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| HOME | BUSINESS | COMMENTARY | DILIP THAKORE | |||
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February 12, 2000
NEWSLINKS
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Business Commentary/Dilip ThakoreOnly Show, Where's Biz?Film industry needs to become business literateLast weekend I read with interest and some sadness, an obituary of mainstream Indian cinema aka Bollywood. Sadness not because I watch the insipid, incredible and slipshod fare offered by the world’s largest film industry, but because here was a high-potential industry with high-employment and revenue-earning prospects which has been done to death by a succession of producers, directors and actors whose professional competence has proved to be directly proportionate to their business illiteracy.
Consequently, producers continue to borrow money at three to four per cent per month from the dons of the underworld. The latter have their own unique methodologies for extracting their pound of flesh from the would-be moguls of Bollywood who break all the rules of business management and then are surprised that their films are box-office duds. One of the many socially harmful hangovers of 40 years of uniquely destructive Indian-style socialism is widespread business illiteracy and sloppy thinking. Any person of some education and above-average intelligence, who has had to suffer Bollywood fare, will vouch that Indian mainstream cinema is at best incredible melodrama. This is an insult to the meanest intelligence. But if one were to say this, one would immediately be branded an elitist who is ignorant of the entertainment needs and preferences of the masses.
According to Tarun Adarsh, editor, Trade Guide, “1999 has been the worst year in the 84-year history of the talkie with 90 per cent of films ending up as major box-office disasters.” The obit of the Indian cinema in The Times of India (January 31) says that even as far back as 1980, half the movies made in the country were box-office disasters. And since then, the condition of the brain-dead movie industry has gone from bad to worse. Quite obviously, Bollywood’s tacky moguls do not have a clue about the entertainment preferences of the masses either. Against this backdrop of the unrealised potential of the world’s largest movie industry, it is important to identify the real villains of Bollywood and its regional clones. The prime villains are quite obviously producers who have to mobilise the finance, script, crew and draw up the marketing plan of every movie.
For one, they have not been able to create reliable sources of finance (neither banks nor shareholders). Nor do they pay adequate attention to choosing stories and scripts, their choice of crew (including actors) tends to be sub-optimal and even the best of them seem to be marketing illiterate. They seem to be wholly oblivious of the business reality that the principles of market segmentation need to be applied to the movie-making business as they need to be applied in any other industry. And that one cannot make movies which will appeal to the educated middle class and the illiterate peasant simultaneously. Moreover, they seem unaware that a post-production marketing strategy has to be formally budgeted as in any other business or industry.
In particular, actors and actresses of mainstream cinema don’t act as much as they overact, repeatedly playing themselves rather than credible characters. Moreover, I have never been able to figure out why the the box-office stars of Indian mainstream cinema don’t vet and insist upon good scripts as do most established stars in Hollywood. For money, they don’t really need, they are prepared to lend their names to utter cinematic trash. Please don’t get me wrong. This is not a plea for the promotion of high-brow parallel cinema. It is an argument in favour of popular cinema with tight storylines and scripting, disciplined direction and credible characterisation. To assume that the masses are too stupid to appreciate well-told and credible celluloid stories which provide an insight into the human condition, is unwarranted snobbery. When television threatened mainstream cinema in the western world, Hollywood reinvented itself by raising its intellectual, technical, thespian and business management standards. Mainstream Indian cinema needs to do likewise. Maybe Bollywood’s movie moguls and their hangers-on in the unreal fantasy world of Indian cinema don’t know it yet, but the masses aren’t the asses that Bollywood thinks they are. The socio-economic reality is that Indian audiences have matured while mainstream cinema hasn’t. That’s why they are increasingly rejecting the cinematic trash churned out by Bollywood’s infantile dream factories. From The Rediff Archives: India's film industry in focus UP accords industry status to film sector, to spruce up NOIDA Film City American company to distribute Hindi films worldwide Fizz fills film finance frame: government aid, insurance fade in to focus UP announces sops for cinemas to prop up film industry Decision deferred on film financing by banks IBA accepts panel report on film financing framework Centre, states to meet on September 1 to ponder cinema's industry status Bombay film industry to hold massive protest rally against cable piracy Film industry awaits cinema's transfer to concurrent list Industry status remains a mirage for dream merchants Bollywood seeks help to combat video threat, government obliges Moves afoot to persuade states to shift cinema to Concurrent List Businessman Bachchan braves a bad patch as ABCL falls sick Subhash Ghai calls upon tinsel-world to make the most of industry status Big B's dream of showbiz supermarket lies in tatters |
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Right now there is a lot of breast-beating going on within Bollywood
because of an assassination attempt upon producer-director Rakesh Roshan.
The incident has once again provided full-frontal exposure of the enduring
nexus between Bollywood and organised crime.
Well, it seems Bollywood producers and their apologists seem to be
ignorant of the entertainment needs and preferences of the masses as
well. Because almost nine of ten feature films produced in Bollywood (and
in other regional centres such as Madras, Hyderabad and Calcutta) fail
at the box-office.
Given the patent inability of Indian mainstream
cinema to create reliable customers within the great Indian middle class
of 150-200 million (equivalent to the entire population of the United
States), let alone impact the overseas market which is ripe for
picking, it is quite plain that Bollywood producers lack basic
management savvy.
However, though business-illiterate, slap-dash producers tend to be the
prime villains behind Bollywood's unrealised potential, they are not the
only baddies. Directors who don’t insist on strong story-lines (despite
Indian society being a treasure-house of real-life human interest
stories), cliche-mouthing scriptwriters and actors who connive and
collaborate in perpetuating mediocrity, are as guilty of the slow murder
of the Indian film industry.