Explorer's Log. Joy Dolo, captain of the Forever Ago here, with my trusty companion, Senna. We're entering the ancient ruins of a long-forgotten civilization. We're making this recording to share what we find on this dark and dangerous journey in case we don't return. That's right. We've traveled long and far by plane. bicycle, tricycle, unicycle. Did I mention Rollerblade? And two stops on the metro. All in search of this legendary location. Now that we've found it. Oh, this isn't a pen.
It's a Twizzler. Was I supposed to bring a pen? Sorry. Who knows what one just will discover. Uh, excuse me? Lady with the bunny slippers and glow stick? No eating candy in here. You'll get the shelves sticky. Egads, a citizen of this forgotten realm. And he's alive. Of course I'm alive. And this isn't some forgotten realm, ma'am. This is a video rental store. Ah, yes. The ancient site known as a video rental store.
People would come to this establishment to borrow physical copies of movies and watch them at home. Truly a wonder to behold. Oh, The Little Mermaid. I love this one. I'm Joy Dolo here with my pal Senna. Hey. And this is Forever Ago from APM Studios. We're a non-profit public radio program. That means you keep us going. You can do that by donating, joining Smarty Pass, or buying a shirt that has... has my face on it. Head over to forevergo.org and show your support. Thanks.
Now, today, Senna and I are on an adventure. We're exploring the history of Bollywood cinema. And the story of one man who helped bring it to life. His name was Dada Saheb Falke. Bollywood is a nickname given to a giant movie industry in Bombay, India. It's a mashup of Hollywood. That's the hub of moviemaking in the U.S. And Bombay. Bombay plus Hollywood equals Bollywood. Bombay is the old name of India's largest city. Today, it's called Mumbai. But the name Bollywood lives on.
Senna, do you watch Bollywood movies? I've watched a few clips from Bollywood movies. I also like the song Chaya Chaya from the movie Dilsey. I like it because it's like a train and people are on top of the train dancing. Oh yeah, that sounds pretty cool. Well, to help set a cinematic, movie-tastic mood, we're camped out in this dusty old video rental store. Jeez, it's just a video rental store. Not the lost kingdom of Atlantis. And it's not that dusty. I actually cleaned it last week.
Or was that last year? Oh, I almost forgot. That is our noble guide. His name is Doug, guardian of the divids. For the last time, my name is Doug. Doug. And they're pronounced DVDs. You know, the shiny little discs that play movies. By the way, Bollywood, that's in aisle six. Just past French New Wave and right before Korean drama. Thank you, Doug.
Hmm. So how do you define a Bollywood film anyway? Like, what makes it different from other movies? I can help with that. Whoa! Where did you come from? Oh, just behind that rack of movies. I'm just picking up a couple to watch this weekend. And who are you? I'm Tejas Viniganti. I'm a professor at New York University, and I know all about Bollywood. I've even written some books about it.
Oh, hi. My name is Senna and this is Jar. We love to pick your brain. Sure. So what makes Bollywood films unique? So there's certain defining features. One thing that I'm sure many people, especially in the U.S., As soon as they think of Bollywood, they think of music. They think of song and dance. That's right. You usually see big, flashy dance numbers, lots of people with colorful costumes, and super catchy songs.
I love dance numbers. I'm actually taking lessons to learn Bollywood dance moves. So what moves are you learning, Senna? I like the flower blooming step. It's kind of like a flower opening. You twist your hand. So it's like a flower opening. Oh, cool. Like a flower blooming dance. That's cool. Is there other moves that you like? I really like the glitter. It's like...
You shake your hands from side to side. It's like you're trying to get the glitter off your hands. Oh, like you're shaking glitter off. Yeah, like from left to right or right to left. Oh, I like that glitter. I'm going to work on that one. So Tejaswini, what about the stories? What kind of stories do you usually see in Bollywood films? The stories are kind of seen as epic. You know, they're always kind of like larger-than-life struggles.
it's often about love rich girl poor boy poor girl rich boy you know so a lot you know often about like love across social boundaries the other thing that's also distinctive is that all these films have an intermission. That means Bollywood movies usually have a break in the middle so you can get more snacks or go to the bathroom. Right. Because these movies are long. Sometimes three or even four hours.
