Masala film

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Masala films of Indian cinema are those that blend multiple genres into one work. Masala films emerged in the 1970s and are still being created as of the 2020s.[1] Typically these films freely blend action, comedy, romance, and drama or melodrama. They also tend to be musicals that include songs, often filmed in picturesque locations.[2][3]

The genre is named after the masala, a mixture of spices in Indian cuisine.[4] According to The Hindu, masala is the most popular genre of Indian cinema.[3] Masala films have origins in the 1970s and are common in every major film industry in India.[5] Production of these films is still active in mid 2020s.[6][7]

Characteristics

Even though a Masala Film does not have a specific genre or plot that defines the style, a few characteristics make it. The first is the setup of the film. When watching any masala movie, there is this incorporation of elaborate set design, choreographed musical dances, colorful visuals, and costumes. This can be attributed to how India likes to set their emotions through

Indian Aesthetics theory, which is the Natyashastra, where they use the concepts of rasa and bhava to explain how emotions work. rasa translates as flavor.[8]

Bhava translates as to become or, in this case, the emotion and mood you are feeling. Rasa has nine flavors: love, humor, wonder, courage, calmness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. In writing, without rasa, no bhava means without the flavor; it is emotionless. Two primary bhava are Sthayi (permanent) and Vyabichari (transitory). "A central premise of the masala genre is that viewers derive pleasure by being taken through a series of moods or emotional states: being angry or disgusted with the villains; being moved (often to tears) by some sort of loss, usually death; laughing at a clownish character; being amazed or seduced by elaborate song sequences; and being happy for the couple and their eventual union".[9] However, in the West, the way emotions are built up in stories is through plots. This concept is one of the main pillars of Aristotle's Poetics when he said that the story is like the soul of a tragedy.[10]

To make a compelling story, there is this idea in

Indian Aesthetics
theory, the scale of the story must be significant. It represents the lavish sets and the time they occupied in the audience's eye.

History

According to several critics and scholars, the masala film was pioneered in the early 1970s by filmmaker Nasir Hussain,[14][15][16] along with screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.[15] Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), directed by Hussain and written by Salim-Javed, has been identified by many as the first masala film.[16][17] However, critic S. Shankar has claimed the genre has existed in Tamil cinema as early as the 1950s, citing Parasakthi (1952) and Enga Veettu Pillai (1965) as examples.[18] After Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Salim-Javed went on to write more successful masala films in the 1970s and 1980s.[15] A landmark for the masala film genre was Amar Akbar Anthony (1977),[19][16] directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan. Manmohan Desai went on to successfully exploit the genre in the 1970s and 1980s.

dacoit films such as Mother India (1957) and Gunga Jumna (1961) with that of Spaghetti Westerns. Sholay spawned a subgenre of "Dacoit Western" films in the 1970s.[20]

Masala films helped establish many leading actors as superstars in the 1970s and 1980s, such as

Sudeep and Yash in Kannada cinema, Dev, Jeet and Ankush Hazra in Bengali cinema and others have all tasted success in this format.[21][22]

This style is used very often in

Joe Simon in the 1980s; K. V. Raju, Om Prakash Rao and Shivamani in the 1990s; and K. Madesh and A. Harsha
in the 2000s.

Beyond Indian cinema,

Academy Award–winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), based on Vikas Swarup's Boeke Prize winning novel Q & A (2005), has been described by several reviewers as a "masala" movie,[23] due to the way the film combines "familiar raw ingredients into a feverish masala"[24] and culminates in "the romantic leads finding each other."[25] This is due to the influence of the Bollywood masala genre on the film.[26][27][28][29] According to Loveleen Tandan, Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy "studied Salim-Javed's kind of cinema minutely."[26] The influence of Bollywood masala films can also be seen in Western musical films. Baz Luhrmann stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals.[30]

Aamir Khan (Nasir Hussain's nephew), who debuted as a child actor in the first masala film Yaadon Ki Baraat,[31] has been credited for redefining and modernising the masala film with his own distinct brand of socially conscious cinema in the early 21st century.[32] His films blur the distinction between commercial masala films and realistic parallel cinema, combining the entertainment and production values of the former with the believable narratives and strong messages of the latter, earning both commercial success and critical acclaim, in India and overseas.[33]

Influences

While the masala film genre originated from Bollywood films in the 1970s, there have been several earlier influences that have shaped its conventions. The first was the ancient

dance and gesture combined "to create a vibrant artistic unit with dance and mime being central to the dramatic experience." Sanskrit dramas were known as natya, derived from the root word nrit (dance), characterizing them as spectacular dance-dramas which has continued in Indian cinema. The third influence was the traditional folk theatre of India, which became popular from around the 10th century with the decline of Sanskrit theatre. These regional traditions include the Jatra of Bengal, the Ramlila of Uttar Pradesh, and the Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu. The fourth influence was Parsi theatre, which "blended realism and fantasy, music and dance, narrative and spectacle, earthy dialogue and ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them into a dramatic discourse of melodrama. The Parsi plays contained crude humour, melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft."[34]

A major foreign influence was

Hong Kong martial arts cinema, and Italian exploitation films.[36]

