THE NEW FACE OF FILM

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Il numero del 27 ottobre 2003 di Time Asia offriva una serie di articoli piuttosto interessanti dedicati al cinema popolare hindi, incluse cinque corpose interviste concesse da Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Ram Gopal Varma e Rahul Bose. In copertina, Ash fasciata da un elegantissimo abito di Giorgio Armani.

Vi propongo di seguito i testi per due ragioni. Perché sarebbe un peccato non poterli più consultare nel caso in cui Time decidesse di cancellare o criptare lo storico. E perché è commovente l'entusiasmo mostrato dai giornalisti - occidentali - e dalle celebrità intervistate che, quasi vent'anni fa ormai, ritenevano di scorgere l'alba di una invasione indiana nel cinema mondiale. 

QUEEN OF BOLLYWOOD, Alex Perry

'The burly British film crew gazes in wonder at the image of the stunning young Indian woman on the playback monitor. As her jeweled sari radiates ruby and amber across their faces, the woman smiles out at her audience, stifles a giggle and draws butterfly-wing lashes down over olive-green eyes. A pause, she looks up, throws her head back and laughs, then withdraws into another coy smile. The shot, five bewitching seconds that may not even make the final edit of Bride and Prejudice, ends. The crew doesn't move. Without a word, the tape is rewound and another viewing begins. It is perhaps the seventh or eighth in a row. "Marvelous," sighs an assistant director. His fellow crew members nod in vigorous agreement. Behind them producer Deepak Nayar beams at director Gurinder Chadha. "After this," chuckles Chadha, "she'll be able to do anything she wants." (...)

Chadha says her theft of Austen will work because Bollywood shares themes with Western art of a more innocent age. "When you see how perfectly the plot of Pride and Prejudice fits Bollywood, you see how Austen and Bollywood use the same language of joy, love, family and sadness that's so uplifting and involving, and so rare and different from Hollywood today," she says. "I think the audience will eat it up." For (Mira) Nair, the explanation is even simpler. "The West is suddenly waking up, noticing what the rest of the world has been watching all these years and working out where it came from." She predicts more international exposure for Bollywood as Hollywood realizes the commercial sense of combining the world's two biggest film audiences. (...)

The film world has heard rumors of an Indian invasion for years. In London in particular, the success of cross-cultural writers like Vikram Seth, Hari Kunzru and Monica Ali, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams, department store Selfridges' decision to adopt a Bollywood theme, and a host of wildly successful Indian TV comedies has long convinced the British public that it was set for a Bollywood bonanza. Often, the sheer size of the Indian film industry - releasing an average 1,000 films a year, compared with Hollywood's 740; and attracting an annual world audience, from Kuala Lumpur to Cape Town, of 3.6 billion, compared with Hollywood's 2.6 billion - made it seem as though the West was the last to catch on. But even though Chinese film boomed with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, somehow the Indian wave never broke. And although Indian films showed in theaters from Singapore to San Francisco, the truth was that few Asians, Europeans or Americans outside the vast South Asian immigrant community actually saw them.

The reason was not hard to fathom. However deep the artistic void that gave the world Death Wish V or Police Academy 7, Bollywood has long outdone Hollywood for formula and cliché. After a two-decade-long golden age that produced films such as Mother India (1957) and Sholay (1975), the industry slipped into a succession of hackneyed action flicks and copycat song-and-dance romances made under a factory ethic in which actors worked on five, 10, even 15 films at a time. Remakes and plagiaries of Hollywood were routine, scripts were almost unheard of, and cast and crew often took the same characters, shots and dance steps from one production to another. The love stories were particularly indistinct: thousands of boys met thousands of girls (songs of joy!), broke up (songs of sorrow!), reunited (joy!) and led a cast of hundreds to a meadow outside Zurich for a leaping, ululating and face-achingly joyous finale. Actors sleepwalked through careers. "You can't imagine what it was like," says Anupam Kher, star of 290 films in 18 years, who reprises his role as the father from Bend it Like Beckham in Bride and Prejudice. "After the whole fame thing wears off, you begin to wonder, 'Really, what the hell am I doing?'" Even domestic audiences complained, including India's leader. "Why do our films stick to stereotype?" lamented Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee after seeing Devdas, which for all its well-deserved critical praise, was still the 12th version of the same love story since the original 1928 silent movie. By mid-2002, Bollywood was largely a commercial concern - to this day, critics rate films and actors almost entirely by box-office pull - of little interest to anyone outside South Asia, except homesick migrants and the odd film buff.

So what's changed? Everything. Rai's unchallenged position in the industry is partly due to her determined pursuit of "different, against the grain" roles, such as her 1997 part in Tamil director Mani Ratnam's little-seen but acclaimed art-house movie Iruvar. But Rai is not some solitary crusader, rather the most successful disciple of a new mantra of innovation that has swept Indian film in the past year. Because in 2002 Bollywood truly bombed. All but 12 of the year's 132 mainstream Hindi releases flopped, and the $1.3 billion-a-year industry, used to comfortable annual growth of 15%, groaned under unaccustomed losses of some $60 million. The formulas suddenly weren't commercial anymore. And although some moviemakers groped around for new blueprints - horror, skin flicks, anything - a band of urban and Westernized writers, directors, producers and actors, loosely grouped under the banner "New Bollywood," overran the industry. "Overnight, those of us who didn't think the audience was dumb and who were sick of movies being talked about as 'products' were in charge," says producer-of-the-moment Pritish Nandy. "The old generation lost control, and the new generation just walked in."