Well, nice chatting with you. I got my movies, so I gotta run. Hey, Doug, put these on my tab. See ya. Let's see what Bollywood movies they have on the shelf here. Oh, this looks cool. It's called Mr. India, and it's from 1987. What's it about? It says... His father was an inventor who built a machine that can make the person who wears it invisible. The man finds the invisibility machine and uses it to fight crime and save all of India. Ooh, this looks great too. It's called Jaga Jasu.
It's from 2017. It's about a boy who goes on a wild adventure. He's looking for his long-lost father. The boy struggles with words but can express himself in song. I gotta see that. Grab these movies and let's watch them later. Good call. Okay, now that we know a little more about Bollywood movies, let's learn about the history. And the man who helped pioneer Indian filmmaking. His name was Dada Saheb Falke, and his story begins in the late 1800s.
Back then, people mostly traveled by train or ship. Cars were still new and very rare. Most homes didn't have electricity or radios or even telephones. People mostly got their news from newspapers or talking to their neighbors. During this time, India was under British rule, which meant that the country was controlled by Great Britain. That means British people usually made the rules for the Indian people who lived there. Which was totally unfair.
They made Indians pay them lots of taxes, and they took a lot of natural resources out of the country. Much of India was very poor back then, too. Dada Saheb Falke was lucky, though. He grew up with a lot of opportunities. He was able to get a good education and even went to art school. He picked up a ton of skills. Drawing, painting, printing, architecture, photography. He even did magic shows.
This guy picked up new skills like my sweater picks up cat hair. But Falke didn't find his true calling until he was about 40 years old. That's when he saw his first movie. It was the year 1911. Movies were brand new technology at the time, and they were pretty different from today. They were black and white, and they were silent.
so they didn't have any talking or music. But sometimes live musicians played along with the images. One of the first movies Falke saw was a religious film called The Life of Christ. He was inspired by this new technology. He thought, what if you could use the same technology to show Hindu epics?
Hinduism was and is the biggest religion in India. It's full of incredible stories with gods and goddesses, daring heroes and demons. Valky thought putting those tales on a movie screen would be the cruelest. Falke became obsessed with movies. He started watching hours of them every day. He was skipping sleep. He had to make his own movies. But cameras were expensive. And buying film, hiring a cast, getting costumes and sets.
That was going to take a ton of money, which he didn't have. But like the hero of Bollywood film, Falke would succeed against these incredible odds. We'll tell you how in a minute. But first, let's hit pause and play a game of...
That's the game where we put three things in the order they came in history. Today's things are movie milestones. We've got the first color movie, so a full-length film in color, the first full-length movie with talking in it, and the first full-length animated or cartoon movie. Senna, which of these do you think came first and which do you think came second and most recently in history? I think maybe animated came first, then color, and then maybe talking. I'm not completely.
Sure, though. Animated color and then talking? I think so, maybe. So why that order? I don't know. Animated feels like it would be pretty easy to just draw a bunch of animated pictures. Yeah. And then talking sounds really hard to put on. And color, too. You have to color a lot. A lot of coloring. Okay, so animated because it seems like it's easy to draw. Color and sound talking because it seems like it's a little harder to lay over. Those are great guesses. Is that your final answer?
Color and talking, maybe switched around? I think animated should stay there. So it could be animated color talking or it could be animated talking color. Yeah. Yes. All right. Well, we'll hear the answers at the end of the show. So stick around. We're working on an episode all about the Girl Scouts.
special skills like learning how to do first aid or cooking a delicious meal or even being a great friend. And we want to know if you could give a badge to an important person in your life, what badge would you give them and why? What about you, Senna?
