Cinema of India - Global Discourse

Global Discourse

Indians during the colonial rule bought film equipment from Europe. The British funded wartime propaganda films during the second world war, some of which showed the Indian army pitted against the axis powers, specifically the Empire of Japan, which had managed to infiltrate into India. One such story was Burma Rani, which depicted civilian resistance offered to Japanese occupation by the British and Indians present in Myanmar. Pre-independence businessmen such as J. F. Madan and Abdulally Esoofally traded in global cinema.

Indian cinema's early contacts with other regions became visible with its films making early inroads into the Soviet Union, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and China. Mainstream Hindi film stars like Raj Kapoor gained international fame across Asia and Eastern Europe. Indian films also appeared in international fora and film festivals. This allowed 'Parallel' Bengali filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray to achieve worldwide fame, with his films gaining success among European, American and Asian audiences. Ray's work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Steven Spielberg, Carlos Saura, Jean-Luc Godard, Isao Takahata, Gregory Nava, Ira Sachs and Wes Anderson being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising his work. The "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy". Subrata Mitra's cinematographic technique of bounce lighting also originates from The Apu Trilogy. Ray's film Kanchenjungha (1962) also introduced a narrative structure that resembles later hyperlink cinema. Since the 1980s, some previously overlooked Indian filmmakers such as Ritwik Ghatak and Guru Dutt have posthumously gained international acclaim.

Many Asian and 'South Asian' countries increasingly came to find Indian cinema as more suited to their sensibilities than Western cinema. Jigna Desai holds that by the 21st century Indian cinema had managed to become 'deterritorialized', spreading over to the many parts of the world where Indian diaspora was present in significant numbers, and becoming an alternative to other international cinema.

Indian cinema has more recently begun influencing Western musical films, and played a particularly instrumental role in the revival of the genre in the Western world. Baz Luhrmann stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals. The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! renewed interest in the then-moribund Western musical genre, subsequently fueling a renaissance of the genre. Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008) was also directly inspired by Indian films, and is considered to be a "homage to Hindi commercial cinema". Other Indian filmmakers are also making attempts at reaching a more global audience, with upcoming films by directors such as Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Jahnu Barua, Sudhir Mishra and Pan Nalin.

Indian Cinema was also recognized at the American Academy Awards. Three Indian films, Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay! (1988), and Lagaan (2001), were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Indian winners of the Academy Awards include Bhanu Athaiya (costume designer), Satyajit Ray (filmmaker), A. R. Rahman (music composer), Resul Pookutty (sound editor) and Gulzar (lyricist).