Masala (film genre)
Encyclopedia
Masala is a term given to films of Indian cinema
that mix various genres in one film. Typically these films freely mix action
, comedy
, romance
, and drama
or melodrama
. These films tend to be musicals
that include songs filmed in picturesque locations. The genre is named after the masala
, a term used to describe a mixture of spice
s in South Asian cuisine
.
, a director who very successfully exploited the genre in the 1970s and 1980s. It helped establish many leading actors as superstars such as Dharmendra
, Amitabh Bachchan
, Rajnikanth
, Chiranjeevi
, Mithun Chakrabarty, and more recently, Salman Khan
, Joseph Vijay
and Akshay Kumar
. This film style is used very often in Hindi
and South India
n films as it helps make the films appeal to a broad variety of viewers. Other famous masala filmmakers include Salim-Javed
, David Dhawan
, Anees Bazmee
and Farah Khan
in Hindi cinema, and S.S. Rajamouli, Puri Jagannath in Telugu Cinema
and S. Shankar
, Hari
and K. S. Ravikumar
in Tamil cinema. The "Curry Western" trend that began with Sholay
(1975) also falls under the masala genre. Curry Western is a play on the term Spaghetti Western
.
Beyond Indian cinema, Danny Boyle
's Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire
(2008), based on Vikas Swarup
's Boeke Prize
winning novel Q & A (2005), has been described by several reviewers as a "masala" movie, due to the way the film combines "familiar raw ingredients into a feverish masala" and culminates in "the romantic leads finding each other." This is due to the influence of the Bollywood masala genre on the film. The influence of Bollywood masala films can also be seen in Western musical film
s. Baz Luhrmann
stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge!
(2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals. The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! renewed interest in the then-moribund Western musical genre, subsequently fueling a renaissance of the genre.
in the 1970s, there have been several earlier influences that have shaped the conventions of the genre. The first was the ancient Indian epics
of Mahabharata
and Ramayana
which have exerted a profound influence on the thought and imagination of Indian popular cinema, particularly in its narratives. Examples of this influence include the techniques of a side story
, back-story
and story within a story
. Indian popular films often have plots which branch off into sub-plots; such narrative dispersals can clearly be seen in the 1993 films Khalnayak
and Gardish
. The second influence was the impact of ancient Sanskrit drama
, with its highly stylized nature and emphasis on spectacle, where music, dance
and gesture combined "to create a vibrant artistic unit with dance and mime being central to the dramatic experience." Sanskrit dramas were known as natya
, derived from the root word nrit (dance), characterizing them as specacular dance-dramas which has continued in Indian cinema. The third influence was the traditional folk theatre of India, which became popular from around the 10th century with the decline of Sanskrit theatre. These regional traditions include the Yatra
of Bengal
, the Ramlila
of Uttar Pradesh
, and the Terukkuttu
of Tamil Nadu
. 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 final influence was Hollywood, where musical
s were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s, though Indian filmmakers departed from their Hollywood counterparts in several ways. "For example, the Hollywood musicals had as their plot the world of entertainment itself. Indian filmmakers, while enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian popular films, used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given situation in their films. There is a strong Indian tradition of narrating mythology, history, fairy stories and so on through song and dance." In addition, "whereas Hollywood filmmakers strove to conceal the constructed nature of their work so that the realistic narrative was wholly dominant, Indian filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a creation, an illusion, a fiction. However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected with people's day to day lives in complex and interesting ways."
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
that mix various genres in one film. Typically these films freely mix action
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
, comedy
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
, romance
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
, and drama
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
or melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
. These films tend to be musicals
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
that include songs filmed in picturesque locations. The genre is named after the masala
Masala
Masala or massala is a term used in South Asian cuisines to mostly describe a mixture of spices. A masala can either be a combination of dried spices, or a paste made from a mixture of spices and other ingredients—often garlic, ginger, onions and chilli paste...
, a term used to describe a mixture of spice
Spice
A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for flavor, color, or as a preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their growth. It may be used to flavour a dish or to hide other flavours...
s in South Asian cuisine
South Asian cuisine
South Asian cuisine, also known as Desi cuisine, includes the cuisines from the Indian subcontinent. It has roots in South Asia, including practices taken from the Hindu beliefs practiced by the large population found in the region, alongside influences from neighbouring regions and cultures,...
.
History
The origin of this genre is generally credited to Manmohan DesaiManmohan Desai
Manmohan Desai was a producer and director of Indian movies.- Background :His father, Kikubhai Desai, was an Indian film producer and owner of Paramount Studios from 1931 to 1941. His productions, mainly stunt films, included Circus Queen, Golden Gang, and Sheikh Challi...
, a director who very successfully exploited the genre in the 1970s and 1980s. It helped establish many leading actors as superstars such as Dharmendra
Dharmendra
Dharmendra Singh Deol |Punjab]]), better known as Dharmendra, is an award-winning Hindi film actor who has appeared in more than 247 Hindi-language films as of 2011. In 1997, he received the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Hindi cinema and also another Lifetime...
, Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...
, Rajnikanth
Rajnikanth
Rajinikanth is an Indian film actor, media personality, and cultural icon. He made his debut as an actor in the National Film Award-winning motion picture Apoorva Raagangal , directed by K. Balachander, whom the actor considers his mentor....
, Chiranjeevi
Chiranjeevi
Chiranjeevi is a Telugu film actor and a politician. He has appeared primarily in Telugu Cinema along with a few Tamil, Kannada and Hindi films. He made his acting debut in Punadhirallu . However, Pranam Khareedu released at the box office earlier...
, Mithun Chakrabarty, and more recently, Salman Khan
Salman Khan
Salman Khan is an Indian film actor. He has starred in more than 80 Hindi films.Khan, who made his acting debut with a minor role in the drama Biwi Ho To Aisi with Rekha in a lead role, had his first commercial success with the blockbuster Maine Pyar Kiya , for which he won a Filmfare Award for...
, Joseph Vijay
Joseph Vijay
Vijay is an Indian film actor and playback singer, who is based in the cinema of Tamil Nadu. He is the son of film producer and director S. A. Chandrasekhar. After performing uncredited roles as a child actor in films produced by his father, he made his debut in a lead role in the 1992 film...
and Akshay Kumar
Akshay Kumar
Akshay Kumar is an Indian film actor, producer and martial artist who has appeared in over a hundred Hindi films. When he began his acting career in the 1990s, he primarily starred in action films and was particularly known for his appearances in feature films commonly called the "Khiladi series",...
. This film style is used very often in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
n films as it helps make the films appeal to a broad variety of viewers. Other famous masala filmmakers include Salim-Javed
Salim-Javed
Salim-Javed were a scriptwriter duo who wrote a number of commercially and critically successful Hindi films in the 1970s and early 1980s. The duo, composed of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, made the writer's role popular with their names appearing in the posters of the films, and in some films they...
, David Dhawan
David Dhawan
David Dhawan is an Indian film director. He has studied at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.-Career:Dhawan started off as an editor and then took the plunge into directing...
, Anees Bazmee
Anees Bazmee
Anees Bazmee is an Indian film director, film writer, Screenplay writer who works in the Bollywood film industry.-Career:Bazmee started his career in 1988, as a dialogue writer for the film Hum Farishte Nahin. He then took a year break, and returned in 1990 as a writer for the film Swarg, which was...
and Farah Khan
Farah Khan
Farah Khan is an Indian film director and choreographer. She is best known for her choreographical work in numerous Bollywood films. Khan has choreographed dance routines for more than a hundred songs in over 80 Hindi films. Khan has since become a noted Hindi film director as well...
in Hindi cinema, and S.S. Rajamouli, Puri Jagannath in Telugu Cinema
Telugu cinema
The Cinema of Andhra Pradesh, also referred to as Telugu Cinema or Tollywood, is the Telugu film industry in India. The Telugu language film industry is known for being one of the three largest in terms of no.of films produced yearly in India. The Prasads IMAX theatre in Hyderabad is one of the...
and S. Shankar
S. Shankar
Shankar is an Indian film director and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. He made his directional debut in Gentleman for which he was awarded the Filmfare Best Director Award...
, Hari
Hari (director)
Hari is a Tamil film director, best known for his action-masala films. , he has directed eleven films.- Background :Hari was born in Katchanavilai near Nazereth in Tuticorin District, Tamil Nadu, India. His father, Gopal Nadar, is a vessels merchant. Later his family shifted to Chennai...
and K. S. Ravikumar
K. S. Ravikumar
K. S. Ravikumar is an Indian film director and actor, primarily working in Tamil cinema. He has directed numerous films ranging from comedy and drama to action thrillers. His film Dasavathaaram went on to gross $16 million worldwide in the first four weeks and eventually became one of the...
in Tamil cinema. The "Curry Western" trend that began with Sholay
Sholay
Sholay is a 1975 Indian action-adventure film produced by G.P. Sippy and directed by his son Ramesh Sippy. It is considered among the greatest films in the history of Indian cinema. Released on 15 August 1975, it stars Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar, Jaya Bhaduri and...
(1975) also falls under the masala genre. Curry Western is a play on the term Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
.
Beyond Indian cinema, Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
's Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British epic romantic drama adventure film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup...
(2008), based on Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup is an Indian novelist and diplomat who has served in Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Japan, best known for his novels Q & A and Six Suspects.-Early life:...
's Boeke Prize
Exclusive Books Boeke Prize
The Exclusive Books Boeke Prize is a book prize awarded in South Africa, loosely modelled on the United Kingdom's Man Booker Prize, and sponsored by Exclusive Books...
winning novel Q & A (2005), has been described by several reviewers as a "masala" movie, due to the way the film combines "familiar raw ingredients into a feverish masala" and culminates in "the romantic leads finding each other." This is due to the influence of the Bollywood masala genre on the film. The influence of Bollywood masala films can also be seen in Western musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
s. Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann
Mark Anthony "Baz" Luhrmann is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for The Red Curtain Trilogy, which includes his films Strictly Ballroom, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!...
stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...
