| Author | Message | ||
Frodo Comedian Username: Frodo Post Number: 1759 Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 47.196.221.86 Rating: N/A |
Nice analysis and a good read. A few points to ponder. An advantage of mass movies is that the marketing done - predominantly social media/urban city events markets them to the elite/class audience. However I have not seen similar tools that aid class movies with the mass audience. Also, the liberal/leftist propaganda against BB - the feminist angle about the Avantika/Sivudu relation or the non-secular movie argument failed to achieve lift-off. We might have been having an entirely different discussion if one of those arguments gained momentum. "There are some simple learnings from the movie � aspire huge, spend on VFX not big stars, look within ourselves for stories, grandeur is not bad and above all � ignore what the critics want, look at what the audiences want. " This might apply more to the Southern directors, but for Bollywood that has been following this to a much better extent than Southern movies, the take away should be to market/approach the Southern Market differently and probably with more purpose than they have actually been doing. Rajamouli's biggest strength - on par with his having the pulse of the masses is that he values money immensely. IIRC, in one of his interviews he said something almost similar to the legendary dialogue by Gordon Gekko that "Greed is good" (don't remember the exact words he said.) So he made sure that they marketed and packaged the product good. This I believe is where more theses/research will or should be done by B-schools. What the executioner did after he was done with his job. (4,6) Tennis Galaxy | ||
Stalker Comedian Username: Stalker Post Number: 1147 Registered: 08-2012 Posted From: 146.115.149.113 Rating: N/A |
+1 | ||
Braindrain Junior Artist Username: Braindrain Post Number: 412 Registered: 07-2012 Posted From: 107.15.216.68 Rating: |
Analysis and Articulation in equal proportion..Nice read !
Excellent counter-argument. 5 stars to you as well. I started visiting IBDB and other DBs to discuss and argue so constructively on topics like movies, music, politics and sports. Unfortunately I restricted myself as my wavelength does not match with a majority (as I see crap like trying to showcase their own wealth, caste, region etc.) But there i some hope that few are still there who speak lot of sense in arguing or debating on a topic. Kudos ! | ||
Rocketk2 Side Hero Username: Rocketk2 Post Number: 4142 Registered: 03-2014 Posted From: 107.77.70.24 Rating: N/A |
Nice analysis.. I agree there is a market in north and Bollywood territory that was probably not being catered to. Bahubali might have reached them and exposed it.
This is fairly norm with movies inspired by true stories. They are not biographic documentaries but rather adaptations. I think he did not stray too far away from the main story line based on few interviews I have seen from sisters. Inka Sultan . It is what it is and it does not even pretend. I have no issues with it. Salman is a bad actor but good star!! | ||
Filmbuff Side Hero Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 8698 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 103.252.217.62 Rating: N/A |
Nice points - but my basic argument is not whether needs to be subtle or loud as you seem to have misunderstood. We need to reinvent mainstream cinema by appealing to the masses more. An average US blockbuster every year attracts 50-60 Mn admissions. That is close to 20% of the US population. Now let's translate that to India - and assume that only 10% of the market can be addressed because of income levels etc etc. That is a market of 120 Mn admissions for a big blockbuster. At a ticket price of Rs100 - a market of Rs1200 cr for a big blockbuster can easily be achievable. But people are happy with their 200-300 cr. My argument is again never that big blockbuster movies are better in quality or smaller classy movies are not. The former is mandatory for the latter to survive as the studios, exhibitors and distributors make money which can be spent on more personal, individualistic ventures. And Sultan vs Dangal is not an apt comparison - I hated Dangal but people love Aamir Khan movies because they know they will get a clean entertainer they can take families to etc. Dangal was more exploitative and fictional than a fictional movie. To take a real story and add on a unreal masala to it (like all those silly last minute match turnarounds when nothing like that happened in the actual fights) is not done. I would prefer a less hypocritical movie like Sultan anyday. | ||
Guru Hero Username: Guru Post Number: 10960 Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 98.109.52.112 Rating: N/A |
Good write up Buffy annai but I agree with ruj's rebuttal | ||
Maverick Legend Username: Maverick Post Number: 64303 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 108.171.130.188 Rating: N/A |
bottom line, ee subtle over board action movies are a cycle..people when they fed up with these turn to subtle movies..and when bored with subtle movies comeback to these..BB had a unique oppurtunity of this cycle backed with good story vfx and execution..and breaking it into 2 parts is a clever move and the audenice curiosity with the current social network helped the craze for bb2 Happy Vizag | ||
Maverick Legend Username: Maverick Post Number: 64302 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 108.171.130.188 Rating: N/A |