Today, fresh ground is broken with every release. Out are fluffy romances. In are films such as Jism (Body), Mumbai Matinee and Khwahish (Desire) that have shattered Bollywood's tradition of prudish sex scenes, by making previously taboo kisses routine and by finally ditching the rustling bushes that used to denote what came next. Out are badly dubbed punchups and in are dark stories like the true tale of Bombay's rival crime lords (Company) or India's Hindu-Muslim divide (Mr. and Mrs. Iyer), weird stories like that of a hairdresser who reads minds (Everybody Says I'm Fine) or a retired judge who literally runs off with a young model (Jogger's Park) or dark and weird tales like the one of a failed rock singer who leads his bandmates to murder (Paanch). Urban, middle-class films like Dil Chahta Hai (Do Your Thing) are proving there is money in ignoring India's rural audiences, whose preferences run to the spectacular, the musical and, invariably, the alpine. Some films are even leaving out the songs. (...)

If music is used today, it's for a reason. Bride and Prejudice choreographer Saroj Khan, 55, says that for 600 films she did nothing but "item numbers," dance sequences inserted with little regard for narrative. "Now suddenly I have a story to work with," she says. "You won't believe me, but that's very different. And very nice." (...)

Propelled by this whirlwind of raw creativity, star after star is breaking type and embracing new roles, recharging some long-languishing talents. Like Rai, Bombay legend Amitabh Bachchan is trying something different, raising eyebrows with his portrayal of the stylishly amoral, Bo Derek-obsessed crime kingpin in Boom. (...) And producer Nandy cheerfully expects a torrent of outrage upon release of the gritty Chameli, as megastar Kareena Kapoor dumps her customary chaste refinement to play the streetwalker of the film's title opposite Rahul Bose's banker. The head of 20th Century Fox's Indian arm, Aditya Shastri, describes the industry as suddenly, and fundamentally, transformed. "It takes a very brave or very foolish person to do a traditional song-and-dance movie today," he says. (...)

On the set of Bride and Prejudice, Rai is already coping with some of the pitfalls of the revolution. After every scene, she quietly slips past the longing stares of 100 Indian extras and retreats to her cordoned-off trailer. This past year she has already endured her own "Bennifer" style press attention when she split from fellow movie star Salman Khan only to link up with the star of Company, Vivek Oberoi. The size of her celebrity is measured by the 17,000 unofficial websites in her name and the immediate overloading and crash of her own official site the moment it was launched this spring. (...) Rai seems to have little time even to sleep: she scheduled both her photo shoots with TIME for the middle of the night, saying it was her only free time, before crying off exhausted on the second shoot and finding a spare two hours the following day. But you won't hear Rai complain. (...)

Overwhelmed by the demands on their time or simply by their own importance, lead actors in Bollywood would in the past jeopardize entire productions by double-booking themselves, turning up hours late on set (sometimes not appearing at all) or raising fees midway through a shoot. But bigger names, such as Rai and Bose, are now signing with Western talent agencies (both are with the gilt-edged William Morris Agency) that ensure commitments are honored. (...)

It's all part of a newfound professionalism in Bollywood that is evident both artistically and financially. On the set of Lakshya, at Film City studios outside Bombay, this new regimen is in full effect. Director Farhan Akhtar and producers UTV have fixed a budget of $7 million (large by Bollywood standards), issued contracts to crew and actors, insisted on a finished script, insured the set and laid out a meticulously detailed schedule for months of continuous shooting in Bombay and Ladakh. Such black-and-white commitments may be rudimentary in the West but are almost unprecedented in an industry in which a quiet word or a handshake have long sealed deals and in which films were shot piecemeal over a number of years.

Likewise, the financing of Bollywood movies has become far less murky. In the 1990s, a series of scandals broke about the links between Bombay's movie world and the underworld. Producers were the target of repeated police investigations into how deeply Mob money had penetrated the movies, and top actors who were called to testify often sensationally refused. Indeed, just last month, Devdas producer Bharat ("King of Bollywood") Shah was sentenced to a year in jail (but released due to time served) for concealing the underworld's involvement in his 2000 movie Chori Chori, Chupke Chupke (On the Quiet, Hush Hush). In the past, such attachment to Mob money and the conditions that came with it - flying stars to Dubai, Pakistan or South Africa to indulge gangsters' egos - proved a major deterrent to Western investors. But today, even Bombay's police admit the connection with the underworld is weakening - a transformation that began in October 2000, when India's bureaucrats finally lifted outdated restrictions on Bollywood's access to banks and private investors. As legitimate funds poured in from respectable backers, so a new culture of legal and transparent business practices swept the industry.

New Bollywood is not there yet. Director Nair estimates that it will be "two or three years" before its movies attain what she calls Western-style "craft and rigor," and UTV's founder, Ronnie Screwvala, adds that it will take "three to five years" before Western business practices become standard. In the meantime, maybe the greatest danger of Bollywood's invasion of the West is that the West might invade right back. Director Varma's urbanized zeal for Hollywood (...) carries with it the danger that, in less-skilled hands, Indian film could become little more than exotic imitation. Although he admits to enjoying how well the world received Lagaan and although he welcomes New Bollywood's energy, actor Aamir Khan warns that a wholesale rejection of song and dance might kill the "color, fire and innocence" that defines Indian cinema. (...)