Is there someone in your life who deserves a badge for something? I would give a badge to my dance teacher, Vani, for teaching me all my dance moves. That's cool. For me, I would give my dog, King Louie, a Poop Master badge because he's the Poop Master.
Like when he goes outside, he just does his business. There's no waiting around. It's Minnesota. It's freezing here. You don't have to wait in the snow and the cold. You just do the poopy and you head back in the housey. And that's why we give him the poop master badge. Listeners, we want to hear from you too. Record yourself describing who you would give a badge to and what it would be for and send it to us at foreverago.org slash contact.
You can also send us questions and fan art. Yes, like a drawing of me and my pet elephant Hermie dancing to Bollywood music. Can't wait. Brains On Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Forever A Goal, you'll love the other shows in our universe. floor. It's alien exercise hour. While I stretch my snoodles and bounce on my trampoline. Beanie, I'll listen to a new podcast. I'm going to try Brains On! The best science podcast ever! It's starting, yay!
Hello, and welcome to Pop Planet, the only show that gets you up close and personal with... I'm your host, Star Eden. Zorb! Come back here, podcast. Must listen to Brains On now! Listen to Brains On. on wherever you get your podcasts. Hey friends, Molly, Sandin, and Mark here with some very big news. Drumroll please. We're hitting the road in search of adventure, fresh air, and you. That's right.
We're going to be live at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado on Sunday, April 27th. Our science-themed live stage show takes the audience on an adventure. through the brain, complete with magic tricks, dance moves, out-of-body experiences, mystery sounds, and a game show. Molly, you almost left out the most important part. Yeah, Molly, don't forget the big party. Oh, right.
After the shows were throwing a brain-tastic bash, Join us afterward for a VIP party where we'll play games, guess mystery sounds, pose for photos, and give as many high fives as humanly possible. Snag a spot by purchasing a VIP pass when you buy your show ticket. Oh, that reminds me. I've got to start training. These hands aren't going to high five by themselves. Good idea. And remember. Spots are limited, so grab your tickets today at BrainsOn.org.
Is there a teen in your life who needs a little extra help learning how to manage their finances? Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help Gen Z get serious about money. I'm the host, Janelia Espinal, and each week I talk to experts about essential and practical personal finance topics, like choosing a college that you can actually afford.
finding internship opportunities, and how to start a business while you're still young. Let's make sure the next generation gets these financial lessons sooner than we did. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Forever Ago. I'm Joy. And I'm Senna. And we're telling the story of Dada Saheb Falke, the man who helped launch the Bollywood film industry. And I'm Doug. And I work at this video store, and I'm just letting you know that we close in five minutes.
Got that? But we can't leave, Doug. We're not done telling the story. Plus, you have all these movie snacks for sale. You can't talk movie history without snacks. You know you have to pay for those. I know, Doug. Here. Now, where were we? We're talking about Dada Saheb Falke. He wanted to make a movie in India, but he didn't have a camera. Or the skill. Or anything, really. Right. But he did have one thing. Not giving up.
Or, as most people call it, determination. Falke cobbled together some cash and traveled to London. There, he managed to meet up with a filmmaker named Cecil Hepworth. Falke literally went out of his way to get what he wanted. Oh, hello. Let me guess. You're looking for DVDs? Yes, I am. And you happen to be an expert on Bollywood cinema? Why, yes. My name is Anupama Prabhola. I am a professor of film, TV and media studies at Loyola Marymount University.
I write about and teach classes on the origins and history of Bombay cinema, also known as Bollywood. Wow, what are the odds? So tell us more about Falke's time in London. That's where he kind of learns the grammar of filmmaking. What is a shot? How to cut? How long a shot should be? What films well in black and white? He learns some of these things in the Hepworth studio. But back in Bombay, he adapts the tricks he's learned to appeal to Indian audiences.
So he learns the basics of moviemaking while he's in London and manages to buy a camera. Then he heads back to India to make his first movie. But he quickly runs into another problem. He can't find a woman to star in the movie. Women were supposed to play very traditional caregiving roles, cook for the family, and any woman who had a public life. was seen as, you know, not respectable. And that's why women wouldn't act in front of the camera. So there was a lot of pressure from society on women.
