SCRN 225 - National Cinema

Spring 2019 Topic: India

This course will provide an overview of a diverse range of film production and consumption practices associated with Indian cinema. We will primarily look at Hindi films from the Bombay film industry but also examine films from regional cinemas, and ones that belong to “art cinema” mode. Through exploration of aesthetics within historical and cultural contexts, we will engage with questions like: What makes Indian cinemas different? What is the aesthetic appeal of Hindi popular cinema? Why does Hindi popular cinema have a mass appeal in a multi lingual and multi-cultural country like India, and assumes the position of national cinema, both within the subcontinent and outside of it? How do these ‘song and dance’ movies challenge our Hollywood-based perceptions of narrative forms? How do Indian films negotiate the polarities of tradition and modernity? What role do phenomenon like globalization, diaspora, neo-liberal economic policy, consumerism, and trans-nationalism play in the evolution of Hindi cinema and its genres over the decades?  We will also interrogate the implications, and connotations of the transformation of Hindi popular cinema produced by the Bombay film industry into “Bollywood.” Is this linguistic change an index of social and economic transformations, such as globalization? Is it expressive of an attempt to indicate a difference internal to the dominant idiom, a variation that is related to but distinct from the globally hegemonic Hollywood?  

Course Designation/Attribute: GP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year