With Rai as India's standard bearer, there is little immediate danger of that. She may position herself as New Bollywood in terms of roles, but in person Rai embodies the Indian middle-class - and very Old Bollywood - ideal: a modern girl with traditional values. For someone emerging as a 21st century film star, there are few people less likely to turn into a Western-style sex kitten. (...) In fact, it is because Rai is such a paragon of age-old, dutiful Indian femininity, says producer Nayar, that she was so right for the headstrong but obedient Elizabeth Bennett character, Lalita. "That's her appeal," says Bride and Prejudice co-star Martin Henderson. "When Hollywood women are so exposed - when you see ass cheeks hanging out on MTV, for God's sake - there's something wonderful about a woman who is sensible and refined, mysterious and sensual."

In an age of terror, perhaps it makes sense for audiences to yearn for a more innocent time. Rai agrees that although New Bollywood may represent a welcome reinvigoration of a tired industry, the reason she is suddenly attracting a global audience is the same reason that Bollywood has always drawn adulation from millions of Indians. "It's the chance to be transported from the toil and the worry," she says, "the chance to feel good about life again".'

BEWITCHED BY BOLLYWOOD, Richard Corliss

'I am that strange, nearly solitary creature: a non-Indian fan of Indian movies.

Indian popular movies, that is. The movies that sing. The movies that show beautiful people suffering glamorously, wrestling with dilemmas of family honor and filial loyalty and, when words can't express the ache or ardor in their hearts, dancing vigorously with a couple of hundred of their best friends. The movies that enthrall, enrage and obsess a billion Indians, on the subcontinent and around the world. The ones that almost no serious film critic west of Suez notices, let alone cherishes.

To critics and film lovers in the West, the phrase "Indian movies" has long had an entirely different meaning: the stately, languorous studies of Satyajit Ray and his art-house progeny. Most film-savvy Westerners don't know, or care, that India also possesses a huge national cinema that rivals Hollywood in quantity and quality.

This was not always the case. In the early 1950s the Cannes Film Festival, then as now the introducer and arbiter of international movie taste, showcased several mainstream Indian films. V. Shantaram's Amar Bhoopali, Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin (a prize-winner), Raj Kapoor's Awaara, the Kapoor-produced Boot Polish (which won a special award for child actress Baby Naaz) - all played on the Cannes screen, announcing that the newly independent India, like post-war Japan, was making movies that deserved the world's respect. But in 1956 Cannes showed Ray's Pather Panchali. From then on, until Devdas played last year, popular Indian musical dramas vanished from Cannes. The "other" Indian cinema was now the one the worldwide film community recognized as "Indian."

That's the one I knew of too - until I saw a retrospective of Mani Ratnam's work at the Toronto Film Festival in 1994. Ratnam, a Tamil who made his movies in Madras, is not exactly Bollywood. But Nayakan (a gloss on The Godfather, retold and musicalized with the vigor of Singin' in the Rain) and Roja (one of the director's early I-love-a-terrorist dramas, boasting A.R. Rahman's first major movie score) were similar in form and style to the Bombay product. They were also, to me, revelations: thrilling proof that someone knew how to make serious films with a racing pulse. For decades a chasm had separated two genres: the churning, air-headed "movie" and the slow, austere, art-house "film." Ratnam reminded me that movie entertainment could also be - should be - film art.

I threw myself into Bollywood-style films, without reservation or condescension. Since they were not to be found even in specialty video stores in New York City, I ventured into Manhattan's Little India. There, the trove opened. The older tapes might be of execrable quality, and the films might not all be subtitled. But they showed me that India's movie splendor stretched back a half-century (the art industry's golden age was the '50s ) and forward, if more haphazardly, to the present.

A movie critic's trade secret: we want you to think we are scholarly types, exegetes of the director's art, but like any passionate moviegoer, we love to fall in love with tender or terrible stories, with exotic locales, and especially with movie stars. Kapoor and Guru Dutt were gifted directors, but they were also charismatic actors: Kapoor, to me, is a swarthier Ronald Colman; Dutt, a softer Johnny Depp. They also had radiant co-stars: slim, intense Nargis for Kapoor and, for Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, so luminous she lights up the murkiest scene. I find Shabana Azmi a glorious and heroic figure - in her films and her public life. I'm in awe of Amitabh Bachchan's stature and Old Testament God voice; then I dissolve in admiring giggles as, in the Jumma Chumma number from Hum, he marches around a saloon carrying a hose that seems to spritz geysers of beer from his loins - a true Bachchan bacchanal. Of the younger stars, Shahrukh Khan still beguiles me with his range, his pout, his dimples. And I'll see almost anything with Tabu or Urmila Matondkar.

I'll probably see them alone. When Devdas was shown at Cannes, I was the only critic still there at the end. But I really don't care if Indian popular cinema attracts other acolytes from among my critical colleagues in the West. I'm happy to be a solitary cultist (...) entranced by the beatitudes of Bollywood'.

CHARACTER BUILDING, Alex Perry

'There's something familiar about the barefoot figure with shoulder-length hair and full beard, wearing tatty jeans and a loose linen shirt, padding across Aamir Khan's minimalist Bombay apartment. Only when he curls his legs onto a chair and waits expectantly for the questions to begin does it become clear that this is not one of Khan's friends but rather the latest incarnation of India's most respected and versatile young actor himself. Gone is Aamir Khan, the hipster in a tight-fitting silk suit, outrageous tie and boyish close-crop whom millions watched stride the red carpet outside a score of premieres. In his place, meet Aamir Khan, Jesus Christ Superstar. In a few weeks, Khan will star opposite Aishwarya Rai (*) as the rebel leader Mangal Pandey in The Rising, Ketan Mehta's $10 million epic about the 1857 Indian mutiny against British rule. But despite Pandey's pivotal place in Indian history, says Khan from beneath his straggly growth, no one knows what he looked like. "So I thought if I grew everything, then the makeup and hair people would have a full palate to make him look however they wanted."

