Bollywood blues

Though India produces the most films in the world per year, the industry has a poor success rate, with only a few classified as genuine box office hits. This year has been particularly dismal for the film industry — only two films, Race and Jannat, scored, while two more, Jodhaa Akbar and Sarkar Raj, were moderate successes, out of the 60-odd Hindi films that were made. The rest sank without a trace. The collective industry losses are said to have touched Rs300 crore. With the economy too passing through a rough patch, there is a bit of panic in the entertainment industry. Is this a temporary trough? Are audience tastes changing? Has the industry got its economics wrong? Or have filmmakers lost the plot?

A little of each of the above is the answer. In the 1990s, the filmmakers found themselves in the underworld dragnet of slush money. When the industry was given industry status, corporate finance began to step in. The availability of money is not a major issue any more today; not a day passes without a big deal signed with a star or a director by a corporate house.

Therein lies one of the problems. Budgets are out of whack and, while technology has cut down costs, star salaries have soared. Corporatisation has brought with it extravagant payouts. Star salaries are a huge part of the total outlay and a film has to make big money, often during the first weekend itself, to turn in a profit. Corporations, in their hunt for assured returns, rely on the one ingredient they think will pull in the audiences: star wattage. But they do not necessarily have a feel for the medium and may impose their own corporate ideas on a creative process. If an attempt is made to bring in too much of the international trends in the name of globalisation — that is, copying Hollywood stories and techniques — it could be difficult  to connect with the home audiences.

But blame also lies with the creative sector, which has sunk into a morass of cheap knockoffs of international movies and of relying too much on gloss and glitz and far less on subject. Where scripts are well written, the movies — with or without stars in them — have done well. It does not mean that the era of the big films is over; all it shows is that while viewers may be fickle, they are not stupid. They can see through the shallow, the derivative and the plain silly. The industry may be congratulating itself for raising money from satellite rights, the sale of music and so on but, in the end, it is all about the magic in the cinema hall. Today that magic and the mojo seem to be missing.