Question
What is the difference between Bollywood and Hollywood movies?
Answer
I'll stick to mainstream movies. TV and arthouse are harder to compare.
Bollywood is mostly stories based on unreconstructed medieval sensibilities set in modern contexts. There is very little irony, and a good deal of patriarchy, prudishness combined with repressed shadow sexuality, misogyny, racism etc. Almost everything in Hollywood is at least slightly ironic, and decidedly modern or postmodern in sensibility. Outright racism or misogyny is now rare in Hollywood. Hollywood is basically far more socially conscious. Bollywood is almost entirely about money, much more so than Hollywood. Often mob money. One highly visible motif is the highly problematic rise of "item numbers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ite...
Yeah, I'll say it bluntly: the horrifying recent Delhi gang-rape and Bollywood item numbers comes from the same dark place in the Indian psyche.
Bollywood has far greater variance in quality. The best mainstream stuff is about as good as Hollywood when it comes to serious drama, dark satire, gritty crime and true musicals. The best in other genres --action, sci-fi, superhero, spy, chick flicks -- does not match Hollywood. The worst is far worse in all genres. The only genre where Bollywood might possibly come out ahead is certain kinds of tragedy, where Hollywood's obsession with redemption becomes a weakness. But this is a doubtful case too.
The one area where Bollywood has a significant edge in my opinion is in the poetic quality of song lyrics. The worst is about the same in both -- maudlin love songs -- but the best Bollywood songs contain poetry of quality that in the West never gets set to music and put in movies. Good poetry is a marginal elite taste in Hollywood, but mainstream in Bollywood. This is one reason even highly westernized Indians like myself who mostly don't watch Hindi movies much anymore still enjoy the music. Sadly, the lyrical quality has gotten steadily worse in the last 30 years. It is either pop dreck, or self-consciously arcane Urdu that uses big words to express small thoughts. Gulzar-era attention to poetry is gone. This is mainly because the middle classes now mostly focus on English, and both supply and demand of literary quality language use is on the decline in Indian languages. So interestingly, good lyrics now often derive from street slang (Aati kya khandala for instance) rather than literary Hindustani, Urdu or Sanskrit.
Bollywood movies often fail artistically because they showcase unprocessed national insecurities and identity formation issues. This is particularly evident in movies with a foreign plot element. Hollywood movies often fail artistically because of American complacency, insularity and assumed natural cultural superiority.
Bollywood movies are improving slowly in sophistication, in fits and starts, with progress in some genres, regress in others (Karan Johar anyone?), but from a low base. Hollywood seems to be going into a slow decline of navel-gazing self-absorption and narcissism (Chicago anyone?), but from a really high base.
Bollywood movies have unstable, shifting genres that reflect the varied and unstable subcultures of a modernizing and fragmenting India. On a recent long flight, I watched four Hindi movies, representing subcultures that didn't exist as recently as 1995. Hollywood movies have much clearer genre boundaries that have been stable for decades now.
Bollywood is more: sentimental, melodramatic, unironically exaggerated.
Hollywood is more: schmaltzy, comforting, campy.
I could go on, but I'll stop here.
Bollywood is mostly stories based on unreconstructed medieval sensibilities set in modern contexts. There is very little irony, and a good deal of patriarchy, prudishness combined with repressed shadow sexuality, misogyny, racism etc. Almost everything in Hollywood is at least slightly ironic, and decidedly modern or postmodern in sensibility. Outright racism or misogyny is now rare in Hollywood. Hollywood is basically far more socially conscious. Bollywood is almost entirely about money, much more so than Hollywood. Often mob money. One highly visible motif is the highly problematic rise of "item numbers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ite...
Yeah, I'll say it bluntly: the horrifying recent Delhi gang-rape and Bollywood item numbers comes from the same dark place in the Indian psyche.
Bollywood has far greater variance in quality. The best mainstream stuff is about as good as Hollywood when it comes to serious drama, dark satire, gritty crime and true musicals. The best in other genres --action, sci-fi, superhero, spy, chick flicks -- does not match Hollywood. The worst is far worse in all genres. The only genre where Bollywood might possibly come out ahead is certain kinds of tragedy, where Hollywood's obsession with redemption becomes a weakness. But this is a doubtful case too.
The one area where Bollywood has a significant edge in my opinion is in the poetic quality of song lyrics. The worst is about the same in both -- maudlin love songs -- but the best Bollywood songs contain poetry of quality that in the West never gets set to music and put in movies. Good poetry is a marginal elite taste in Hollywood, but mainstream in Bollywood. This is one reason even highly westernized Indians like myself who mostly don't watch Hindi movies much anymore still enjoy the music. Sadly, the lyrical quality has gotten steadily worse in the last 30 years. It is either pop dreck, or self-consciously arcane Urdu that uses big words to express small thoughts. Gulzar-era attention to poetry is gone. This is mainly because the middle classes now mostly focus on English, and both supply and demand of literary quality language use is on the decline in Indian languages. So interestingly, good lyrics now often derive from street slang (Aati kya khandala for instance) rather than literary Hindustani, Urdu or Sanskrit.
Bollywood movies often fail artistically because they showcase unprocessed national insecurities and identity formation issues. This is particularly evident in movies with a foreign plot element. Hollywood movies often fail artistically because of American complacency, insularity and assumed natural cultural superiority.
Bollywood movies are improving slowly in sophistication, in fits and starts, with progress in some genres, regress in others (Karan Johar anyone?), but from a low base. Hollywood seems to be going into a slow decline of navel-gazing self-absorption and narcissism (Chicago anyone?), but from a really high base.
Bollywood movies have unstable, shifting genres that reflect the varied and unstable subcultures of a modernizing and fragmenting India. On a recent long flight, I watched four Hindi movies, representing subcultures that didn't exist as recently as 1995. Hollywood movies have much clearer genre boundaries that have been stable for decades now.
Bollywood is more: sentimental, melodramatic, unironically exaggerated.
Hollywood is more: schmaltzy, comforting, campy.
I could go on, but I'll stop here.