Spending months to prepare for a character might be routine for a method actor in the West. But in Bollywood the idea that any actor would take even a weekend off - let alone four months to read history books and grow a beard - is verging on the revolutionary.

Khan, however, is just that. After a stereotypical start in Indian film - a breakthrough smash-hit song-and-dance romance in 1988 followed by eight forgettable musical extravaganzas in three years - Khan broke ranks and, as he says, "began to swim upstream." He became the first Indian star in memory to pick and choose roles by artistic merit. By carefully mixing commercial hits with experimental releases, Khan built a name as both a bankable star and a credible actor. His simultaneous conquest and transformation of Bollywood was cemented with the 2001 releases of Dil Chahta Hai (Do Your Thing), a groundbreaking portrait of middle-class Bombay, and Lagaan (Land Tax), about Indian villagers struggling against 19th century colonialism - which earned India's third-ever Oscar nomination.

By the time he steps onto Ketan Mehta's set, Khan, now 38, will not have appeared before a movie camera for more than three years. It is a measure of how highly he is regarded that a hiatus that would have snuffed out lesser stars has only bolstered Khan's reputation for Stanley Kubrick-like discernment. "For a star of Aamir's size to have chosen to work the way he did, when he did, created huge waves," says Mehta. "He is responsible for bringing realism, passion and joy back to Indian film."

Although his fame has grown increasingly global, Khan says he has no intention of leaving Bombay's bright lights for more earnest Western environs. He tells a story of taking Lagaan to Los Angeles in 2001 and meeting a Dreamworks executive who liked to watch Bollywood movies with his children and who pleaded with Khan to stay on in Bombay and produce more "wonderful, innocent films." The executive need not have worried, says Khan. "I'm very happy doing Indian films and working with the musical form we have," he says. "When it's done right, it's like opera. It can be truly great." Indeed, the idea of taking part in a film with prospects he judges as anything less, he adds, "is something I just can't do." It's been Khan's personal code for a decade. And, as the rest of Bollywood is finally realizing, it's also a mantra that distinguishes mere movies from art'.

(*) Rani Mukherjee, e non Aishwarya Rai, è stata scritturata per il film.

THE LEADING LADY, Alex Perry

'Aishwarya Rai has been Bollywood's leading lady for years, but now, with a slew of new films due for release across the world, is on the verge of becoming a global superstar. TIME's Alex Perry caught up with the 29-year-old former Miss World on the set of Bride and Prejudice, just north of London.

TIME: How do you choose your roles? You seem to be getting pickier.

Rai: I'm a student. I want to do better, and I want directors who can find the actress in me and be my teachers. I'm interested in the whole process of editing, post-production and direction. With each film, I get more and more involved and it's more and more time-consuming. Also, I like to break myths and people's preconceived ideas. My characters have always stood for something, have always had an opinion, although they've never really rebelled. As for being picky, in the beginning, I did get a bit caught up in the way the industry functions at top speed. I was never fast-paced in the way I work. Initially, I was working on several films at a time, then I would work on a maximum of two to three films a year and by Devdas I had slowed down to two, and now, this is my seventh year, I have slowed down even more. Three years ago I was on a world tour, a promotional tour, with (...) Aamir Khan. I was at my first show with him and I was saying, "Aamir, I really want to work much more selectively." He asked me how long I had been acting and I said "Four years." He said, "It took me six years to get to even vaguely working the way I wanted."

TIME: How do you feel about becoming a world star?

Rai: For me, it's not about breaking big in Hollywood, but having interesting experiences. In July 2002 I met (...) Gurinder Chadha and in October I went to the States - I had just had a very positive experience in Cannes and from the European media - and I went and met with the agencies and it just snowballed. Last summer, I had meetings with Robert de Niro and Roland Joffe and Mike Leigh. They'd say, "When are you available? And I'm like, "Maybe at the end of next year." And they're like, "Wow, you can't be serious." But that's my life right now. I really don't work to a plan, but I just do what interests me and what I like to do. Gurinder had great ethics and goodwill and I like what she had to offer.

TIME: Are you trying to move away from traditional Bollywood song and dance romances? What do you make of the "New Bollywood"? It seems to be generating a lot of interest in the West.

Rai: I am very happy with our cultural backdrop and the backdrop of our cinema and participating in a movement to project our cinema internationally. Cinema is cinema, but for some reason in the world arena, Indian cinema is slotted into its own small category. People are breaking the stereotype and it's good that Indian cinema is being recognized. Now is the time and there are actors like me who are willing to support that change. But it's unfair to say that Indian cinema is "arriving." Indian cinema has been delivering a certain aesthetic to its audience very successfully for years and I can say without any shame that I love song and dance. I'd hate to see that disappear and as an artist I am happiest to put my all into an art form, as you do with song and dance. Maybe the world is just becoming more aware of our culture.

TIME: Why did Bollywood stay in the same rut for so long?

