Can film be theory?
Have been reading a bit on the ideology of Hindi films in the past few weeks. Preparing to write a PhD proposal on construction of Muslim identity in popular Hindi cinema and hence the necessity to read. Not to say that reading has everything to do with studies and academics. Absolutely not.
Anyhow, one of the first things I learnt was that while Hollywood follows the organic style of film-making where the story forms the core of all other activities associated with the production of the film, the Bombay film industry has since the early days followed the heterogenous method i.e. the finished product is an amalgamation of various specialized arts such as dance, music, story writing, comedy, etc. This encompasses the ‘formula’ that most Hindi films thrive on. Both these tendencies emerge from the post-capitalist nature of cinema. In other words, cinema in Europ and elsewhere, in India too was a result of the development of capitalism. A rather linear differentiation. Don’t know if films like Ankur and Manthan earlier and some of the better films being made in Bombay today would fit either way.
The other interesting classification is the typographical differentiation between genres. New wave cinema, middle-class cinema, darsanic socials, musicals, and so on. While the earliest films like Raja Harishchandra and Alam Ara (of the silent era) can be classified under the darsanic social category, others like Raj Kapoor’s Sangam fall primarily in the social mould. Bhuvan Shome by Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray’s master works all fall under the new wave cinema category. Shyam Benegal’s Manthan and Ankur are some other works in the new wave cinema category.
The rise of the subaltern hero is exemplified in the grand and prolonged success that Amitabh Bachchan enjoyed in a period of great churning for the India polity given the socialist leanings of the policies of the Indira Gandhi government. This, as I see it is the single biggest epoch making event in the history of Indian politics in conjunction with popular Hindi cinema. The tide was changing, the common man was the flavour. Zanjeer, Deewar and Sholay, the three Salim-Javed-Amitabh blockbusters made new ground where the new political class was being feted and celebrated.
Some questions that come to my mind straightaway. What genres can we classify films like Black Friday as? Noir perhaps? Is it organic film-making? Perhaps. Will need to do more reading to figure than one out…any help is welcome.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Dear Ms. Sengupta,
Can you please move beyond black friday now and give us all a much needed break.
Stop obssessing over a phillum man!!!!!!!!
man…i beg you sincerely to understand the difference bewteen potatoes and onions and if you want it in a better way between passion and
obsession…..
plzzzz its gettin into cliche mode…the difference is bein lost
illustration: in the last post of mr.mishra where he missed to say his point…people started ravin about the post…
and thanks to my job im gettin enough time to read these blogs……should start read somethin else now…
stay cool
madhu chandra
that was readin in the last second line
Roshni,
I am very interested in knowing more about your PhD Thesis.
You should write a series of posts on your research once you begin
You didn’t go far enough in this post.
There is so much more that I am interested in as a reader…
Such as, if the rise of Indian cinema was effected by capitalism, what caused it to diverge so much from Western cinema, to become so heterogeneous?
And, when you mention capitalism, that is a broad term.
From a capitalist/social perspective I can understand why Eastern European cinema diverged from the Western European model, but Indian cinema is so completely different than Western cinema, and if they both were influenced by the same economic forces, what caused them to go become so different?
In this post you mention many genres of cinema I am familiar with from a Western perspective, but give examples of Indian films and personalities that I am only vaguely familiar with.
I would love to hear more about these genres in Indian film; like how do the works of Satyajit Ray compare to those of Jean Luc-Goddard if both are to be considered New Wave?
Girl, if you are going to read and blog, you had better go into more depth in your posts because you have a lot of interesting things to say!!!
But, how important is it to classify everything?
Or to force classification onto something that may be so new that an organic term has yet to develop?
I have seen a couple of Indian non-Bollywood films recently that I couldn’t classify, but that I don’t think need classification as history and scholars like you will eventually define the genres and give them names…
roshini has definetly read bits and pieces of madhava prasad’s ideology of hindi film and some other pieces from here and there.
she is putting it as if she discovered all of it.
and she hasn’t properly read any of it.
[Admin Note: Comment has been edited. passionforcinema.com does not allow personal attacks or name calling against its authors or commenters.]
Why not Roshni? Its a fantastic subject.
Ur thesis would be worth reading (if u …….). Just wondering what methodology would suit ur subject as films are very different from literature.
Technology takes a front seat here.And above all its a capital intensive medium.
For emipirical data u would need to expand ur horizon as 3-4 film or films from selective genre cannot serve the purpose.
Incidently I am in touch with some of the best known sociologists right now as am working on Forest writings in India. Let me talk to them. Will get back to u, if they have any suggestion for u.
There are some thinking people within the industry, try to get in touch with them without treating them as gods.Live with this subject for 6-7 yrs.And give us an insightful thesis.
Rest u know better….
Wish u luck
Good u shared ur joy of fascination here…….it will help u overcome it.
James,
:d
I agree. What next? ‘The slum’s eye view’? Ashis Nandy?
How about reading a bit more and then pontificating?As Ramu would say take a light lady:x
BTW, cinema was theory long before you were born. Eisenstein did things before WWI and people wrote about it back then. We’d enjoy your posts if you could offer something original. We can all pick up Ideology of The Hindi Film by Madhava Prasad, OUP. New Delhi
Hey by the way, i’m a film buff too. Do you mind putting up your reading list here? And i think you should go and catch this fantastic film Como Agua para chocolate. you might like it.