Title: Lost in Translation: A Few Vagaries of the Alphabet Game Played Between Bombay Cinema and Hollywood
Abstract: The dialogue between Hollywood and Bombay cinema is a long-standing one that can be dated back to the earliest years of film history. Imported films were seen in Bombay from 1896 onwards creating a film culture that was to define the shape of Bombay cinema in crucial ways. Maturing in the 1920s, the dialogue has continued through to contemporary times, affording some intriguing insights into processes of cultural translation. American cinema's domination of world film markets is datable to the 1920s and coincides with the rise of Hollywood as the hub of an international film culture. Right from the beginning Bombay filmmakers and artists were keyed into developments in Hollywood. This very interest, however, has proven a contested terrain in the ways in which the industry and its products have been evaluated at home and abroad. Charges of being a clone of Hollywood have dogged the development of the Bombay film in all phases of its history. The development of the idea of 'Bollywood' in recent times (the alphabet game referred to in the title) has not helped matters. On the one hand, the term, invented by the industry itself in the 1980s as a self-legitimising gesture, suggests the entry of Bombay film into the arena of international cinema on a par with Hollywood, Hong Kong and other national cinemas of repute as regards technical sophistication and star value.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 6
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