Rai: For a long time, cinema has been the biggest form of entertainment in India. And the larger body of India has such hard lives that when they go to the cinema, they want to be transported, to see a world of hope and color and positivity, the innocent, beautiful fairytale. It's the chance to be transported from the toil and the worry, the chance to feel good about life again. Boy meets girl, a bad guy comes along, but everything is sorted out in the end. It's the innocence of Life is Beautiful. Song and dance sequences create that mood. It's beautiful in its own way. In Bollywood, it's always a happy ending.

TIME: Are you aware that half a billion Indian men think you're the perfect woman?

Rai: Is this an image I'm working hard to live up to? No, I have always just been... I am human. If I was really trying to live up to that perception of me, that would be too much pressure. Then more fame you have, the more input and hard work there is. I have so little time to myself and for my sanity. But no, I'm not acting to an image. I have to get into another character enough in front of the camera. If people think I am just an image, they're wrong. I'm just being the girl I was brought up to be.

TIME: How do you cope with the pressure?

Rai: Is there pressure? Well, there is the sheer pace of my life these days. Premieres, festivals, interviews, press conferences, there is less and less time for yourself. And you do feel it. They only way I'm OK, the only way I keep sane as I have immense faith in God and my friends. But if you do not perceive the pressure, it's not there. It's all about conditioning yourself. And hey, I can always choose to do something else. I just go with the flow and try to recognize the reality of it all. It's really not something I worry about. I only think about it when I'm asked. I'm just too busy. I like my work, and I'm true to it; and apart from that, I'm just being.

TIME: Is that really possible in your position?

Rai: I have to learn to be light on myself. I could be really disappointed and hurt by what is said about me: all this trivial stuff about wardrobes and if I was wearing huge gowns, would it cover up my plaster? [Rai fractured an ankle this year.] But I cannot work myself into a knot and hurt about it. But when I went abroad, it was such a humbling experience, it was a fabulous experience and people were amazing with me. People have been wonderful. The response I have been accorded has been humbling. So I said, "Alright God, I get the message. Go with the flow".'

THE LEGEND, Alex Perry

'Amitabh "The Big B" Bachchan is the undisputed godfather of Bollywood. He has been the face of Indian show business for two decades and is omnipresent on the subcontinent, his black-haired, white-bearded face staring out from billboards, television advertisements and the cinema screen in several films a year. In a BBC poll on the eve of this century, viewers across the world voted him the "star of the millennium." He spoke to TIME's Alex Perry on the set of Lakshya (Target), directed by Farhan Akhtar, co-starring Hrithik Roshan and Preity Zinta and due for release next year.

TIME: Tell me about Boom.

Bachchan: [Director] Kaizad Gustad is quite crazy and he has weird ideas and Boom is one such idea. It's a crazy film by a crazy guy. It's almost a satire, a black comedy. I just had the desire to do something different, and with people who were making different kinds of films.

TIME: Why is Bollywood getting so much attention outside India now?

Bachchan: I've always believed in our content and our talent. I feel that particularly because of language, we are handicapped in getting a large world audience. But Hindi cinema has the same ingredients that appeal to the whole world. And now that is happening, the West is becoming aware of what is happening here. There's a lot of interest and that's good for India. But it's odd because I've always believed that, believed in that ability for cinema to communicate across the globe. At the moment our films have a novelty value for the outside world. And the song and dance and fantasy or escapist element in them, which has been criticized before, is now becoming quite attractive. There have been suggestions that we should minimize the song and dance. But I feel that it's our raison d'être and we're not going to change that. Besides, no matter how escapist we have been, we've never digressed from the basic ethos of the country, which is the relations between and within families, festivals and the triumph of good over evil. These themes come directly from our mythology and are so ingrained in all Indians that we expect to see some sort of visual representation of the fundamentals of those stories on the screen. Our films embody a lot of tradition, a lot of culture, the great visuals of color, the exuberance of it and of the music, which is integral to our existence. Indian films are like our food or our sense of dress or our languages: there's a great variety and it changes every 100 miles, but there is something in common, a national Indian essence, that binds them all together.

TIME: But Bollywood is changing, isn't it?

Bachchan: A lot of the changes are maybe down to the advent of television. Five or six years ago, we had one channel, now there's 90. And TV has eased the viewer into seeing better quality stuff. There's a lot of movie channels showing better stuff out of Hollywood. People are fed up with seeing the same thing over and over. They want a qualitative change. Also, in the past, we always underplayed, undersold ourselves. We told ourselves, 'Don't step out of India or you'll get hit in the head.' And that's all changing now because of this sudden interest in India. And we're changing the way we work. We're following the principles of synchronized sound, the production qualities of artists. The amount of detail in this film, and the effort being taken in getting the detail right, is quite remarkable. In funding, and money, generally this side of the business is so disorganized and vague. You never know where your film is running, you never know what the returns are, there's rampant piracy, almost on the same day of the release, and it's so frustrating after all your blood, sweat and tears. So I tell you, on this film, it's a joy to be working like this; to finish a project in a set number of days and have everything on schedule and truly professional, to end the disorganization that has ruled for so long, it's an absolute delight.

TIME: What about your own career? Are you taking on new roles?

Bachchan: I used to play leading roles. But I'm 61 now, and losing that identity and I really do not have to bother now whether I'm going to be playing a negative role or a positive role. And a lot of actors are doing the same now, doing braver and more adventurous parts and not confining themselves to a particular image.

TIME: What do you make of the accusations of plagiarism. Particularly of Hollywood hits, often leveled against Bollywood?