It made them feel like acting was a bad thing to do. Even Falke's own wife wouldn't be in his movie. So eventually he found a man working at a restaurant. and convinced him to play the leading lady role. Finally, in 1913, the movie was ready. It was called Raja Harshandra. It's a story about a noble king who has to give up his kingdom. But in the end, he makes the gods happy and they give it back to him. It was 40 minutes long, black and white, and silent.
Sometimes there would be a person there describing the action while the movie played or live musicians playing along. The next challenge was getting people to see it. Back then, movies were played by running long rolls of a thin, plasticky material called film through a big projector. The projector then shined a moving image on a screen.
People watched plays for entertainment or went to concerts, but they had never seen a movie before. Movies were totally new. The idea of moving pictures was so strange that it was kind of scary. But people had seen still photos before. So Falke told people movies were just lots of photos combined together. Right, Anupama? Exactly. So at one point he was like, you know, one minute of a film strip is like 3,750 images. And then he goes, that's 3,750 photographs.
He used something they had seen before, photos, to make them feel more comfortable with something they hadn't seen before, movies. And he tried to drum up interest by having his cast act out parts of the movie at busy places around town. So he does all of these things and people at one point think he's mad. He's a maverick. because he's experimenting so much. But Falke wasn't just hustling to convince people to see his movies.
He was hustling to show them to people, too. Sometimes he had to literally carry those big reels of film in a cart all across town from show to show. And we can imagine, you know, how much of a sort of... family effort this was like okay his wife is helping him and he's kind of carrying this material to smaller parts around Bombay in order to get that new audience, right? But eventually, it pays off. Big time. His movies were hit.
Critics loved them. Soon people were offering him big money deals to make more and more movies. And he made new film fans left and right. After this, there was no going back. India became a country that loves movies. Of course, he wasn't the only one making films at the time, but he was one of the most successful of the silent era, and that helped build an audience.
Exactly. And, oh, here's the movie I was looking for. I gotta head out now. Nice talking to you both. See you around, Doug. Yep, on the tab. See ya. Wait, so what happened next? Doug, have you been listening this whole time? Yeah, I consider myself a film buff, but I didn't know any of this. But isn't it closing time? I'll stay open for you. Awesome. Well, Falke went on to make a lot more hit movies.
and he even found women willing to act in his second film. In fact, by the 1930s, it became more common to see women on the screen in India. Around that same time, movies with sound got popular. Song and dance became a key part of Indian cinema. Right. Live theater performances in India already featured a lot of singing and dancing, so it was a natural fit for the movie. From there, movies got bigger and bigger, and so did the audiences.
Today, Bollywood is a multi-billion dollar industry, and Falke is still remembered. In fact, one of the top prizes for film in India is named after him. Wow, so cool. Consider me a Falke fanatic. Now, I hear tell that you're looking to see one of these ancient films of Falke. Yes, that's exactly what we seek to find. I am here to tell you they are not on the format you call. DVD. I have them on an even more ancient vessel. One called Avihis.
Wait, you mean a VHS tape? The big blocky things people used to play movies on? Yeah, just kidding. They are called VHS. We can go watch them in the screening room. Come on. One sec. Just got to grab a few more Twizzlers. Joy, again, you do have to pay for that. Ugh! Why does shopping always have to cost money?
Dada Saheb Falke was a visionary who helped shape an entire film industry. Yeah, he not only had the dream of telling Indian stories on screen, he was creative enough to make those movies. And smart enough to build an audience. Even though Bollywood films today are pretty different from Falke's silent movies, you can see his fingerprints all over the industry. And speaking of fingerprints, Joy, your candy-covered fingers are leaving prints all over the industry.
This episode was written by Sandin Totten. It was produced by Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. by Shayla Farzan. Fact checking by Rebecca Rand. Engineering help from Alex Simpson with sound design by Rachel Breeze. Original theme music by Mark Sanchez. We had additional production help from the rest of the Brains On Universe team. And...