After reading ruj's comments i agree some flaws in your analysis. Shiva was was subtle was equally sensational in Telugu Hindi Tamil. and being one of your fav movies which also had a thesis, how do u justify your article? may be you got carried away with BB2 thesis and being slightly biased towards BB2(looking at the revenue numbers) Happy Vizag | ||
Ruj Megastar Username: Ruj Post Number: 21245 Registered: 03-2007 Posted From: 24.118.19.194 Rating: |
bavundi article..kaani parts of the article are bit of a strech and over-eneralized which i have to disagree.. lets not forget that between westernized, subtle 3 idiots(2009) vs complete desi loud masala dabang(2010)..its the former which was a bigger hit even in india.. between over the top, loud and southindianish sultan vs subtle more realistic dangal..its the latter which was a bigger hit even in india...and both these movies(3I, dangal) r gonna represent india even overseas(inta gelichi racha gelusthayi) salman himself found his biggest hit when he moved away from his superhero loud antics and did more story oriented bhajrangi..still a masala movie but much subtle in tone compared to his dabangs wanteds sultans etcc... and last but not least even in our own telugu land in 90s..when our top starrers were busy doing xtreme loud crude masala, tamil movies which were perceived to have better content and subtle to the point suddenyl grew in our backyard.. the reason im mentioning all these is, yes bollywood moved away from masses, yes..there is a vacuum there..but that doesnt mean 95% of desis like loud over heroish south indian style movies.. the reason bahubali is such a big hit is because of its periodic setting,much bigger canvas, first of its kind visuals from an indian film, suspense factor, no boring moments, cultural elements etc etc..so over the top loud factor is ignored.. | ||
Stellar Hero Username: Stellar Post Number: 14472 Registered: 02-2016 Posted From: 24.188.203.223 Rating: N/A |
aadu teesina adi south lo guarantee ga ekkadu | ||
Legend Username: Twitter Post Number: 52123 Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 136.56.39.203 Rating: |
only SLB can think something big like this in b'wood | ||
Cool_indian Side Hero Username: Cool_indian Post Number: 3242 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 24.55.51.6 Rating: N/A |
It opened up a huge market for Bollywood into South. They need to understand if they make movies that cater to a broader audience all over India, they can mint much more money. Currently their moveis although are watched by the southies, they are only watched by hindi people mostly. They dont cut across cultures. They just take advantage of the vast hindi people all over the country and the world. BB franchise cut across the regional aspect and went all over. Lets see if any bollywood movie can cut across. They have the potential and the base market. | ||
Legend Username: Twitter Post Number: 52120 Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 136.56.39.203 Rating: N/A |
 as cocam suggested it needs to be published in main stream | ||
Maverick Legend Username: Maverick Post Number: 64301 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 108.171.130.186 Rating: N/A |
http://www.hindustantimes.com/brunch/why-indra-the-tiger-is- a-permanent-fixture-on-indian-television/story-ofjy0fOTqSMm7 Bh8CClEGN.html Happy Vizag | ||
Anand_n Hero Username: Anand_n Post Number: 17867 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 72.179.185.115 Rating: N/A |
Very well written thesis on the appeal of the movie !  The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet : James Oppenheim | ||
Thelegend Moderator Username: Thelegend Post Number: 30838 Registered: 04-2008 Rating: N/A |
Adiripoyindi write up, excellent. | ||
Scorpio Hero Username: Scorpio Post Number: 17191 Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 174.61.228.127 Rating: N/A |
Khans gaalla aadangi love stories ki kaalam chellindi... It's either Dangal or SSRM You do one more Mumbai, you lose Balochistan - NSA Ajit Doval | ||
Scorpio Hero Username: Scorpio Post Number: 17190 Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 174.61.228.127 Rating: N/A |
Rajamouli Pre-climax varaku continuous gaa alochinchi...climax fight next day alochinchaadu anpinchindi... Second time chusthe...climax fight first time antha heavy gaa ledu...chala reasonable points unnaai climax fight lo... He tried to convey too many things in climax with out a strategy like Trishul vyooham... You do one more Mumbai, you lose Balochistan - NSA Ajit Doval | ||
Scorpio Hero Username: Scorpio Post Number: 17189 Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 174.61.228.127 Rating: N/A |
U touched the core...super You do one more Mumbai, you lose Balochistan - NSA Ajit Doval | ||
Stellar Hero Username: Stellar Post Number: 14463 Registered: 02-2016 Posted From: 24.188.203.223 Rating: N/A |
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Cocanada Legend Username: Cocanada Post Number: 55729 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 72.201.228.131 Rating: N/A |
Can you please blog this? This post deserves biggee audience | ||
Siloan Legend Username: Siloan Post Number: 50025 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.24.38.103 Rating: N/A |
as usual kummav sodara | ||
Boeing747 Junior Artist Username: Boeing747 Post Number: 541 Registered: 04-2016 Posted From: 76.186.26.88 Rating: N/A |
Soofer asalu | ||
Maverick Legend Username: Maverick Post Number: 64299 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 108.171.130.189 Rating: N/A |