Influence from Western

One of the significant influences of Indian cinema is Western film. Since the release of The Great Train Robbery (1903), the first Western movie to ever be created, Western has become the genre that defines American cinema. Due to its nature and characteristics, it appeals to the US and the international audience. One of those places that Western is spreading is Bollywood films, specifically the Masala film genre. The first masala movie, Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), is an inspired Western movie. The film associated the most with the masala genre, Sholay, also has roots in Western ideology. These films are known as Curry Western or Masala Western - "a cycle of Indian films that began in the early 1970s which borrowed and recombined tropes from American Westerns, Italian Westerns, Japanese Sword films, and the South Asian 'dacoit' (bandit) films, among other influences".[37] However, these films have been criticized as cheap copies of Westerns. One of the two writers who wrote Sholay (1975), Javed Akhtar, addresses these allegations in his new book, Talking Life: Javed Akhtar in Conversation with Nasreen Munni Kabir, by stating, "Some people said the influence of Sergio Leone was very strong. Yes, that was true. We loved his films, and he did influence us, but other films impacted us too".[38] Even though this quote will still not sway the critics to say his movie is a copycat of the Western, it cannot be denied that the Western strongly influences Indian cinema, specifically the Masala genre.

Post-Western

After the rise of curry western, the masala genre moved away from western tropes. However, it does not stop masala films from borrowing ideas from Hollywood. This idea can be seen during the 80s and 90s in Bollywood movies like Akele Hum Akele Tum (1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Koi... Mil Gaya (2003), Darr (1993), Chalte Chalte (2003) etc. All these movies have in common that it is a remake of Hollywood classics. The thing about these films that Hollywood inspires is that they are not parodying or blatantly copied; they borrow those details to craft their own story. This idea is known as glocalization. Rashna Wadia Richards, an associate professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies at Rhodes College, coins this term in her paper "(Not) Kramer vs. Kumar: The Contemporary Bollywood Remake as Glocal Masala Film," where she discusses the idea that Masala film "borrow from, and transform a range of texts, neither fully rejecting 'local' Hindi cinematic traditions nor wholly imitating dominant 'global' Hollywood conventions."[39] The reason for Masala film being glocalized is that the world is becoming more globalized and that everyone has the opportunity to watch movies that do not originate from their own. Watching with similar themes or devices will help people to watch those movies, hence the borrowing element of Hollywood movies because Hollywood movies are the standard of world cinema.

See also

References

  1. ^ Nair, Sreehari. "Are masala movies dead?". Rediff. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
  2. ISBN 978-0-415-28854-5
    . Retrieved 26 April 2011.
  3. ^ a b Sebastian, Pradeep (16 August 2002). "Masala vs. genre". The Hindu. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  4. ^ Nelmes, Jill. An introduction to film studies. p. 367.
  5. ^ "Interesting Facts About Bollywood from the age of Classic Cinema". audition post. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  6. ^ "The era of masala films has ended: Boman Irani". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
  7. ISSN 1059-1028
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  12. ^ Mooij, Thessa (2006). "The New Bollywood: No Heroines, No Villains". Cinéaste. 31 (3): 30. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  13. ^ Mooij, Thessa (2006). "The New Bollywood: No Heroines, No Villains". Cinéaste. 31 (3): 31. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  14. ^ Joshi, Poorva (30 March 2017). "How film-maker Nasir Husain started the trend for Bollywood masala films". Hindustan Times.
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  18. ^ Shankar, S. (27 May 2014). "Tamil Cinema: Ten Essential Titles for New Fans of Indian Movies Who Want to Venture beyond Bombay". Sshankar.net. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  19. ISBN 978-81-7436-433-3
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  21. ^ Noor, Arifa (3 August 2021). "Films and reality". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  22. ISSN 0362-4331
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  23. ^ Sudhish Kamath (17 January 2009). "The great Indian dream: Why 'Slumdog Millionaire', a film made in India, draws crowds in New York". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 26 January 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
  24. ^ Scott Foundas (12 November 2008). "Fall Film: Slumdog Millionaire: Game Show Masala". LA Weekly. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
  25. ^ Greg Quill (21 January 2009). "Slumdog wins hearts here". Toronto Star. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
  26. ^ a b "'Slumdog Millionaire' has an Indian co-director". The Hindu. 11 January 2009. Archived from the original on 25 March 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
  27. ^ "All you need to know about Slumdog Millionaire". The Independent. 21 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.
  28. ^ Lisa Tsering (29 January 2009). "Slumdog Director Boyle Has 'Fingers Crossed' for Oscars". IndiaWest. Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 30 January 2009.
  29. ^ Anthony Kaufman (29 January 2009). "DGA nominees borrow from the masters: Directors cite specific influences for their films". Variety. Retrieved 30 January 2009.
  30. ^ "Baz Luhrmann Talks Awards and 'Moulin Rouge'".
  31. ^ Cain, Rob (3 October 2017). "Aamir Khan's 'Secret Superstar' Could Be India's Next ₹1,000 Crore/$152M Box Office Hit". Forbes. Archived from the original on 3 October 2017.
  32. ^ Rangan, Baradwaj (8 January 2017). "Masala redux". The Hindu. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
  33. ^ "Secret Superstar: A moving slice of life". The Asian Age. 2 November 2017.
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  37. ^ Smith, Iain Robert (2016). "Chapter 9: Cowboys and Indians: Transnational Borrowings in the Indian Masala Western". In Fisher, Austin (ed.). Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 185–210.
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