The 1970s were a culturally significant decade in which Amitabh Bachchan was labeled as an “angry young man,” and Rishi Kapoor shot to overnight fame with RK rom-com. Not to mention Sholay, a curry Western that embodied everything Bollywood stands for. The 1970s are uniquely placed in the Bollywood pantheon as arguably the most influential decade in terms of its impact on India’s popular culture. The Seventies are monumental in Indian consciousness as they epitomized masala Bollywood at its imaginative best.
They are neither too old for moviegoers to forget their memories of them nor too recent for them to be taken for granted. Can you get any better than Anand, Sholay, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chupke Chupke, Don, and Bobby? The 1970s can be seen and appreciated against this backdrop. Meanwhile, there were other hits that helped to establish the 1970s as a landmark decade. To begin, there’s Sholay, which, in its Sergio Leone-Esque grandeur and enduring beauty, has entered the realm of memes.
Rishi Kapoor’s frothy rom-coms and Amol Palekar-Hrishikesh Mukherjee-Basu Chatterjee’s beloved hits like Gol Maal and Chhoti Si Baat can be credited with providing much-needed comic relief. Furthermore, the decade saw the emergence of the parallel cinema movement, led by Shyam Benegal, Mani Kaul, and Govind Nihalani, among others, whose emphasis on social realism shifted the focus away from the Bollywood dream space and toward the harsh realities of Indian life.
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