(2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals. The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! renewed interest in the then-moribund Western musical genre, subsequently fueling a renaissance of the genre.
Influences
While the masala film genre originated with Manmohan DesaiManmohan Desai
Manmohan Desai was a producer and director of Indian movies.- Background :His father, Kikubhai Desai, was an Indian film producer and owner of Paramount Studios from 1931 to 1941. His productions, mainly stunt films, included Circus Queen, Golden Gang, and Sheikh Challi...
in the 1970s, there have been several earlier influences that have shaped the conventions of the genre. The first was the ancient Indian epics
Indian epic poetry
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called Kavya . The Ramayana and Mahabharata, originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into many other Indian languages, are some of the oldest surviving epic poems on earth and form part of...
of Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
and Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
which have exerted a profound influence on the thought and imagination of Indian popular cinema, particularly in its narratives. Examples of this influence include the techniques of a side story
Side story
A side story is a story that occurs alongside established stories set within a fictional universe. As opposed to a prequel, sequel, or interquel, a side story takes place within the same time frame as an existing work....
, back-story
Back-story
A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...
and story within a story
Story within a story
A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
. Indian popular films often have plots which branch off into sub-plots; such narrative dispersals can clearly be seen in the 1993 films Khalnayak
Khalnayak
Khal Nayak is a 1993 Hindi film produced, written and directed by Subhash Ghai. The story centres around the escape and attempted capture of a terrorist criminal, Ballu, by Inspector Ram and his girlfriend Ganga. Box office India declared the film a "super hit" at the box office...
and Gardish
Gardish
Gardish is a 1993 Hindi film directed by Priyadarshan which included an all-star cast such as Jackie Shroff and Dimple Kapadia. Jackie Shroff was nominated for Best Actor Filmfare awards, and Dimpla Kapadia for the Best supporting Actress award....
. The second influence was the impact of ancient Sanskrit drama
Sanskrit drama
The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century CE. The Mahābhāṣya by Patañjali contains the earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit drama. This treatise on grammar from 140 BCE provides a feasible date for the beginnings of theatre in India.Its...
, with its highly stylized nature and emphasis on spectacle, where music, dance
Classical Indian dance
Indian classical dance is a relatively new umbrella term for various codified art forms rooted in Natya, the sacred Hindu musical theatre styles, whose theory can be traced back to the Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni .- Definitions :...
and gesture combined "to create a vibrant artistic unit with dance and mime being central to the dramatic experience." Sanskrit dramas were known as natya
Natya Shastra
The Natya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music. It was written during the period between 200 BC and 200 AD in classical India and is traditionally attributed to the Sage Bharata.The Natya Shastra is incredibly wide in its scope...
, derived from the root word nrit (dance), characterizing them as specacular dance-dramas which has continued in Indian cinema. The third influence was the traditional folk theatre of India, which became popular from around the 10th century with the decline of Sanskrit theatre. These regional traditions include the Yatra
Yatra
' , in Hinduism and other Indian religions, generally means pilgrimage to holy places such as confluences of sacred rivers, places associated with Hindu epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and other sacred pilgrimage sites. Tīrtha-yātrā refers to a pilgrimage to a holy site, and is...
of Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, the Ramlila
Ramlila
Ramlila is a dramatic folk re-enactment of the life of Lord Ram, ending up in ten day battle between Lord Ram and Ravan, as described in the Hindu religious epic, the Ramayana...
of Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, and the Terukkuttu
Terukkuttu
Terukkuttu or Kattaikkuttu is a Tamil street theatre form practised in Tamil Nadu state of India and Tamil-speaking regions of Sri Lanka. Terukuttu is a form of entertainment, a ritual, and a medium of social instruction. The terukkuttu plays various themes...
of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The fourth influence was Parsi theatre, which "blended realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
, music and dance, narrative and spectacle, earthy dialogue and ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them into a dramatic discourse of melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
. The Parsi plays contained crude humour, melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft."
The final influence was Hollywood, where musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
s were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s, though Indian filmmakers departed from their Hollywood counterparts in several ways. "For example, the Hollywood musicals had as their plot the world of entertainment itself. Indian filmmakers, while enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian popular films, used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given situation in their films. There is a strong Indian tradition of narrating mythology, history, fairy stories and so on through song and dance." In addition, "whereas Hollywood filmmakers strove to conceal the constructed nature of their work so that the realistic narrative was wholly dominant, Indian filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a creation, an illusion, a fiction. However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected with people's day to day lives in complex and interesting ways."
External links
- Masala v. Genre - The HinduThe HinduThe Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
- Masala film genre