nice read, i liked your shiva thesis too Happy Vizag | ||
Onlytruth Legend Username: Onlytruth Post Number: 194791 Registered: 01-2007 Posted From: 45.29.50.49 Rating: N/A |
Shaky introduction...but once the.core point begins , very interesting Read.. Good article | ||
Vishvak Side Hero Username: Vishvak Post Number: 6052 Registered: 01-2007 Posted From: 73.164.13.25 Rating: N/A |
Good write up annai... Vi veri universum vivus vici My Blog: The Power Of One | ||
Nihil Comedian Username: Nihil Post Number: 1965 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 183.82.194.104 Rating: N/A |
Super raasav annaii  | ||
Redclaw777 Side Hero Username: Redclaw777 Post Number: 3828 Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 49.205.76.141 Rating: |
Kummi kummi vadilaav po analysis!! Absolutely spot on! Same thing I had mentioned in another thread.... A vast majority in India are today the minority. This is the absolute truth. They have been relegated to the sidelines and have been ignored of late given the multiplex surge and how A centres by themselves are getting movies to break even and even hits. The voice of the C centre audience has gone unheard. Not only movies, this is applying even to politics, where a leader with Pan India appeal like Modi has been a sensation because he could reach out to those guys as opposed to our erstwhile PM who had the look and demeanour catering to only the classes. Pathanjali today is a rousing success and lot of its revenue are again coming from B and C towns where the masses are able to relate to the brand and its owner more than they do to a Procter and Gamble. There has been a simmer of restlessness within a group and Baahubali's resounding success today is one more example of how much they have been ignored and how they are expressing the,selves today. This is happening across Industries and Movies are a part of this big game. Bollywood has been for long focussing on the Metrosexual Hero with all his subtleties. While this has resulted in brilliant cinema , it need not be the only 'right' cinema. And today comes Baahubali which has stirred the imagination and emotion of the general public like never before in a long time and once again proves there is no formula for a what makes a good movie. It is simply the one which is heard. | ||
Boston_baba Side Hero Username: Boston_baba Post Number: 9400 Registered: 07-2012 Posted From: 122.166.141.228 Rating: N/A |
Very well written. TDP accepts that YSR govt irrigated 19lac acres in seemandhra, in 1991, AP debt is 22% of GSDP, in 2004 its 34% of GSDP, in 2014 its 22% of GSDP. | ||
Filmbuff Side Hero Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 8697 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 103.240.237.29 Rating: N/A |
Ledhu, just on FB | ||
Chillarodu Side Hero Username: Chillarodu Post Number: 9251 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 183.82.233.237 Rating: N/A |
Did you write this to any paper or magazine? | ||
Filmbuff Side Hero Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 8696 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 103.240.237.29 Rating: N/A |
Mods - Title lo theses badulu thesis ani pettandi. Singular not plural. | ||
Filmbuff Side Hero Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 8695 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 103.240.237.29 Rating: |
Oopiri pilchukondi - naa mega sollu chadavandi... THIS IS NOT THAT MOVIE As you read this, a ticket would be being bought somewhere that would make Bahubali 2 cross the box office landmark of Rs1000 crores. Decades hence, it will continue to be a surprise to people and film critics how a Telugu movie dubbed into Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam became the largest ever grosser in movie history in each of these languages apart from the home market in the Telugu speaking states, beating their own respective superstarsâ movies and became the first movie to cross the 1000 crore box office number. It is impossible to even comprehend. It beseeches a lot of careful analysis and academic research and might even churn out a bunch of business school case studies and sociological theorising. I will attempt to do my two bit here. The last two decades saw a steep increase in spending power and the rise of a significant section of audience who are aspirational. This has consequently led to a change in the mindset of most filmmakers, especially in Bollywood. Once filmmakers realised that big bucks could be made by peddling movies made by People Like Us to People Like Us (or who want to be Like Us), they stopped making movies that appeal pan India. They got lazy and stopped even trying to analyse the broad market needs and requirements. Bollywood, in summary, become a victim of its own success. 