Sunday, March 21, 2010

US and movies

A sudden thought hit me today. In our movies somehow the protaonists always go on a vacation to Pacific Asian countries, or even Europe. But never to the US. Why is that?

I mean a lot of movies are made where the protagonists are based in the US or go there for long term assignments (Hum Tum, Kal Ho Na Ho etc) but they never visit for vacation as part of the storyline :)

As always maybe there are exceptions but in general this is true of both Hindi and Telugu movies.

Movies do take a lot of inspiration from real life maybe after-all? :)

2 comments:

Idyll Mind said...

I can't believe I am bringing reasoning into my explanation for how bollywood movies work, but filming in the US is fairly expensive, and getting the required permits is a painful process and not worth the effort. Moreover, these "foreign vacation" films typically cater to rich indians and NRIs living in the US and the UK... (which is why some governments make it easy for bollywood to shoot in their countries... to attract tourism)

But, here is another interesting fact. A lot of the Italy scenes in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam were shot in Budapest, Hungary. But, can a filmmaker really get away with pretending the Washington Monument is in San Francisco? Highly unlikely!

Ask Sanjay Leela Bhasali and he will tell you that Our Ignorance with regards to everything that's not India or America is His Bliss... :)

Which is why Karan Johar picks one big city in the US for his entire film... and then includes some random, obscure anonymous towns for the scenes shot outside the city...

(This comment is full of generalizations, but there is also some truth to it)

DivSu said...

@Prabha - WOW! Amazing. Lot of things I never thought of. Too much! Most impressed :D

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