Satyajit Ray never believed in the concept of "Art Films" as opposed to "". He thought that every film director makes films in order to make money. The "Art Film" idea became popular in India because of the many Government sponsored projects undertaken by less talented directors. This has done more damage to the viewership than anything else because you can just tag a film that way and alienate it from the mainstream viewers.

Satyajit Ray's first film "Pather Panchali" was incidentally partially financed by the West Bengal government. This film made quite a bit of money and was a moderate box office success in West Bengal.

Some of his films lost money but I think he had many other box office successes, most notably the two fantasies and the detective films.

Thanks, this is interesting material. Can you be more specific re the financing for and success of Ray's films? There may be some disjunction between his ideal (make money) and the reality (had to accept govt funds to keep working). Did his books subsidize his films? I'm not sure that I want to change the text here YET, but I'm open to being convinced, and to working collaboratively.
Just read a very interesting book, Bollywood by Tejaswini Ganti, and there's lots of info there re Indian govt policies towards film that was news to me, and ties into your comments re "art" films. Must rewrite relevant WP articles to reflect that.
We may also need to rework article on Satyajit Ray, dunno. I haven't worked on that one. Zora 21:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another round with Surya

Surya, I did lots of googling on Satyajit Ray. I don't think your edit saying that he was as commercially successful in India as he was overseas was anywhere close to the truth. His international success may have pleased Indians, but that didn't mean they watched his movies. I found one web site -- Manas -- that said his films were shown in Bengal and on the international art-house circuit, and unknown to the rest of India. So I rewrote the sentence.

I also took out -- again -- your statement that "most people call them art films". Which people? In which language? Art films is a huge category, covering a hundred years of films from every country on earth. Calling the New Indian Cinema "art films" is about as useful as pointing out that they were filmed in 35 mm. It is not a distinguishing characteristic.

I did try to anchor the phenomenon more firmly in time, from the start to the end of state sponsorship (related, I'm sure, to the fall of the Congress party and the rejection of heavy-handed state socialism). I also mentioned a few recent indie films. It seems that the Indian movie industry is going to be like the West -- big players making big-budget mass-appeal films and aspiring auteurs making quirky films that occasionally hit it big.

Satyajit Ray was very well-known in India, and I guess I should have made that more clear. As for the "art film" appellation, you don't have a clue about it! Practically all Indian journalists and the majority of Indian cinema-goers distinguish between what they call art films and mainstream films (Bollywood, etc.). You're trying to impose your book-knowledge on the realities of Indian film and its quite pathetic. I want to show you first-hand why your constant posturing is ludicrous and why you have a lot more to learn. Just hit ctrl-f and run a search on "art film" in the following pages. You'll see that film students, professionals, and lay-people all refer to them as art films. This is just a raw sampling of random Google hits. Just search on your own for "art film." It doesn't matter that the term is ambiguous on an international context because it's still the standard term used by Indians for their cinema styles.
You need to lose your pretensions of omniscience really quick. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:17, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Just checking in ...

I am going to try to work on this page as my special project of the month. Meanwhile - http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2005/09/oscar_shoskar.html is what Shekhar Kapur said recently: So much Hoo Ha about India's entry to the Oscars. Do you really care ? ...I would bet that if Satyajit Ray were alive today, and made Pather Panchali in this year, first the Indian Jury would have not even considered it, and if perchance they did, the Oscar's voters would probably have walked out of it. UNLESS the critics and the press raved about it before the screening. And this is a film that is rightly considered one of the 10 best ever made. So who has the right to judge ??? Which leads me to another point. Why did regional films from India not come into contention. Some of the best films today are not made in Hindi but in regional languages, as they tend to be much more rooted... But I can tell you which film I would have voted for - A film called Black Friday which is a brilliant film by a young director called Anurag Kashyap. It is, naturally, banned in India, for it is the story of the people responsible for the Bombay Bomb Blasts. It follows them through the planning, execution and till they either gave themselves up or were arrested. It exposes the events in each ones lives, for you to judge the morality of it all. Totally gripping. And so, so contemporary. I think it would have won. That is Shekhar for you Autumnleaf 13:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marathi cinema

I rewrote, making it clear (for non-Indians) that Mumbai is part of Maharashtra. I also removed the names of actors (all Mumbaikars are Maharashtrians, yes?) and films. Too much detail compared to the other industries in the list. Zora 05:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Clean up

