It’s commonly said that Bollywood makes movie stars and Hollywood makes star movies.
Bollywood and Hollywood rule hearts of billions of movie-buffs worldwide. Despite various similarities, both the movie industries draw their inspiration from varied sources, which provide basic ideas for commencing with a celluloid venture. Indians are always shy when it comes to comparison between Hollywood and Bollywood. Now, it’s fair to say that Bollywood is behind Hollywood when it comes to experimenting with a variety of genres. India has been making films for a hundred years; getting started just ten years later than America. Storytelling is a craft as much as anything else. So is screenwriting.
As the film industry grows, so does the list of film festivals and awards ceremonies across the globe. What better way to spend two to three hours of your day than to watch a masterfully-written movie? From the good old movies to today’s featured flicks, film industry has something for everyone. From the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Cannes Film Festival in France to International Indian Film Academy Awards, there is an awards ceremony for various types of films. There are awards distributed by critics, the festival and industry professionals as well as the general public. But here comes another comparison between the Hollywood award shows and the Indian award shows. First, Hollywood is inclusive of films and artists from all around the world which tends to be encouraging for the artists for being recognized in a global platform. But, as the trend goes with awards of Indian Cinema, most of them include Bollywood actors only.
Of lately, Indian viewers have turned to appreciating Hollywood and to tuning to International Award shows to keep track of the best films released globally. Hollywood studios put out between 200-250 movies a year and own 85% of the world market share, while Indian movie industry puts out about 1000 movies and has 4% market share. This is not to say Hollywood always makes better movies than Indian industries. It just means Hollywood is able to tell more universal stories. Not one Indian movie has been a mainstream movie that audiences all over the world have flocked to see. Every year, Hollywood puts out a handful that the whole world, basically, pays to watch. If a comparison is to be made standing on neutral ground, Indian film makers rarely venture out to tell universal stories that everybody in the world can understand. Thus, Indian viewers in the present time have turned to Hollywood as a large part of Indian Cinema is about conventional song and dance sequences whereas Hollywood rarely follows the trend of relying on music heavily, except for a few movies and it drives its motivation from a diverse set of emotional, fictional and non-fictional subjects with a universal appeal. Bollywood in general is a genre as recognised by the world but, Hollywood is a style. Also, B-Town actors like Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone are creating news because they got into Hollywood. It is an achievement to enter Hollywood. Is it true vice-versa? Not really.
Image credits: india.com
Radhika Boruah
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