My friend Prakash asked me the following question, “Which film is better? Taare Zameen Par or Slumdog Millionaire?”
My answer was the same as his: Taare Zameen Par.
To that I got the retort, “Then what kind of hypocrisy is this? Slumdog gets an Oscar and TZP doesn’t even get a nomination!”
Well, I can answer that question in one word.
Songs.
As long as Bollywood movies fit in half-a-dozen to a dozen inane songs, the majority of the West will not watch them. For us songs are a part and parcel of a movie. For the Westerner they aren’t. For a newcomer watching a good Bollywood movie, the moment a song comes, the flow is broken and he’ll walk out. (I used to do the same, much to the consternation of my wife) Even if he manages to sit through the first, he’ll walk out at the very next song. So how do you get the non-NRI audiences to even watch your films?
In the West, they make romances, musicals, thrillers, fantasies, comedies science fiction, horror, action, crime movies…
In India, we make musical romances, musical thrillers, musical fantasies, musical comedies, musical science fiction, musical horror, musical action, musical crime movies…
You can still argue that both Slumdog and TZP have songs. But Slumdog cleverly begins with one and ends with one, while the others play in the background subtly. In TZP , like every other Bollywood movie, things just seem to stop for the songs. If the movie is a musical in the first place, it’s fine, but if you try to pass off every movie as a musical with songs just for the heck of it, that doesn’t make sense.
Slumdog kept songs at the periphery and got Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Song. That’s the secret. Don’t stop the flow of the movie just for songs.
When Lagaan was nominated, a foreign critic said something to the effect of: My personal favorite is Lagaan, but it has no chance of winning. An American jury will simply not sit through such a long movie with all its songs.
A possible solution
A few decades back the production standards of Bollywood movies weren’t that great and they relied on a lot of plagiarized plots. However off late a lot of slick movies have come out with slick plots. They could win international awards. What’s wrong with that?
So how do they go about doing it? One solution could be to release another version of the movie without songs for the international audience. If the songs took the movie forward, then it could be replaced by a voiceover, a montage of scenes or something like that. That’s the only way Bollywood can increase it’s audience and international awards kitty.
For years I’ve been told that Bollywood is unique with all its song and dance numbers. I for one think that’s absolute rubbish. Many a times songs spoil a perfectly good movie. The time has come for most of our film makers to do away with songs. Or in this era of choice, give a film to us in two flavours: With and without songs.
Quick Facts
Three Indians (AR Rahman, Resul Pookutty and Gulzar) won with Slumdog in a single night. Here’s India’s count before that:
Bhanu Uthaiya: Best Costume Design, Gandhi, 1982.
Satyajit Ray: Honorary Oscar, 1992.
Indian films nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category: Mother India (1958), Salaam Bombay (1989), Lagaan (2002)
Indian directors/producers who’s films have won Oscars: Ismail Merchant and Shekhar Kapoor.
Winners with an Indian connection: Ben Kingsley (PIO) and Ruth Praver Jhabwala (Lived in India, married to a Parsi)
Nominations all: Ravi Shankar for Best Music in Gandhi and Ashmin Kumar’s The Little Terrorist, for Best Documentary in 2004. Indian-American Manoj Night Shyamalan has also been nominated.
Post Script
Not many people realize that the Oscars are not for English movies alone. Any movie of any language released in Los Angeles is eligible. Examples of foreign movies with multiple nominations in the main categories are French films Cyrano de Bergerac and Amelie along with the Danish film Pelle the Conqueror. So if Amitabh gives a sterling performance or Mani Ratnam directs a stunner, why not release that movie in LA and try for the main categories?
It’s not that we should be crazy about Hollywood or Oscars, but it’s just an additional territory that India could get into
© Sunil Rajguru
Sunil, I agree with most of the facts you presented here. But coming to the songs issue, there are enough audience for songless movies too. I can immediately recall RGV’s Sarkar, Kamal’s Pushpak and Drohi, etc. They have done very well or fared pretty well at the BO.
Songs in Indian movies are probably inserted (not as the music which blends with the story line) to hedge the losses if the movie flops at the BO. There are many movies, esp. the thrillers where songs aren’t necessary, but are included forcefully.
I think the Indian audience is mature enough to accept a song-less movie but the producers and directors are not ready to take up the challenge of giving us a bold sensible flick.