Beth Perlman is our executive producer, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Tejaswini Gunty, Anupama Prabhala, Nicole Dubriel, and Sharath Chileti. And Avni! Okay, Senna, ready to hear the answers for First Things First? Definitely. Okay. As a reminder, we're putting these things in order. The first color movie, first full-length movie with talking in it, and the first full-length animated or cartoon movie.
And so you said, one, animated, and then color, and then talking, right? Yeah, or talking in color. Or talking in color. Okay, well, let's... see what the first feature film was. That was in history. All right. The first one was. Can you believe it? Yeah, yeah. That was... invented in 1914. That's over a hundred years ago. That's crazy. I know. So the first movie credited as having natural color was called The World, the Flesh, and the Devil. And it was filmed with red and green filters.
So while it was definitely more colorful than previous movies, some shades, like blue, were missing. And before this, filmmakers would sometimes paint the film by hand to give a movie color. Could you imagine painting a movie by hand? That would take a long time. And then second was cartoon movie. Isn't that something? And that was in 1917, so just a few years after the colored movie. So historians usually say the first full-length animated movie was a political fantasy from Argentina.
It was called El Apostol. It's about the then president of Argentina having a dream where he climbs Mount Olympus and talks politics with the gods there. The animation was made with figures cut out of paper. That's a long way from, like, SpongeBob the movie. So last but not least is...
Talking movies. Yeah. And that was 1927, which is, again, 10 years after that last one, which was 1927. That's crazy. Yeah. It's like boom, boom, boom. Yeah. It was like all back to back to back. It was like movies were invented and then all these different kinds of movies came out afterwards. Yeah. So the first full movie with recorded dialogue was called The Jazz Singer. And it's about a young man who dreams of being a famous singer, even though this goes against his parents' wishes.
The movie is credited as being the first talkie, a nickname for old films with talking in them. But it only had 281 words in it, which is hardly any talking. Still, most people say it marked the end of the silent film era. That was a lot of information. Yeah. Let's digest it. What do you think of that? My brain is blown. Yeah. What's the coolest fact you heard there? It's like really mind-blowing that they made the first... anime, I don't know, but cut out, like,
people out of paper. Yeah. That took a lot of hard work. Would you ever do something like that? Like make little papers and make a little movie? I don't think so. Well, I am doing a stop motion. Me and my two friends who are doing it with me, we cut out the paper, but we don't have that many props. Oh. So it's pretty easy, but...
So you cut out the paper yourselves, and then you, like, make a story? Yeah, like, it's about a farmer. So you cut out a farmer, you draw the farmer on the paper, and it's like stop motion, you have the things in place, you take a picture, and you move them the tiniest bit.
You do that over and over again. And then when you speed it up, it looks like it's moving. Oh, that's so... Okay, so you're making a movie. Sort of. Yeah. So you're a movie maker, film star. Okay, not a big deal. Can I be in it? Can I be the farmer? Listen to my farmer voice. Hey, get off my crops, you kids. I changed my mind. I've changed my ways. That was my audition.
We're not going to have anyone just like speak for the farmer. Yeah. Or the sheep. It's like about a farmer trying to grow a rainbow grape or like a beautiful grape. Yeah. Ends up growing a rainbow grape. Oh. And then. The sheep with concerningly long legs eats it. The sheep with concerningly long legs. Yeah, and then it turns rainbow. And then wolves come and eat the sheep and they turn rainbow. That's so cool.
You know what you should do? You should add like a rainbow dance so then it could be like Bollywood with music and things. Join us next week for a new episode all about the Native Youth Olympics. Thanks for listening. new season of terrestrials is coming. Radio Lab's family-friendly show. all about nature. This season we are back with a new batch of episodes where we come face to snout with some of the wildest, gnarliest creatures on this planet.
We discover music, magic, medicine, and a whole lot of fun. Starting April 17, all on the Radiolab for Kids Feed.