I was often forced to watch Bollywood films at the cinema as a child. They were usually special screenings of a film that had just come out - I still remember the vibrancy of these occasions.
I hated them. I hated Bollywood as a whole - the movies were long and the scenes were far-fetched, to say the least. How can the hero defy death on so many occasions? Why does everyone burst into song randomly and where do the background dancers come from? How (and why?) does the entire cast move from a busy market in India to the Swiss Alps within a blink of the eye?
I decided that Bollywood films were for those willing to be fooled. How could a normal person appreciate Bollywood’s implausibility? I’d later learn more about its unique storytelling tradition and I’d come to appreciate Bollywood through a new lens.
Two narrative traditions
When you growing up watching Western films you’re used to a certain type of plot and cinematography - but this is only one type of cinema. Why are Bollywood films so different from Western cinema? To appreciate the difference, you have to understand the history of storytelling and the performing arts in the two traditions.
There are many differences, but I wanted to pick up on one in particular. In Western cinema, the audience accepts that what they see in from of them is a reflection of reality1. They can relate to it. A crucial difference with Indian theatre is that reality is suspended - the laws of physics need not apply. The audience accepts that what they see on stage is of a different reality, and are willing to turn a blind eye for the sake of entertainment.
The playbook
Bollywood traces its roots back to the performing arts of the Indian subcontinent, which in turn have their roots in the Nāṭyaśāstra. Written around 2,000 years ago, it’s a treatise on the performing arts – theatre, song, and dance. The Nāṭyaśāstra is a practical book and focuses on aspects such as stage construction, make-up application, prop building, body movement, and facial expressions.
The Nāṭyaśāstra contains 36 chapters. One important chapter deals with the range of emotions the audience must experience during a performance.
Rasas
Rasas are emotions that the audience should feel whilst watching a performance. The Nāṭyaśāstra lists eight rasas:
- Love
- Pity
- Anger
- Disgust
- Heroism
- Awe
- Terror
- Humour
A complete performance must include all rasas - the audience should feel love, as well as anger, but there should only be one dominant rasa. This is one of the major differentiators between Bollywood and other types of cinema. Rasas are pivotal to Bollywood films and their structure. They drive the overall plot, carve out subplots, and essentially create the characters of a film. Bollywood films are much longer than Hollywood ones. One reason is that there must be enough time for subplots to sustain, which will likely contain different rasas.
Viewing Bollywood through a new lens
Learning more about Bollywood and the differences between it and the Western narrative tradition I’m most familiar with has helped me appreciate good Bollywood films more. I’m going to note that not all Bollywood films follow this type of storytelling structure - you have to find the good ones. Although I don’t watch as much Bollywood as I’d like to, the small sample I’ve seen has been trending away from this type of classical storytelling towards the Western approach to cinema.
Sign up to my blog here
- It depends on the genre of film