Bachchan: Hollywood itself takes from British and Japanese cinema. I've even done a film where the story was transferred back to Hollywood. The truth is that it's very difficult to escape accusations of plagiarism when we're all naturally influenced by what goes on elsewhere. And look at it this way - our government comes from the West, as does cricket. How do we cut off this influence in film? 

TIME: What about the influence of gangsters?

Bachchan: This phenomenon is there even in Hollywood, but it's very rare. We check where the money is coming from. In fact, my Amitabh Bachchan Corp. [ABC] was the first attempt to corporatize and organize the industry. We were ahead of our time and tried to do too much too young and had a huge vision, and I had creditors on my back. But now there's 15 companies doing the same thing, following our vision to have everything down under one umbrella, and big financial institutions are getting involved. You have to remember that 50 years ago in India, children from good homes were not allowed to go and see movies. It was looked down upon. So it's quite a journey to have the industry becoming respectable financially and for the world to be taking an interest.

TIME: Your decision not to let ABC go bankrupt - that sent a pretty powerful signal to the industry, no? That there was financial respectability in Bollywood.

Bachchan: I chose to pay everyone back and I worked personally to do so, to make sure we paid back that amount, some $1.5 million. My conscience wouldn't have allowed me to do anything else and that's where a lot of my desire to keep working, and doing so much work, came from. I wasn't trying to set an example to the industry, it was purely a very personal thing, but if it did send some sort of message about responsibility, then that's a good thing.

TIME: Getting back to Lakshya, what excites you about this film?

Bachchan: Our films have invariably shown Indian soldiers fighting Pakistan and but they have not allowed us to see the enemy or even be specific about who they were fighting. With this, all that's changing and we've been given permission to call a spade a spade. It's based on real-life events in Kargil in 1999 and we've been on location in Ladakh to actually recreate on sites moments that actually happened in real life. I guess it's patriotic - in the end India won - but it has a humane side to it.

TIME: What's the future for Indian film?

Bachchan: I see a lot of optimism and I see that we're going through one of our most exciting phases. And what so wonderful is that the world, and particularly the English, are becoming so receptive to India. It's really incredible. And as a result there's a new level of maturity and confidence in Indian cinema. And that's wonderful to see too'.

THE NEW WAVE, Alex Perry

'Rahul Bose, 36, is the new face of Bollywood. A former advertising account manager who switched to acting at 26, Bose has emerged as the frontman for everything experimental, new and different in Indian cinema with a string of alternative hits to his name. Next year, he will star opposite Glenn Close in Merchant-Ivory's Heights, before moving on to produce and direct an all-American cast in his follow-up to Everybody Says I'm Fine, which this year became the first Indian movie ever to be released in American theatres (*). Bose met TIME's Alex Perry in Bombay.

TIME: Why is Bollywood suddenly breaking with formula?

Bose: Well, is it? I don't see anyone interested in totally breaking the mold. The style is changing, the dressing up is changing, but a lot of what is coming out is still formulaic. Maybe it's just different from the Bollywood formula of song and dance. The point is that we don't have to break it. Just freshen it up. Sometimes when you are successful, people think you've broken the mold.

TIME: OK. Let me put it this way. There's a new energy and new confidence in Bollywood and a new interest from outside India.

Bose: You're right. There's a sea change. Four years ago, no one in Hollywood had even heard of Indian film. After Everybody Says I'm Fine, I was suddenly called by three producers. That's unheard of. I think the world is getting smaller, we are getting more and more recognition and there is a certain sense that people in Bombay are beginning to feel of, 'We're no less than others, our film Lagaan got nominated for an Oscar, we can do good stuff.' And there will be some extremely bad films made out of all this, but a couple of good ones as well. Also, there has been a diktat put out by the bosses of American studios to fund movies in other countries that would seem to have audiences across the world. 'Find movies that will break through.' And that's new in the last two years. It's cheaper, you see. We can make a movie here for $1 million that would cost $20 million in the US. And the money's talking. So here, it all adds up to movement. I was thinking about moving abroad to work a few years ago. But now, everything's suddenly changed. There's a huge upswing and suddenly Indian talent is keeping up with others in Los Angeles or Spain or Italy. And, back here, the guard is changing. I have very respected old-style Bollywood guys phoning me up and saying, 'I want to make crossover films, or low budget films or experimental films. I'm sick of doing this old s---.' Put us all together, and you have a movement. Put us together with the audience, and you have something sweeping the world.

TIME: What about Bollywood's problem with plagiarism?

Bose: Everybody plagiarizes. The only difference here is that no one pays for remake rights. It is illegal and corrupt. But then, this is India, not Singapore. I met Quentin Tarantino and he'd heard about Kaante, which borrowed a lot from Reservoir Dogs. And he was so thrilled. He said, "I ripped that off from Hong Kong and now you guys have taken it from me." Imitation is a form of flattery, you see.

TIME: What problems do you see?

Bose: Could we please have less films about identity? You know, 'Oh my God, I am dislocated, am I American or am I Indian?' F-- off, you know? Let's work up some original stories.

TIME: And who's going to conquer the world?

Bose: The first actors to cross over will be women. Aishwarya Rai could be Moroccan, Spanish, Italian, Thai, Lebanese. The conquering of America hasn't happened yet, but it's going to happen soon. People are seeing more and more Indians in their everyday lives over there. Now if someone just has the tenacity, they'll cast Shah Rukh Khan opposite Tom Cruise: both these guys have audience of a billion and a half, and put them together, you've got half the world. Or imagine Aamir Khan instead of Matthew Perry: it would melt the race barrier. And in the meantime, people like me can start getting meaty roles in American art-house movies. Ha ha'.

