Hindi films have always been an eternal part of every Indian. Hindi film industry has gone through a sea change since Aalam aara (the first talkie movie) to today’s latest release.
When hindi movies were initially directed, I believe only men would play all the lead roles, including dressing up as a heroine for the actresse’s role.
Films were strictly a taboo for women then. The early 40s and 50s later saw a lot of women making an entrance into the glamour world. Shobana Samarth (grandmother of Kajol), Devika rani were the amongst the earliest.
Once more and more women joined the bandwagon, hindi films became more interesting. Even then there were some controversial scenes done by Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai (the famous lip kiss scene which made the audiences heart go pit pat.)
Others like Nadia, Durga khote etc were also ready to play tomboys, wear trendy clothes and do films different from the then usual mythological kinds (like Raja Harish chandra, Shankar Parvati).
a typical filmy dialogue then would be : ’’’’pran naath , maii to tumhari charno ki daasi hun.’’’’
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1960s made things more easy for the stars and the audiences. All kinds of films were made with interesting storylines (suspense, murder, romance, comedy).
Dances , music and dancers were given huge importance (Helen, Kum Kum, Gopi krishna etc). Even the heroes and heroines were very popular and some movies just ran for the sake of the stars. It was peak time for the Dilip-Dev-Raj trio who always made box-office waves and gave innumerable hits. The heroines also were the beautiful , nubile looking, oozing lot of grace. Most of them were accomplished dancers (Vyjantimala, Waheeda Rehman), the non dancers had enough charisma to be pull the audience for their movies on account of their sheer beauty and performance (Madhubala, Meena kumari, Nutan, Nargis).
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1970s saw more dishum-dishum (fights) and hindi cinema’s Dream Girl Hema Malini. It also marked the superstar period of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh. What followed more was more fights, more brothers getting lost and found, screen mother Nirupa roy shedding more tears( and later often being reunited with sons, bahus, their children and her long lost husband).
some typical dialogues during this time would be ’’’’Mere paas dhan daulat nahi hai, par Ma hai.’’’’
or ’’’’Wahi rukja kutte, nahi to bhooond ke rakh duunga.’’’’
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1980s paved ways for Mithuns, Jeetendras, Raj Babbars and even for some very memorable parallel cinemas like Arth, Ankur, Baazar, Katha etc .
Low budgeted Bus movies also did well then and captivated the middle class audience (Bus-movies are the movies which show the main leads always travelling in buses ;).
so the bus movies then were: Golmaal, Chasme baddhur, Saath-Saath, Baaton Baaton mein, Choti si baat etc
Eighties also saw the advent of a new subject Rape .
In 70s, films were subtle in handling rape and even avoided showing nuances of it on screen.
1980s was the time when everything was out in the open. Insaaf ka Tarazu, Aaj ki Awaaz, Ghar, Pratighat, Prem rog and many others were some shocking , grotesque examples of this excruciating crime. I remember when as a child, I was not allowed to see most of these movies and at times when unknowingly I ended up watching one, it left a disturbing impact on me.
That was also the time when except for Rekha and a bit of Sridevi, no heroine was really at the top. There were also a lot of similar looking girls then, really slim, having long hair, wearing pencil heel sandals and very badly stitched churidars like Poonam, Padmini, Rati, Anita Raaj etc.
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1990s was the time for Anil Kapoor, Govinda and the three khans. At that time when audience was completely loosing interest in watching hindi films in the theatre (due to the advent of cable and video cassettes)QSQT, Maine pyaar Kiya, Lamhe and Jo jeeta wohi sikandar got the audiences and families back to the halls.
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2000 and onwards, things are changing completely.
Many movies are inspired by Hollywood today, Backless blouses and skimpy outfits are no longer talked about as before, every movie today has Kareena kapoor wearing a completely backless top. Explicit romantic scenes in Khawhish, Jism etc seem to make the movies more famous which is also making censor board more and more lenient.
We also have a good amount of Indo-American movies like Leela, Freaky chakra, Monsoon wedding, Mr and Mrs Iyer etc which represents Bollywood’s parallel cinema as well as Global cinema. Indian movies are finally being noticed all over the world and getting its long over due credits.
More women directors have come into foray making good parallel cinema. Actor and actresses are keen on doing meaningful roles rather than just run around trees and beat the villians. I also feel the strong audience today is the young crowd rather than the family crowd.
Today’s youngsters take a lot of interest in every single new release and also take interest in writing reviews about it on Mouthshut (just as I do !!!).
All in all, Hindi film industry is still booming with ideas, movies and churning out new talents every year. All that needs to be done is to W ait, W atch and W rite......