Feb 13, 2002 03:48 PM
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(Updated Feb 13, 2002 08:38 PM)
THERE IS NO GENERAL LINK IN ENTERTAINMENT SO THAT I CAN POST GENERAL REVIEWS/OPINIONS - SO I had to include it in this topic
WINDOW TO THE WEST
India as a country rich in culture has always looked to the west in awe and admiration right from time immemorial .We always have displayed in pride our ''phoren'' belongings which one of our siblings or cousins have got from the ''States'' . All this admiration has , quite understandably shifted to movies. We find that most of our films are ''inspired'' by Hollywood blockbusters.
Perhaps the earliest craze for English movies started with Charlie Chaplin movies and the Laurel Hardy series, then English movies were not much seen by audiences when Dilip Kumar and Ashok Kumar were reigning hearts in Bollywood. The main drawback was of availability and screening of English movies in India . The entry of video cassettes started the trend of watching English movies , more due to compulsion one must say as Indian video cassettes were scarce.
The seventies came with John Travolta , the dancing sensation of Grease, as well as Sound of Music which captured the Global audiences. Indians who loved comedy and Action movies had a large choice. Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif , with McKenna's Gold and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly were the typical masala flicks.
Charles Bronson got the good ol' revenge drama going and the Hollywood Flicks were on the upswing . The 80's saw an increase in English movie viewer ship sided mostly by our very old Doordarshan who used air some good serials like Different Strokes , Giant Robot , and the Block buster '' Star Trek '' . Who can forget the Star trek craze when fathers and sons alike used to line up on Sunday to watch William Shatner - Captain Kirk and their favorite Leonard Nimoy their very own '' Mr Spock '' .
Sylvester Stallone drew first blood with the audiences with Rambo series and Rocky series. During the end of Eighties the Chinese invasion took place with Bruce Lee with his inimitable style and a host of Shaolin movies and the movies with exotic names which drew audiences like the snake in the monkeys shadow and so on. The comedy scene at that time was dominated by the modern day Laurel & Hardy - Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. The end of Eighties already created a section of viewers waiting for English movies and the screening density had already gone up , at least in metros and big cities.
The Nineties came with a better link up with the Hollywood distributors which enabled the movies to come to India within two weeks or so as compared to months earlier. Arnold Schwarzenegger the terminator and host of other movies like all the Steven Spielberg movies like ET, Jaws , the Indiana Jones series , all the Jackie Chan flicks ,Jurassic Park, Titanic all came like a torrent. But the nineties saw a much more intelligent viewer who chose and selected movies. Not all the movies screened became a hit . The Indian viewer overcame the myth that western movies didn't have their drawbacks .
This thought in the minds of the Indian viewer culminated into grabbing global attention as the 21st century began, though the process began earlier. NRI Indians like Mira Nair , Deepa Mehta and Manoj Night Shyamalan came up with movies that were well appreciated by the western audiences. Talking about recent movies Lagaan had to be screened twice at the Berlin festival due to favorable response. Asoka seems to go the same way too .
The Window to the west is now acting as a window to the east for the westerners.