(*) Non ho visto Heights, ma in rete non trovo traccia della partecipazione di Bose al film. Quanto al progetto da regista con cast americano, non è stato realizzato.

THE TRAILBLAZER, Alex Perry

'At a time when much of Bollywood finds itself questioning its direction, Ram Gopal Varma has proved to be an answer. The fiery 42-year-old director scored critical praise and back to back hits with last year's gritty gangster movie Company and this summer's horror smash Bhoot (Ghost), which so scared its audience that one man had a heart attack while another is suing Varma for "mental torture." Next March Varma is due to start shooting Ek (One) which, starring a roll call of Bollywood's biggest names and costing $20 million, is the most expensive and perhaps most eagerly anticipated Indian film of all time (*). As a producer, he has only increased his reputation for innovation. He released five films from his stable of 10 directors this year, including the well-received Darna Mana Hai (You Can't be Scared), a collection of six short stories, and Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon (I Want to be Madhuri Dixit). New Bollywood's director and producer of the moment spoke to TIME's Alex Perry in Bombay.

TIME: What's happening to Bollywood?

Varma: Bollywood is going through a generation change. For the last 15 years, song and dance romances and family dramas ruled and Bollywood became trapped into thinking that without songs, a film couldn't work, or even that films were just something to package around the songs. Music companies were even interfering with how they wanted the movie to go. Now there's a new set of filmmakers in town. I grew up with Western films and I always wondered why Bollywood never made films like that. Why do we always have to break into song? It doesn't make sense to a Western audience and I'm 42 years old, I live in this country and I've still not got used to it. With films like Bhoot, which was a huge hit but had no songs, we're breaking that forever.

TIME: Have you had to fight to make the films you wanted?

Varma: The resistance was there, and I've tried to convert people.

At this point, Varma's mobile telephone rings. He checks the number and announces the caller is a film distributor in Dubai and indicates TIME should listen in.

Varma [to distributor]: There's no music in the film, only background music. You won't really hear it... It's a student picture, correct... There's maybe three or four songs in the background but you won't really hear them...

Varma [grinning, hand over phone, to TIME]: "No songs! No songs!" He's having a heart attack.

Varma [to distributor]: Don't worry about it, OK? You're just buying it and selling it, right? ...

Varma [aside to TIME]: I'm in that position now, you know? "F--- you! Take it or get out!"

After a few pleasantries, Varma hangs up.

TIME: What's the future for Bollywood?

Varma: There's going to be a massive change. A lot of old filmmakers are going to go out of business. Anyone who looks at a film as a formula of one song, two comedy scenes and three action scenes, who doesn't look at the totality of the film, is lost now. Anyone who follows the old prudish traditions, of showing a bush's shaking leaves when they mean people are f---ing behind a tree, is gone. And anyone who doesn't follow the West is gone. For many people in the business, their pride won't let them. But following the West is not surrendering. Following the West, the best of the West, is following originality. Western innovation is superior, and I think we're just beginning to understand that. With my films, I'm targeting the urban multiplexes, the sophisticated media-savvy young crowd. Frankly, I couldn't give a f--- for the villages'.

(*) Ignoro quale sia il film citato.

THE YOUNG TURK, Alex Perry

'Aamir Khan is Bollywood's most respected young actor, and set the standard for an industry when he became the first actor in a generation to pick and choose his roles, to insist on only taking on one role at a time, and devote time and energy to preparing for them. In 2001, Lagaan, in which starred and which he produced, was nominated for an Oscar. The 38-year-old returns next opposite Aishwarya Rai in The Rising, the story of the 1857 Indian mutiny against British colonial rule. He spoke with TIME's Alex Perry at his apartment in Bombay where he was preparing for his new role.

TIME: What's happening to Bollywood?

Khan: Things are changing really quickly. There is a distinctly alternative path that Indian cinema has been taking over the last 12 to 15 years, but we are really seeing this manifest itself more obviously now. When I began, there was a lot of resistance to new ways of thinking; now there is a lot less. In the 1950s and 1960s, Indian cinema was making really good stuff, but in the late 1960s and 1970s there was a gradual decline and the late 1970s and 1980s, things could hardly have been worse. Finally, in the late 1980s, some better films started being made again, using music, but using it with some sensibility. A bunch of people got into film who were completely fed up with the sort of films coming out. It was like, 'F--- you. We can't stomach this any longer.' Plus the audience is changing and getting exposed to more and more different times of entertainment. In fact, it's quick stunning how quickly people have changed: we've gone from one television to 100 - not a natural growth - and people have been bombarded with a whole host of new things from outside India. Anyway, so now people are building on the good work that was being done then, and doing completely different stuff. People are suddenly willing to experiment with new ideas: the films being made today wouldn't have even seen a release 10 to 15 years ago. There's a whole new level of passion and integrity and commitment. We have a lot to learn as a film industry, but the momentum is building now.

TIME: Do you feel you want to move on from Bollywood?

Khan: No. I feel very protective and close to our cinema and I'm very much a part of it. I'm very happy doing Indian films and working with the musical form we have. Of course, Bollywood can be quite ghastly, but at its best, it's a wonderful form. There's a level of passion and excitement and a heightening of emotions which can be momentous. It'd be awful to lose it. Music and singing and dancing are also part of our culture and our aural tradition. We don't write anything down in our history. But Bollywood is not something I look down on. When people say, 'Indian films are Bollywood musicals,' I think that's great. When it's done right, it's like opera. It can be truly great. When it's done badly, it's not good, but then nothing is. In Lagaan, when the first song happens, the clouds are coming and the villagers think it's going to rain. Imagine that without a song, it could easily be done, but with the song it completely enhances the moment, it makes you feel more, it sucks you into the story.

