Is Bollywood the Next Busby Berkeley?
Image via Wikipedia
The AP wires have released loving detail about the 10th International Indian Film Academy awards in Macau, and really, isn’t that title alone a whole show?
They’ve got kings. They’ve got princesses. They’ve got dancing and singing and running here and there for no apparent reason. For my money, Bollywood is the best thing since Busby Berkeley’s Hollywood extravaganzas of the 30s. Here’s a crash course on Busby B. from Wikipedia:
His earliest movie jobs were on Samuel Goldwyn’s Eddie Cantor musicals, where he began developing such techniques as a “parade of faces” (individualizing each chorus girl with a loving close-up), and moving his dancers all over the stage (and often beyond) in as many kaleidoscopic patterns as possible. Berkeley’s legendary top shot technique (the kaleidoscope again, this time shot from overhead) appeared seminally in the Cantor films, and also the 1932 Universal programmer Night World. His numbers were known for starting out in the realm of the stage, but quickly exceeding this space by moving into a time and place that could only be cinematic…
A show-stopper at the awards ceremony was 6-time-winner Jodhaa Akba. A former Miss World took home “Best Actress” for her role as a model making a comeback in Fashion. Personally, after reading about her stage entrance to accept the award, I feel as if I’ve seen the film:
Her head and body covered in silver jewelry, Aishwarya Rai was carried onto stage in a golden sedan chair by barefoot men to the music of “Jodhaa Akbar” and then performed with a group of bare-chested dancers. Her husband showed up among the audience in a pink-striped kurta, slowly made his way to stage while high-fiving members of the audience then shook his body with female dancers in red bikini tops and red dresses.
via ‘Jodhaa Akbar’ Rules Bollywood Awards – WSJ.com.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
Why does something have to be the next anything? Why can’t it be the first of what it is? Busby Berkeley was and continues to be one of the greats of movie choreography and cinematography. Indian movie choreography owes more to Michael Jackson with limited movement and repetition. I spent enough time in India that I could almost predict what be the next move.
it would be wonderful if Indian movies would look at the likes of BB, Michael Kidd, Hermes Pan, Gene Kelly and Bob Fosse and then Bollywood would achieve international acclaim. Remember, “Slumdog Millionaire” had to have outside direction to achieve success. Without that, who would have heard of it?
Barry, Good point and thanks. Bollywood is its own thing, and will be its own next thing. Interested in what you have to say about Indian movies,too. Slumdog did indeed need outsiders to help it achieve what it did, but won’t always be the case. I just enjoy seeing the parallels between the “musical numbers” they do and the ones from the old American “girls, girls, girls, razzle dazzle-style” show biz things here. I know people often relate what goes on in music “video” to Michael Jackson, particularly ‘Thrilla,but ‘ I don’t see the equation between MJ and Indian music video at all.
I sat in Delhi during 1998 watching TV whilst waiting to get out to the IG Centre to work on live shows and every music video was a throwback to dance videos that had been de rigeur on MTV.
[...] As some source in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa may still want to point out, it is common enough to compare the kind of early 21st century Bollywood musicals in which Mallika Sherawat appears to the Busby Berkeley Hollywood musicals of the 1930s. (See, eg: “Bollywood musicals: Busby Berkeley goes east of Suez!” and “Is Bollywood the Next Busby Berkeley?”.) [...]