There is a difference between Bollywood and Bombay cinema?
listen, subcontinental cinema began in bombay; the very first exhibition of the lumieres' cinematographe was held there in 1896, a few months after its debut in paris, 1895. this event predates the discursive existence of bollywood and hollywood. shree pundalik and raja harishchandra, the films that are generally considered the very first subcontinental features were also exhibited there first.
subcontinental cinema under british colonialism was produced in certain metropolitan centers such as lahore, hyderabad, and calcutta; bombay was just one of them. in 1947, when the indian nation state was formally inaugurated, the idea of a "national cinema" began forming, but given the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of the indian union, this was quite untenable. regional popular cinemas flourished well into the 1950, 60s, 70s, and 80s and various art cinemas began taking shape alongside.
under the economy that i'm going to completely elide as "nehruvian "socialism"" bombay cinema focused on broadly "socialist" themes, think of awara (1951), do beegha zameen (1953), pyaasa (1957), all of which focus on inequality in indian economy and society from different perspectives. these films were peppered in with historical dramas, and adaptations from literature, but the original stories tended towards socialist realism. reformist films centering the family generally waxed poetic on the need to reform the family, but i haven't seen enough of these to really comment on them.
the biggest hit of the 70s, sholay (1975) was about two criminals, posited as heroes fighting gabbar singh who was attacking village folk. deewar (1975) also had two heroes, and the stakes were the two brothers' father's reputation; the father in question was a trade union leader accused of corruption.
"alternative cinema" included mani kaul's uski roti (1969) and Duvidha (1973) both of which were situated away from the city. then there's sayeed mirza and his city films, most of them set in bombay; arvind desai ki ajeeb dastan (1978), albert pinto ko gussa kyun aata hain (1980), saleem langre pe mat ro (1989) which are all extremely socialist films, albert pinto was set in the times of the bombay textiles strike of 1982 and literally quotes marx at one point. my point is that bombay cinema prior to liberalization was varied in its themes and representations, and it wasn't interested in being a "national cinema" very much, it was either interested in maximizing its domestic profits or being high art. note that these are all hindi language films, produced in bombay, or at least using capital from bombay. pyaasa, interestingly enough is set in calcutta, but it was filmed in bombay!
then we come to the 1990s, and i think the ur example of the bollywood film is dilwale dulhania le jayenge (1995) which, in stark contrast to the cinema that preceded it, centered two NRIs, simran and raj, who meet abroad, but epitomize their love in india, and go back to england (america?) as indians with indian culture. this begins a long saga of films originating largely in bombay that target a global audience of both indians and foreigners, in order to export an idea of india to the world. this is crucial for a rapidly neoliberalizing economy, and it coincides with the rise of the hindu right. gradually, urdu recedes from dialogue, the hindi is sankritized and cut with english, the indian family is at the center in a way that's very different for the social reform films of the 50s and 60s. dil chahta hai (2001) happens, where good little indian boys go to indian college, but their careers take them abroad. swadesh (2004) is about shah rukh khan learning that he's needed in india to solve its problems and leaves a job at NASA.
these are incidental, anecdotal illustrations of the differences in narrative for these separate eras of cinema, but let me ground it economically and say that bollywood cinema seeks investments and profits from abroad as well as acclaim and viewership from domestic audiences, in a way that the bombay cinema before it did not, despite the success of shree 420 (1955) in the soviet union; there were outliers, there always have been.
there's also a lot to say about narrative and style in bombay cinema (incredibly diverse) and bollywood cinema (very specific use of hollywood continuity, intercut with musical sequences, also drawn from hollywood). essentially, the histories, political economies, and aesthetics of these cinemas are too differentiated to consider them the same. bombay cinema is further internally differentiated, and that's a different story altogether. look, i could write a monograph on this, but that would take time, so let me add some reading material that will elucidate this without sounding quite as fragmented.
bollywood and globalization: indian popular cinema, nation, and diaspora, rini bhattacharya mehta and rajeshwari v. pandharipande (eds)
ideology of the hindi film: a historical construction, madhav prasad
the 'bollywoodization' of the indian cinema: cultural nationalism in a global arena, ashish rajadhyaksha
the globalization of bollywood: an ethnography of non-elite audiences in india, shakuntala rao
indian film, erik barnouw and s. krishnaswamy (this one's a straight history of subcontinental cinema up to the 60s, nothing to do with bollywood, it's just important because the word bollywood never comes up in it despite the heavy focus on hindi films from bombay, illustrating my point)
