The changing face of Indian Cinema

Right from the beginning of Indian cinema to the early 90s, films were made keeping in mind the diverse demography of India. The producers wanted people of all ages, income groups, religions, education to derive entertainment from their films to maximize their revenues.  Hence every film made always had a mix of family elements, drama, action, comedy, song, dance, and a lot more. 

But in the mid-90s, filmmakers began to realize that it made more sense to focus on the urban audience both in India and abroad where the profits were higher. 

Simply put, a cinema hall in a small town in India may have a ticket priced at 40 rupees, while the ticket price in the US is around 9 dollars and can be up to even 1000 rupees in multiplexes in India. It, therefore, makes more business sense to sacrifice the small-town audience for the urban audience, after all that is where the money is.

Another factor is the screenwriters and filmmakers of today are mostly belong to families related to professionals from the film industry. They are usually trained in film schools abroad. Their more influenced by American or European filmmakers than they are by the masters of Hindi commercial cinema such as Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra. 

They probably watch old Hindi movies and have a good laugh at the ‘ridiculousness on display’. The screenwriters have probably never read much of Indian literature. An old filmmaker once remarked that in the 70s and 80s everybody on the set used to be talking in Hindi, but now it is all English. Times have changed.

We thus have films, that perhaps influenced by the west and deal with urban issues. The characters are affluent and the problems depicted are usually those of people with means. The dialogues are in English (including four-lettered words) with a smattering of Hindi to bridge the gaps. The plots are about sons of millionaire businessmen wanting to dabble in photojournalism and not follow his father’s footsteps or the complications arising from a couple living in or a millionaire wanting to arrange his son's marriage to facilitate a merger that will save his empire. 

It would be unreasonable to expect people living in rural India, who were the prime target of the films in the 70s and 80s, to relate to these urban films. The filmmakers who have themselves lived a life of affluence will say they are making films about what they relate to and issues they know about. 

But in all this, we are missing what it quintessentially larger than life colorful, vibrant, operating and ‘in your face’ commercial cinema where the emotions were on the sleeves, where the villains were rotten to the core and the heroes were brimming with virtues and where the dialogue was over the top. It is said that cricket and cinema were the two occurrences that united our diverse country. I remember an interview with an industrialist in the 80s where he said that he booked tickets for himself and his entire staff whenever an Amitabh Bachchan film was released.

Contemporary Hindi cinema has chosen to ignore a vital section of its audience. I remember a rickshaw driver telling me once “Films are no longer made for us. Although they are called Hindi films, I often feel I am watching a foreign film that happens to have Indian faces. Most dialogues are in English. There are kissing scenes. Sometimes there are no songs. The film gets over in two hours. There is often no heart. I can't remember the last time I cried and laughed at the cinema. For the heart, I have several old Amitabh films stored on my mobile phone, I watch them every night and remember the carefree days in my hometown in Varanasi. Trishul is my all-time favorite.”

The good news is that in recent times we have had a series of films based in small towns and they have received wide appreciation all over. But the presentation is always in a manner that depicts these small-town people as oddities with quirkiness. 

But the era when cinemas were packed with people from all backgrounds captivated by the same film, is sadly gone forever.