15 years later, people in this set tend to snigger and forget that Gadar was the biggest industry box office hit for years. Instead of viewing their target audience as a 1 Bn + market, they started satisfying themselves with a 5% population that resides in South Mumbai or South Delhi or aspires to. Even if their movie appeals to a subset of this 5%, then the movie would be a good enough blockbuster grossing over 100 cr. Whether it is a Dil Chahta Hai to a Befikre, it appeals to a very narrow audience across India, leaving aside the merits of each movie. While one may say that emotions are universal and cuts across social barriers â it is a narcissistic view again written by critics bred on the same grammar. Take a look at the body language of the actors in many of the Hindi movies of late â it is very Western in the way they cry, laugh, their gestures, their reactions to other characters and events etc. Once you start seeing a lot of Western movies, TV programs etc â one unconsciously starts adopting Western body language. There is an illuminating bit in the fascinating book on Mani Ratnam by Baradwaj Rangan describing a scene in Nayagan where Kamal Haasan is asked to react to a particular situation. Mani had to cut Kamal off mid-way saying that his body language was very Western. Kamal slapped his forehead and had to consciously emote the Indian way. This is just a small instance of the creeping Westernisation of our cinematic language. To Bollywoodâs credit â there have been lots of wonderful new directors who have come up over the past decade and they have told beautiful stories. But there is a reason why Indra â the Tiger (Hindi dubbing version of Indra from Telugu) is probably the most screened movie on satellite TV. There is a reason there are so many South Indian dubbing movies shown on Set Max getting a lot of loyal audience. It is not just because they are cheap to dub. They are saying something that the filmmakers are ignoring to their own peril. They are speaking the language of the masses. Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam movies, though quite large, because of their smaller home markets, have had to make movies that appeal to everyone. They canât just make movies that appeal to folks in Jubilee Hills or Boat Club. Because of these market based requirements, the Southern filmmakers have to tell stories that are more universal in content and their grammar. And because of this need, the directors too came from backgrounds that are more rooted â SS Rajamouli or AR Murugadoss come from very humble, lower middle class backgrounds and small towns in Andhra and Tamil Nadu. A significant portion of Bollywoodâ•••••• over the past decade have been remakes of South Indian movies because of this precise reason. Even if they wanted to they canât make these big mass market movies as that cinematic language has been lost. It is like a language that is gasping for breath and canât be easily resuscitated. You have to import that language. The usual criticism about South Indian movie language and made about Bahubali too is that they are over the top, too loud and garish. I bracket this as arguments made by People Like Us who fail to see beyond their blinkered view of what a movie should be. Just because you want subtlety does not mean that 95% of the population want subtlety. Just because you are against capital punishment does not mean that 95% should be. There is a reason why the scene Bahubali chops a molesterâs head off gets standing ovation and whistles in a hall. If left to critics, there would be no revenge dramas itself. They are succumbing to the crime of seeing a movie as what they want it to be, rather than what it is. Within the genre of a fantasy movie - anything is possible. The same critics would gush over an X-Men Apocalypse or an Avengers. Unfortunately most filmmakers take the critics and themselves too seriously in their need for subtlety, need for greyness and moral ambiguity etc. Of course those movies also need to be told and can be great movies in themselves, but big screen glory was meant for visual wonders and grand emotions like Bahubali I can see a Masaan or a Dev D on TV too without losing a beat. Here is a hero with an unrelenting retributive valour, conventional notions of right and wrong, fierce moral certainty rather than ambiguity which a post-modern movie might be needed to be. But this is not that movie. At the same time the movie does raise interesting questions about justice versus law, about an anointed leader versus a democratic leader, dharma etc. One unique prism to view the grammar of a mass masala movie is the familiar trope of an âinterval bangâ. As a cinematic flourish, its usage is unparalleled in South Indian movies and SS Rajamouli is a master at this. Bahubali2 beats even his earlier greatest interval bangs in movies like Chatrapathi. The pre-interval scene is one of the greatest 10-15 minutes in Indian movie history and it takes sheer directorial genius, of someone with his pulse on the audience, who knows what buttons to press and knobs to turn to create the right audience response. The scene was first storyboarded, then music was scored and then shot along with the help of a choreographer. It involved massive amount of logistics, animals, people, right editing and music cues to take the audience to the peaks of euphoria. At the interval of Bahubali2, the entire audience stood up for a standing ovation. That is the ultimate test of a directorâs success. Nothing else matters. There are some simple learnings from the movie â aspire huge, spend on VFX not big stars, look within ourselves for stories, grandeur is not bad and above all â ignore what the critics want, look at what the audiences want. Most critics have gushed about Bahubali â including respected critics like Baradwaj Rangan and in the Guardian and RogerEbert.com. It can be a watershed in India movies like Jaws was when it first released in the US. The few Indian critics who have criticised the movie whine about themes of valour, retributive justice, religious overtones (one half wit cribbed that there were no Muslims in the movie). They fall into the trap that Roger Ebert warned against â âItâs not what the movie is about, itâs how it is about itâ. In a nutshell â âthis is not that movieâ |
