Indian cinema is one of the oldest in the world cinemas. Movies of Indian origin are also said to be the largest in terms of output. But, recent Indian movie makers are imitating Hollywood or other foreign movies,to a great extent. Many foreign movies are remade into Indian languages. They also copies techniques and story treatments, which they come across in foreign movies.
Is this good for Indian Cinema? Let Us Discuss.
Imitation in any form in any field is undesirable. It speaks of lack of originality and creativity . Just go back a few decades, you will find the excellence in creativity in the Indian cinema field. The biggest trail blazers were Mehboob khan, Bimal Roy, Ritwik Ghatak and not to mention the inimitable Satyjit Roy, who got an Oscar for his lifetime achievement in the arena of world cinema.
I agree with Rambabu sir. There is nothing wrong in taking lessons from good movies and movie makers. But, the art which we see on the screen should be original. I do not believe that Indian youth is short of talents. The only thing is that they are not ready to work hard and hence the youth looks for the easier options.
Indian youth believe in using the technology. There is nothing wrong in it. But, where's the film makers's contribution?the credit goes to the gadgets, not to the human element. AR Rehman uses electronic instruments. But the composition is 100 percent Rehman's.
A healthy balanceshould be struck between the technology and creativity.
There is no problem with seeing remakes of foreign films, but if all the films were being modeled after Hollywood films, then what is the point. One can simply watch the original ones, most of which are much much better than the remakes. We want to see original ideas, not copy cat ones.
We, Indians, have the originality, creativity and our own style of presentation, with the artistic quality and technical excellence matching with Hollywood films. Still some of our film makers go for short cuts and imitate Hollywood films to impress the Indian audience with some novel concepts. Remaking legally is okay, but imitating illegally is not a good practice.
In fact, Indian cinema is not as old as the poster believes but Europeans were the pioneers of the motion picture industry. US cinema leads the world cinema Industry and there is nothing wrong if we take good things or scripts from developed cinema, at least that will change our trend. We maybe one of the largest in number game but stand nowhere as far good/standard/technically good movies are concerned.
Its very nice to see mixed responses coming for a thread started by me.
As Ramkrishnan sir wrote, our country has a lot of talents. They are capable of creating great movies. Then why should we copy from somebody else. Copy the hard work, enthusiasm and sincerity shown by foreign film. These are the key to make a good movie. We can use the same techniques they are using, or we can use the same camera they use, but i don't support to use the same story and screen plays they use. That will kill the film making capacity of our country.But, some film makers uses the foreign stories as reference and remake some movie by adding their creativity. That's somewhat better. But, still I I want Indian films to be Indian by nature and not foreign.
Remaking and introducing the beauty of foreign classics to Indian audience in our own language and circumstances will be beneficial to many people for whom foreign films are beyond their grasp or have language problems; even though we cannot beat the originals. We have the talents and technology, but still we are not on the top of the world. The world film industry is a vast university from which we have to learn a lot and attain so many higher degrees. But imitation and plagiarism are not the methods to pass the exam.
There are some extremely good and intelligent film made by Iran, Egypt , Romania and other countries which most people don't get to watch. Film makers in India could take the same subject matter and come up with something new instead of dishing out the same old / new loud films time and again which honestly makes you grit your teeth.I have stopped watching films now , the last film being Zindgi na milegi dobarah which was good and probably adapted from some other Western or European film
usha manohar wrote:There are some extremely good and intelligent film made by Iran, Egypt , Romania and other countries which most people don't get to watch. Film makers in India could take the same subject matter and come up with something new instead of dishing out the same old / new loud films time and again which honestly makes you grit your teeth.I have stopped watching films now , the last film being Zindgi na milegi dobarah which was good and probably adapted from some other Western or European film
True...I have watched a few Irani movies and they are simply unsurpassable in their simplicity, creativity and a storyline that is astonishingly simple yet appealing. We have some similar kinds of movies made in regional languages, especially in Marathi, Bengali and Malyalam (maybe in others too but I have not watched them). These movies are very original and beautiful but they fizzle out due to lack of enthusiasm from distributors who promote only Bollywood movies.
Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:usha manohar wrote:There are some extremely good and intelligent film made by Iran, Egypt , Romania and other countries which most people don't get to watch. Film makers in India could take the same subject matter and come up with something new instead of dishing out the same old / new loud films time and again which honestly makes you grit your teeth.I have stopped watching films now , the last film being Zindgi na milegi dobarah which was good and probably adapted from some other Western or European film
True...I have watched a few Irani movies and they are simply unsurpassable in their simplicity, creativity and a storyline that is astonishingly simple yet appealing. We have some similar kinds of movies made in regional languages, especially in Marathi, Bengali and Malyalam (maybe in others too but I have not watched them). These movies are very original and beautiful but they fizzle out due to lack of enthusiasm from distributors who promote only Bollywood movies.
Yes true Kalyani, we do have some good regional films which only few get to watch....I wish the Hindi film makers took more interest in realistic films like it was in the seventies when we got to see some brilliant films like Ankur, Nishant, Subah and also light entertainers from the likjes of Hrishikesh Mukherji and Basu Chatterji...They do have such films in the west and adapting such films to India requirements is not a bad idea at all
Honestly.. Its all depend on viewers.. I mean if they enjoys the movie then its okay and makers will earn money for it too.
But these days Indian people watch hollywood movies too. So if people will start watching movies directly from hollywood then same story line will not be appreciated.
Yes, points which Usha Madam and Kalyani Madam discussed is exactly rights. Being from Kerala, I can easily say that Malayalam films are much more superior to Bollywood and many other colossal film industries in India, in terms of story ideas, concepts and its treatment. Even if I have not seen many Bengali and Marathi Movies, I have heard a lot that they maintain certain standards as in Malayalam Industry. Actually this is a major topic to discuss about. With the experience of watching many Malayalam movies, I can say that a lot very good movies are made in very low budgets in Malayalam. One of the main reasons I find is that, Malayalam movies don't go to much behind stars and their stardom. Of course, there are exceptions. And the topic of this thread, even in Malayalam movies, we can easily find some influences of foreign movies. But, those movies are remade in a good manner mixing up the Kerala culture into it.
Adoor made Thulabharam . Shyam Bengal made Ankur and girlish arnad made Kaadu. All of them are made on shoestring budget. And all of twere have become trend setters. Remember all the three producers dared to produce these three movies, when they were wet behind the years. If they could do, why not today's youth?
You can take the good things from foreign films but imitation is not good. Imitation will lost its originality soon. Each country people have different opinions about their country movies. So don't compare the movie with other country and try to give the good things without hurting anybody and taking the films will definitely increase the movie quality count than movie count.
@narenamenon