Doesn't this require a cleanup tag? -- dormant25

INCOTW

Looks like a lot to be done. Two obvious things:

  • Move stuff from Bollywood. A lot has been written there assuming that Bollywood ==Indian cinema.
  • History of Indian cinema.
Um, I don't think that the Bollywood article assumes any such thing. Many of the things that have been written about Bollywood are also true of Indian cinema as whole, and could perhaps be copied. Removed? Please don't!
One thing that the Bollywood article doesn't do well, and that could perhaps be more usefully discussed in the Indian cinema article, is discuss film-making as an industry. More about financing, studios, and especially distribution. I gather that the distribution system is extremely complex.
Oh yes, and government attitudes towards the cinema. A discussion of the censor board, as that is an India-wide phenomenon. Also, tax policies. Tejaswini Ganti's book on Bollywood touches on these, and they probably apply across the board, to all the regional industries. Ganti argues that the post-Independance Congress governments were extremely chary of the commercial film industry, which they saw as pushing mental poison on the masses. Congress adopted policies that were unfair to the industry, while lavishing money on the parallel cinema. Result: commercial cinema succeeded, parallel cinema didn't have much of an audience.
The acting-politics relationship, and how it varies between regions. Bollywood least involved in politics? Tamil Nadu the most? How to measure this? High profile posts? or percentage of MPs who are/were actors?
This is the sort of thing better researched in India, yes? More resources there. Zora 08:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of Indian Cinema Added

Whew! It was so tiring to get even that bit. I have more to add, but I need some time to collect it coherently. Please Comment/ Advise. --Sshankar 15:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Can anyone gague the relevence of this link?--Sshankar 12:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added Citation and Statistics

I added:

  • citations to number of films released in India in 2003. I changed the year to make it more recent.
  • statistics for U.S. number of releases for 2003, for comparisions, from the MPAA site
  • citations for Ramoji Film city Being the World's largest form the Guinness Book of World Records website.

I must say, it's really hard searching for these statistics. The Indian statistics are from a tacky Indian ensor Board Page. The U.S. ones are from the MPAA site. They have a set of "limited" research statistics that they say are public. They email these (free) to the visitor. Should/Can we upload these, or point it out to editors of related sections?

P.S. Sorry for taking so much time in editing just this little bit, but like I said before, it is hard to get good data for this topic.

--Sshankar 21:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well done on finding these statistics and the sources for them. Your endeavour is much appreciated. Splashprince 04:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd added some links previously to a couple of different organizations offering Bollywood style dance classes. It wasn't for commercial purposes, but rather to illustrate the point that Bollywood films and the trademark songs & dances are becoming very much a part of mainstream pop culture outside of South Asia.

a simple web search will turn over so many different options for fans who seek to learn the style of Bollywood dancing, or who are just enthusiastic about the song and dance sequences. I felt it was a great addition to the wiki, elaborating that Bollywood is no longer an underground or cult phenomena in the west, but is trending into a large wave, both in mainstream "western" music and movies, and international pop culture. For example, the upcoming launch of the broadway show "Bombay Dreams" on tour in the US, after resident productions on Broadway and the West End.

There are some wonderful resources available, and these sites don't just stop at dance classes, they are full of lots of information about the genre and style:

Bollywood West[6] Bollywood Axion[7] Mango Dance[8] India Community Center[9] London Dance[10] Diva Dance[11] Dhoonya Dance[12] Blue 13 Dance co.[13]

Wikipedia being a resource, I feel it would be remiss not to help direct readers and researchers to further exploration of the topic. Thanks~

Kashmiri Cinema Added to Reigional Cinema

Nothing of much note, since it is a pretty dormant industry.--Sshankar 05:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Film Producttion by language Chart

Hi all. I made an MS excel table on the number of films produced in Indian languages from 1990 to 1999. I also made a Chart in Excel for it. Can anyone tell me how to convert this chart to an image (preferably .svg) through excel or a third party tool. The only third party tool I could find puts a watermark and a URL on the image in its trial version. I tried converting the spreadsheet to a webpage through office 2003 but the image used in that page was of terrible quality. --Sshankar 08:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Getting it to png should be easy. Just copy the image (edit, copy?) and paste it into MSPaint (or whatever paint program you like). Then go File, Save As, PNG.
Converting raster (PNG) to vector (SVG) is hard. Google search it if you like, maybe there are some free programs out there to do it (don't keep your hopes up, it's a really tricky process). But PNG is fine.--Commander Keane 11:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, that seems to work. But I'll upload it tomorrow, as the finished chart is on another computer. Thanks! But maybe there is a tool which makes vector charts from a given table; That would not involve raster-to-vector conversion. Hopefully someone can find out :) --Sshankar 17:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Criticisms of Indian Cinema Section

This section is theoretically relevent, but the editor has not cited any sources. One of those "this section does not cite its sources" tags should be placed, don't you think?

