Talk:Hindi cinema

Archives: 01, 02, 03.

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This is stupid. No-one not liiving in India should believe anything on this page. The Indians are using it for self glorification. Face it Bollywood is only big because a sixth of the worlds population live in India, otherwise it is extremely uncommon, and likely to only be found in immediate neighbouring countries and amongst Indians themselves in other countries. My edit was wrongfully reverted, and upon checking this page out, many other peoples have been to. My advice to the presumably Indian people that keep changing the page would be to go to another country and realise noone watches your films!!

Bollywood Finance

Hi, I have made some some changes to the finance section. There have been very minor deletions such as "Bollywood budgets are modest by Hollywood standards" this is not necessary or significant. I have instead given figures for the budgets with the celing of $10 million, the highest so far and future project budgets(Mahabhatata)

I have also mentioned something on the hiring of international technicians and given examples of Krrish and Love Story 2050, as they are particularly notesworthy in hiring reputable international talent.

I intend to write something on Hollywood and Bollywood co-productions later, as that is another area of finance appearing for Bollywood today.

Springcleaning

No major changes. We've been patrolling for major vandalism, but small things slip past our guard. Possibly the only contentious edit will be my addition of material re the language of Bollywood films. I stressed that dialogues tend to be written so as to be comprehensible to the largest possible audience, and added a comment from Suketu Mehta re initial composition in English. I need to buy my own copy of that book, and get a page number for that cite. Zora 23:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Bharatveer edited roughly (mangling the sentence) and removed all mention of Hindustani and Pakistan. I have rewritten, trying to split the difference. Zora 08:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

User Zora, Pls understand that bollywood films are banned in Pakistan (after 1965).-Bharatveer 08:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The ban in Pakistan is totally irrelevant. People watch Bollywood films in Pakistan and all over the world in spite of local laws. You have no business removing factual references to Pakistan. Dieresis 06:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I restored the references to Hindustani and Pakistan. The Hindi movie industry served ALL of what is now North India and Pakistan before the Partition, it is still extremely popular in Pakistan, despite bans, it is to a great extent run by Punjabi refugees from the Partition, and the language used, per all the references I have, is directed at the same swathe of territory served before the Partition. That's to a great extent a commercial decision, to get the largest possible audience. I also strongly object to labeling Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts as Hindi and Urdu. The underlying language is the same, only the script is different. I gather that participants in a number of North Indian/Pakistani web fora are using Roman characters to write Hindustani, so that they can communicate unimpeded by script differences. This would be impossible if the underlying language weren't basically the same (skewing of formal vocabulary aside). I strongly object to the consensus of academic, scientific linguistics being jettisoned in favor of accentuating communal hatreds and political differences.

We had a sentence in there at one point saying that the whole language question was hotly contested and that readers should look at the Hindi, Urdu, and Hindustani articles to get an idea of the issues. I think that sentence was removed in one of the ethnic cleansing drives to which this article has been subjected, and I think it would help to restore it. We can't discuss the language question here, but we can point readers to the places where it is discussed. Zora 03:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

What is the logic in the sentence that dialogues are written for audience in Pakistan , when the no sale of bollywood movies can be distributed legally?-Bharatveer 05:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Bharatveer, I apologize for the revert. I didn't your the edit summary or your username. I just saw the difference. However, in this situation, I do support Zora's version. Please note that Urdu is not only spoken by 10.7 million persons in Pakistan, but by 48.1 million persons in India. Also, even though they may be banned in Pakistan, Bollywood movies are still viewed by those in the state (please see BBC:Bollywood movies). Consequently, the text you removed in the article should be kept. I hope this helps. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 06:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Leave out the popularity of urdu in this discussion .The issue in discussion is not about that .The issue is about a sentence which "claims" that dialogues in bollywood films are written for "AUDIENCE IN PAKISTAN". Now when No bollywood producer can sell his film in pakistan legally, then how can one write dialogue for "audience in pakistan.Are bollywood producers that naive??-Bharatveer 06:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Bharatveer, do you think that there is not one person in the entire world who have watched a Bollywood film, understand it comfortably (so they have a good understanding of Hindi/Urdu) but only know how to write this language in the Arabic script? If you do think this, then I think you're wrong and if you don't, then the Arabic script is for these people. Gizza^{Chat ©} 06:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The poll is over, guys

You can't revive a year and half old poll. Nor is the input from editors who don't work on film-related articles particularly helpful. Zora 09:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Woah, I didn't realise that. Well the poll may be dead but the problem is ongoing as seen here. Gizza^{Chat ©} 06:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

New genres

This is a really good article. I saw interviews on Film 2006 tonight with Bollywood producers etc, making the point that over the next decade they will produce in more varied genres - presumably spy thrillers, horror and so on. Anyone know more about this? Thanks.--Shtove 00:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Portmanteau category

