Blog 9

Many people just assume Bollywood is the exact same as Hollywood but in India. This is not true. Unlike Hollywood, Bollywood is not an actual location. Bollywood films have had six main influences. The first of which was the ancient Indian Epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana. These have shown the popular idea of a story-within-a-story, which are main themes in Bollywood films. The second was the effect of the ancient Sanskrit drama, which combined dance and music. The effect was bollywood films being mainly musicals. The third influence was the traditional folk theatre of India. The fourth influence was Parsi theatre which "blended realism and fantasy, music and dance, narrative and spectacle, earthy dialogue and ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them into a dramatic discourse of melodrama. The Parsi plays contained crude humour, melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft." The fifth influence was Hollywood.