I have collected some links on plagiarism which I will add to this section.--Sshankar 18:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I think there are subjective point of views in this section. They appear not to be substantiated. For example, it is asserted that the Indian cinema is at its lowest point, and that it should aspire (probably) to the styles of foreign cinema to be commendable. Splashprince 01:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An additional point: reference is made to terms like "item numbers", which the uninformed reader may not know. Please describe, in parantheses for example, what the term means. Splashprince 01:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delhi Cinema Hall Picture

Is it placed properly (in the Regional cinema section)? --Sshankar 18:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it risky using an EB book?

I have an incredible book on Indian Cinema, which deals with things in an overall perspective, not just chronologically; The problem is, it's published by Encyclopædia Britannica...I am new to this, so would it be risky or anything to quote from it? (you know what I mean....Thos damn wikiwhippersnappers....now we got them where we wanted...IPR suit!!Muahhahahahaha) P.S. I guess I could just use it as a framework for research; So it is not critical or anything. --Sshankar 15:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Satyajit Ray

The article on Satyajit Ray is up for a peer review. Please take a look. Thanks,--ppm 21:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly incorrect assertion

The claim in the lead section, of Nollywood producing more movies than India and the US, is possibly incorrect as this news item directly contradicts it. Moreover, the comparison given is inappropriate: The article compares the 2003 output of India and the US, with the 2006 output of Nigeria. -- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK11:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re Satyajit Ray

There are a couple of POVish unsources statements in the "art" film section that I would like to see citations for. As far as I have read (The Essential Mystery, Hood. Orient Longman. 2000, Ananadalok pujabarshiki) and heard (Ray's own interviews), apart from the occasional flops such as Chiriyakhana, Satranj ki Khiladi and Kanchenjungha, every one of his films made money. There were quite a few that were among the highest box-office revenue earners in West Bengal for their respective years including Charulata, Nayak, Goopy Gayne, Bagha Bayne. Ray made most of his films in Bangla (and the one Urdu he made, he regretted because he didn't know the language); his primary target audience therefore can be determined to be a Bangla-speaking one. So, I don't see how India-wide assertions are valid: for example, how many Hindi-speaking people of the so-called "masses" watch a superhit formulaic Tamil film in Tamil? Please add citations to the article if I've missed your sources. --Antorjal 15:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Need help on new breakout article

People kept adding more and more songs to a list in the Bollywood article, of songs sung by the actors/actresses themselves and not by playback singers. I figured that this was getting much too detailed for the main article, so moved everything to a breakout article. I gave the breakout article a broader title, Singing actors and actresses in Indian cinema, so as to include the other regional cinemas. The article needs a fair bit of work, and some info from the non-Bollywood cinemas, of which I know little. Any help you guys could give would be appreciated. Zora 06:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Will take a look at it. AppleJuggler 07:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see a lot of 'red Wikilinks'

This article has a crop of red Wikilinks that lead to non-existent articles. Should I remove the Wikilinking from the associated words and terms? AppleJuggler 07:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reference section should come after the Notes section

Please rectify, someone. AppleJuggler 13:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

End-of-the-year spring cleaning

Various people had used the article to promote their movies or their websites. I tried to clean it out, but I may have missed some insertions. There were names I did not recognize, especially in South Indian and Bengali cinema, and I didn't check them in google to see if they were really notable. I removed the intro boasts re Ramoji film city. I removed Bollycat, which has been criticized as accepting any accusations of plagiarism, no matter how wild and unfounded. I am right now re-organizing the regional industries section, which had gotten rather garbled. Its South Indian centric right now and the Bollywood section needs to be expanded. Zora 19:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Ticket Prices