Why did Centrx remove this? It is a valid category regrouping many articles. If you remove the one in this article, why not remove them on all the others? Sfacets 07:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason is explained fairly clearly in the edit summary. "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, so articles are categorized by their subject, not by the etymology or type of word that represents the subject." We do not have Category:Nouns or Category:French derivations, Wiktionary does. We do not have Category:Numerals, we have Category:Numbers. The Portmanteau category is the only category like this, and yes, it should be removed from all articles. Is there any reason why it should not? —Centrx→talk • 07:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the case, you should take it up on the Category talk page rather than here. Excluding a category from one article and not the rest seems dubious, and undermines the category maintenance. Besides that, nowhere in wiki policy is it written that a category cannot regroup grammatical terms. Sfacets 07:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I did bring it up there, and asked you to comment there. For related policy, see Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. —Centrx→talk • 07:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you point out your reply there? I cannot see it. Sfacets 22:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It's right there, and there is no reply, it's a new section that has received no reply. —Centrx→talk • 22:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Academic article

Someone added an academic article to See Also, where it didn't belong. I thought at first that this was self-promotion, but after checking out the conference at which it was presented, I discovered that BASAS was a reputable organization and that the paper had in fact won special mention on the association web page. So I set up a new selection for the paper. Links to other academic papers would be good. I found a paper on Roja, for the same year -- is that considered Tamil cinema only, or is it a Bollywood film also? Zora 07:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Upperstall not linkspam

This article is a magnet for linkspam, and various editors keep removing it. That is a nasty but necessary chore and I very much appreciate everyone who does it. However -- fairly often, editors also remove Upperstall. That is not a fansite, it's non-commercial, and it's good, academic-quality information. I think editors are removing it just because they haven't looked at it.

I'm open for argument on the subject -- if after looking at the site, other editors want to remove it and there's a consensus that we should, I'll bow to the consensus. Zora 01:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I have added a new link which i think it VERY INFORMATIVE and USEFUL, Bollywoodistan.com

What do you think? user:Unknown Master

Bollywoodistan is commercial. We don't do links to ecards, jobsites, etc. I removed the link.

If you're here to help out, there are lots of movies that don't have articles yet. Zora 08:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

C'mon www.bollywoodistan is a DIRECTORY which links to everything bollywood. It is very useful Zora!

Google links to everything Bollywood. We don't need commercial directories. We won't host your advertising. Zora 22:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I looked at Bollywoodistan.com and Google. Google doens't have half of the links that this website does. PLus google also displays ads in thier directory and there seems to be no porblem. You both gota a point! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.129.16.122 (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

Film kisses are no longer banned.

This is the only reference in the entire article that refers to the Bollywood moral film codes. Please expand. SchmuckyTheCat 20:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Well Done!

This is a nice introductory article. It seems a little bit lightly sourced, but what would I know. I knew nothing about Bollywood except it was Indian film before reading this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Powerlad (talk • contribs) 04:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

       Bichhdey abhi to hum, bas kal parso,
       jiyoongi main kaisey, is haal mein barson?
       Maut na aayi, teri yaad kyon aayi,
       Haaye, lambi judaayi!

       Devanāgarī: "बिछड़े अभी तो हम, बस कल परसों,"
       "जियूँगी मैं कैसे, इस हाल में बरसों?"
       "मौत न आई, तेरी याद कयों आई?"
       "हाय, लंबी जुदाई!"

(This is not Nasta'liq, Nasta'liq is a very specific font, ie Times New Roman, and this is not that font. I changed it to just "urdu" in the main article, if there is a better word to describe things written in the urdu alphabet please change it to that. ***see wikipedia entry for Nasta'liq***

       Nasta'liq: بچھڑے ابھی تو ہم، بس کل پرسوں
       جیوں گی میں کیسے، اس حال میں برسوں؟
       موت نہ آئی، تیری یاد کیوں آئی؟
       !ہاۓ، لمبی جدائی

       Translation: We have been separated just a day or two,
       How am I going to go on this way for years?
       Death doesn't come; why, instead, do these memories of you?
       Oh; this long separation!

Semantics

Does anyone else find this wording confusing? "Over 90% of the Pakistanni population watch Bollywood films alone," Do they really watch them alone, as in 'one ticket, please'? Or do they watch only Bollywood films? What is this supposed to mean? And where does this statistic come from? Should somebody add one of those 'citation needed' stickers?

