INDIAN FILM INDUSTRY

Indian Film Industry

Indian Film Industry

Introduction

The entertainment industry in India has outperformed the economy and is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. However, it registered a moderate growth of over 6 per cent in 200.The industry is expected to grow from Rs. 166 billion (U.S. $ 3.45 billion) to Rs. 419 billion(U.S. $ 8.72 billion) by the year 2007. Film entertainment is the most popular form of entertainment and it is this undiminished passion through the decades that has driven India to become the largest producer of films in the world. Since 1931, when talkies were introduced in the country, the film industry has produced more than 67,000 films in more than 30 different languages and dialects. The film industry recorded a loss of Rs. 3 billion (U.S. $ 62.5 million) in gross revenues of Rs 39 billion (U.S. $ 812.5 million) in 2002. But, it is expected to grow annually by 19 per cent to reach Rs. 93 billion (U.S. $ 1.93 billion) by 2007. The industry produced 1200 films in 2002, and 1,013 films in 2001, up from 855 films in 2000. While Hindi films continued to be the largest segment in 2001 (23 per cent share), south Indian language films (Telegu, Tamil and Malyalam) have seen growth in their shares.

Question 1

In its most general sense, culture is the whole way of life of a people that is transmitted from one generation to the next. The concept "culture" is often used interchangeably with "society." But society refers to interacting people who share a culture, while culture is the product of that interaction. Thus, this limited meaning of culture is an abstraction. In everyday speech, culture is often interpreted as refinement or sophistication in the arts. Sociologists and anthropologists commonly define culture as the social product of a human group or society which includes values, language, knowledge and material objects. The people of any group or society share "non material" meanings of what is right and wrong, good and bad, some medium of communication; and knowledge about the environment and about ways of doing things. They also share a body of "material" or physical objects, such as tools, money, clothing, and works of art that reflect nonmaterial cultural meanings. Not only is culture shared but it must also be learned by each new generation through the process of social interaction. In India, mainstream cinema is the most immediate and popular process through which social interaction can and does take place. 

Perhaps, the most important social function of the Hindi film is its ability to act as an interface between the traditions of Indian society and the disturbing modem or Western intrusions into it. At this plane, the Hindi film is a means of (a) giving cultural meaning to Western structures superimposed on society, (b) demystifying some of the culturally" unacceptable modem structures which are increasingly in vogue in India and (c) ritually neutralizing those elements of the modem world which have to be accepted for reasons of ...