Its been said that the average ticket costs US$0.20. I know that tickets in rural areas are pretty cheap, but have very less 'seats' compared to those in metros. Dont you think 10 Rs is a bit low? And I wonder how anybody came up with such a figure. Rakes 06:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


That has been in the article forever and may be inaccurate. Good that you noticed it! Please, if you have the info, give us a range of ticket prices from rural traveling shows with generators to posh big-city multiplexes. Zora 09:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The range is Rs. 10 for a small village showing the movie on video to Rs. 150 in metros. Though the luxury class costs Rs. 500. (1 USD = Rs. 45 approx) — Lost(talk) 12:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


In Kerala max for single screen is around 50 Rs. Multiplexes as someone had said is in the range of 150-200 and go upto 500 TN had a recent ruling putting a cap of 50 Rs , even for multiplex tickets And Ive been to screens payin 8 Rs. Excluding the extremes of sub Rs 10 tickets and Rs 200+ tickets I guess avg wud be 30-50 Rakes 06:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Malayalam Movies

Made some minor changes :-) Rakes 06:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indian cinema meets Hollywood

1) Isnt the term Hollywood too specific for western cinema? 2) Western audience getting interested in 'Indian' movies-Just would like to point out that a movie by Rajinikanth "muthu" enjoyed some success in Japan(of all the places!) 3)Guess there should be some mention given about "Vaanprastham", the 2000 National Best Film winner, which was produced by french and german ppl Rakes 08:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regional Cinema

I think it would be appropriate to arrange regional cinema industries in alphabetical order rather than making it a mess, which now is the state of that section. There is no specific rule or method in ordering of the cinema industries now. Comments/suggestions? Gnanapiti 03:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetical order is a fine suggestion! People can't quarrel with that -- it's completely even-handed. Zora 08:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I feel it will do injustice to the major film industries such as Tamil and Telugu. They will be lined up behind much smaller industries like Assamese, Kannada etc... (see the graph in the article). Praveen 19:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What is major and what is minor is debatable. Alphabetic order is not debatable. If you state at the top of the list, "in alphabetic order", readers will not assume anything about the importance of the cinemas. If you wanted to also introduce a list of the film industries ranked by their box office totals (in India) for 2006, that would also be useful. That also is not debatable. Why not do both? Each one of you guys do one list? Zora 21:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your idea seems to be good. Making a list will be fine.Praveen 01:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no specific criteria to decide which is major and which is minor. Moreover, terms like major and minor are very much subjective. Tomorrow if someone feels that Assamese cinema industry is "more" major than Tamil or Telugu and they have their own valid reasons and citations, no one can stop them from rearranging again. And how will you decide which is major between Hindi, Tamil and Telugu? I'm sure that ordering of these three cinema industries will be a constant topic of arguments and reverts if we go by "majority" criteria. So it's better to arrange them alphabetically. Gnanapiti 23:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that there is no criteria for deciding the size of industry. The amount of money it makes will be a valid criteria. And regarding Assamese film industry becoming 'major', it should not be a problem to rearrange the order as becoming 'major' will not be achieved overnight. Please see the graph in the article. Also, you can arrange by chronological order by which the industries came into existence. This chronological order is not going to changePraveen 01:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Praveen,
  • Give me the exact figures of money each industry makes, with valid citations.
  • Give me the exact dates each industry came into existance, with valid citations.
  • As if alphabetical order is going to change. Does this mean that Assamese is major and more important than Tamil or Telugu? They are just in alphabetical order man. How does alphabetical arrangement makes one industry more important than the other? Alphabetical order makes life easier and argument, revert-free. Gnanapiti 02:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Give me some time for getting the figures on chronological order... Indian official languages is a list. It was given in alphabetical order in Indian government notification. So there is no need to change that.
Having said that, I understand the alphabetical order does not not create conflict see here. But here, I feel, the size should matter. If the majority feels that we have to adapt alphabetical order, we can do that (As if putting some minor industry ahead of major industry in wikipedia is going to change the size and quality of movies! What was I thinking?). Praveen 15:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I'll go ahead and re-arrange that section in the alphabetic order unless someone have disputes with ordering of alphabets in Latin script system. Gnanapiti 17:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indian cinema template

I have created a template for Indian cinema as is standard with all other countries. If you have any ideas for improvement let me know -the template should go at the bottom of all India cinema pages to try to connect a vast project together. I've tried to keep it as smal as possible .Let me know if you like it