Devanagari and Nastaliq spellings of the word "Bollywood"

I think writing the Devanagari and Nasta`liq spellings of "Bollywood" is just not relevant. This word is made of two English words so what do these other scripts have to do with it? And Indians themselves almost don't use it. It makes no sense to me. BernardM 09:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Since nobody opposed my point of view, I removed them. BernardM 09:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your inquiry, BernardM. Your view has merit, although facts mentioned therin are incorrect. Indians do use the Devanagari and Nastaliq spellings. For example see here (Devanagari) and here (Nastaliq). It makes prefectly good sense to use the Devanagari and Nasta`liq scripts next to the English spelling when the film industry is in the Hindi/Urdu language. The term Bollywood is also uttered by Hindi/Urdu speakers more so than English ones. This situation is like Hindi/Urdu adopting words like doctor so much so that they also become Hindi/Urdu words. In addition, other film industries such as Kollywood and Lollywood also retain native scripts. I hope this helps. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 00:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

With "almost don't use it" I was referring to the word itself, not the Devanagari and Nastaliq spellings. By the way the examples you showed (BBC) aren't Indian but English. Using Indian scripts usually brings info to articles because of how totally unreliable are transcriptions, but since the word Bollywood is an English word, it's not the case here. Anyway these spellings aren't wrong, just useless so I won't insist. BernardM 16:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense claims

The whole entire section of how popular Bollywood is supposed is around the world is full of nonsense. Nobody in America except for South Asians or maybe Middle Easterners like Bollywood movies. In America, actors in musicals are expected to act, dance, AND sing. I suspect Bollywood is not at all popular in any other country where acting requires more than just physical appeal and movies are expected to be more sophisticated.

In the Oceania section it says that Bollywood films are 2nd to hollywood but really popular. This is a complete lie. I'm a NewZealander and have never seen a Bollywood film in my life. I don't no of a single person that watches them either. The don't play in the general movie theaters and are not significant in terms of pop culture. Thats proganda whoever wrote that. So i'll change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.150.110.33 (talk) 03:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Changes to "History" section

I made changes to the History section of the article to reflect the fact that although Bollywood did start shooting movies in colour in the late 1950s (for instance, Mother India, which was released in 1957), the majority of films continued to be shot in black-and-white until the mid-1960s. Although there were quite a few successful colour movies in the early 60s (e.g. Junglee, Taj Mahal, Mere Mehboob) there were also many more B&W films to balance it out (e.g. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Bandini, Woh Kaun Thi?, etc.). I personally date the transition from majority B&W to majority colour as being around 1965, with quite a few colour films I can think of (Waqt, Guide, Jab Jab Phool Khile, Arzoo just to name a few) being released in this year.

Also, I made changes to the history timeline which describes what was popular, in particular altering the dates. If anyone disagrees with my edits to this or the B&W/colour issue, it's open to discussion below. Gujuguy 16:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

the ban in Pakistan

Quick question from a North American. Is there a reference to the ban or censorship of Bollywood media? The popularity and appeal paragraph assumes prior knowledge of "the ban" which I assume relates to Censorship in Pakistan. Although, that article and a related one about internet censorship do not refer directly to censorship of movies. I would also assume that not just Bollywood, but an entire spectrum of film media might be restricted. Group29 16:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Popularity in South America

Don't agree with that. In countries like Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, Bollywood is quite popular. Pages like Mundo Bollywood, with almost 2.000 visitors per day, are the best example. Bollywood is becoming popular in Spain, but it IS popular in Peru.

Needs Improvement

I added a tag saying that the citations on this page need to be removed. Oceania, Africa, and Plagiarism all make very strong claims about numbers, laws, and popularity, with not support to back them up. I've added a few tags as well. 17:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

There are still no citations for Oceania or Africa, and a single citation in nearly an entire page of information on finances. Is there a reason the "needs citations" tag has been removed? Reyemile 02:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

== sharukhan background

sharukhan is from AFGHANISTAN he belongs to pashton background

Musicals?

The article says: Bollywood films have been misleadingly classified as musicals, because few films are made without at least one song-and-dance number. This classification is something of a misnomer, as a Bollywood film is expected to contain a number of elements, and one of the essentials is catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script. Indeed, a film's music is often released before the movie itself and helps increase the audience. Song-and-dance numbers are default content for Bollywood films, and defining the films as musicals would not be done by the Indian public. This seems very much a non-sequitur to me. How does the fact that an essential element of a Bollywood film is "catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script" make it misleading to classify them as musicals? That seems like the definition of a musical to me. As the article on musical film says, "the musical film is a film genre in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative." PubliusFL 22:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Long winded

They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers and angry parents, love triangles, family ties, sacrifice, corrupt politicians, kidnappers, conniving villains, courtesans with hearts of gold, long-lost relatives and siblings separated by fate, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences. ^^this line is confusing, long, and biased.