TIME: But some times the songs are ridiculous. You know, all this running off to the Swiss Alps in the middle of the narrative.

Khan: There are these films, stories that do not make any sense, suddenly you're in the Swiss Alps with 40 dancers behind you. No, I don't like that. I used to be really upset at the kind of films coming out of India. I couldn't watch this crap. But on the other hand, I do strongly feel that we have a lot of talent here, and a huge potential to entertain the world, and I feel we should do it in our own way. I don't think we should tailor ourselves. We should retain our own style of story-telling. A second point is that, it's a very positive approach to story-telling. There is a lot of hope in it, not much cynicism, and that's what cinema is for me. Life is Beautiful is a film that moves you: it's larger than life, saying things with a broad sweep and hitting the high notes of emotion. So I'm quite happy doing films for an Indian audience. What excites me and what is changing is that we can now entertain a world audience. And we should explore that, but we shouldn't neglect our audience here. There are filmmakers who are looking towards a Western audience. But I'm not interested in making a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or looking for a pattern of what might be successful. I want to make films that I believe in and if that happens to interest an international audience, then great. Lagaan is an example of a mainstream Indian film that was seen all over the world and that was never intended for an international audience.

TIME: Has is been difficult to choose the kind of films you wanted?

Khan: The first film I made, nobody wanted to buy it. At that time the star system was very rigid and really crude action movies were all around. And this was a love story, not crude at all, very subtle and the girl and boy die at the end. The marketers viewed it with a lot of suspicion, they thought it was a hell of a bummer and wouldn't release it. And then when it did come out, it was a breath of fresh air. It went through the roof, people came to the theaters in droves. So it's been an exciting journey, but I have been swimming upstream and trying to do my own kind of stuff. I am not trying to make any great change, but I want to do what I want to do, for Christ's sake. And now, I feel less and less need to do commercial work.

TIME: That's not always been the case, though, right?

Khan: When I first came in, actors were doing 30 to 40 films a year. Within six months of my first film, I'd signed for eight more. And I couldn't manage. When I started work, I realized it was absurd: I had to work 16 hours a day for three or four years, shooting on two sets a day. And then these eight films started releasing and they all started bombing: they were horrible films. But it was a learning experience, and after I finished these films, I began to choose. And ever since, I've been working towards establishing a way of working that I'm comfortable with. And it's taken quite a time to achieve that. Actually, I've been extremely stubborn. I've said 'No' to a lot of very, very good directors. But I think if I hadn't, I wouldn't have survived. You see, I need to feel I like doing it to do it well. And I need to have an audience in Bihar (...), I need a guy there to feel like he loves me.

TIME: Were you always confident of your choices?

Khan: No, I was a scared as hell. The press was writing me off as a one-film wonder. And people were saying, 'Has he gone mad? He's not taking on any work.' But my fear and insecurity... I did not allow them to make me take decisions to play safe. I took risks, because I just could not bring myself to do certain films and work a certain way. Shooting two films in a day is just ridiculous. So when I produced my own film, Lagaan, I said, 'I've always wanted one single shooting schedule and let's please have synchronized sound'. And now The Rising is coming too: that's a continuous 22-week shoot.

TIME: How big a problem is mob money in Bollywood?

Khan: What we must realize is that the underworld is very much part of society and it's very much in India. You can't expect it not to impact every walk of life. So, yes, there is that involvement, but it's not to any degree that's unusual. People in the film industry haven't come from Jupiter and Mars, we're all part of the same society, and my level of integrity is the same as other people's, the same as my instinct for survival is the same as others'. And let's face it, the film industry is something that's quite attractive to people and certainly people who are interested in power. There areas where the underworld does exist and should not are administration and law and the police and political life. But people in these areas focus on us to deflect attention. And it angers me because the press falls for it.

TIME: Is Bollywood becoming more professional?

Khan: Things are getting more organized. In the 1950s, films would take nine years to make. I just don't know how they did that. But what's not good is if it goes too far and everything is calculated and measured, as you cannot be creative. Big business can spoil entertainment.

TIME: Why did you choose The Rising?

Khan: I like the concept of a company taking over a whole country and ruling it for 100 years, and the relations between power, money, drugs and weapons. And the sub-plots are really exciting, the relationship between the two cultures.

TIME: What about your co-star, Aishwarya Rai?

Khan: When I was offered the film, nobody else was cast. But I think she has a lot of potential as an actress and a star. She's extremely popular here and has the potential of winning over an audience outside India. She's talented and extremely good looking, and bigger than Julia Roberts in terms of fans.

TIME: What about the new Western interest in Bollywood?

Khan: It's happening very fast. After Lagaan, at the Oscars, I had 30 scripts thrown at me. And there's a lot of productions coming and shooting here. But it's unlikely that all 1,000 Bollywood films that get made in a year are going to get a world release. But people have heard of Bollywood now and they are getting a taste for it and I expect there will be a huge audience for Indian film for a while and then it will slow down, but there will be a certain audience that sticks with it. Indian cinema can be very addictive, it sucks you in. Some of it is ridiculous, but you can't help but watch it. One thing I'm worried about is that a lot of talent might be absorbed into Western film-making. That's not something I am looking forward to'.