Film Appreciation PDF

 INDEX S. No Topic Page No. Week 1 1 Lecture 1: Introduction 1 Week 2 2 Key Concepts: Part 1 7...

 INDEX S. No Topic Page No. Week 1 1 Lecture 1: Introduction 1 Week 2 2 Key Concepts: Part 1 7 3 Key Concepts: Part 2 15 Week 3 4 Lecture: Film Theory 23 Week 4 5 Lecture: Genre Theory 29 Week 5 6 Lecture: German Expressionism 36 7 Lecture: Italian Neo-Realism 44 8 Lecture: French New Wave 54 9 Lecture: Spanish Cinema 61 10 Lecture: British New Wave 70 11 Lecture: Chinese Cinema 78 Week 6 12 Action Cinema 88 13 Lecture: Deewar 98 Week 7 14 Melodrama 107 15 Formalism in Cinema 116 16 The Language of Cinema 121 17 Devdas 132 18 City Cinema 144 Week 8 19 The Semiotics of Cinema 159 20 Raging Bull 168 21 Robert Bresson 178  Week 9 22 Studio Cinema: Part -1 191 23 Studio Cinema: Part 2 198 Week 10 24 New Hollywood Cinema: Part 1 207 25 New Hollywood Cinema: Part 2 219 Week 11 26 History of Hindi Cinima Part 1 225 27 History of Hindi Cinima Part 2 232 28 History of Hindi Cinema: Part 3 241 Week 12 29 Ideology in Cinema 253 30 Character in Cinema 258 Week 13 31 Mythological Cinema in India 266 32 The Cinema of Satyajit Ray 276 33 Hindi Film Musi 282 34 The Hollywood musicals 288 35 African cinema 298 36 Iranian cinema 309 37 Canadian Cinema 320 38 Eastern European Cinema 330 39 European Cinema Hungary, Sweden, Greece 343 40 Postmodernism and cinema 352 41 Mall towns in cinema 360 42 Film sequels, remakes and cult films 368 43 Parallel Cinema From India 378  Film Appreciation Prof. Aysha Iqbal Department of Humanities and Social Science Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Lecture - 01 Introduction Good morning. So, this is our new course, Film Appreciation, and I am going to give you introduction to the course. So, introduction to the course, which is called, Film Appreciation, this is your summer course. I am your instructor Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan. I am a professor of film studies, drama and literature in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences here at IIT-Madras. So, these are the principle things, that we are going to look in to and before I start, I would like to just tell that you must have seen the website of the course and there are couple of changes in what we are actually going to do in this course. So, the change is not very radical, but it is, it has got something do with the ordering and restructuring of the modules. So, please pay attention to this. So, what you may see on the website in week 1 or week 2 or subsequently, subsequent weeks, there may be little change in the order of the modules. We will also be looking at certain theoretical aspect of film studies because we feel that that is also important to understand or appreciate cinema and therefore, there is a module added to whatever we have given in the or on the website. So, one of the first things that you are going to learn in this course is: plot. So, this will be a part of the course, ‘what is a plot’. Plot is the narrative foundation upon which all the stories are built. We often say a comment on what kind of plot was that and this is what we mean, it is the foundation. And we should know, that text is the verbal, written or visual artifacts. It is created by us and narrative is the way a story is told. This is the difference between narrative and story. Story is the basic outline, narrative is the way it is told. Film combines all these elements and therefore, is more complex or rather most complex of all arts. We should also know, that most stories reflect the universal human experiences, which are birth, growth, going on adventure, facing temptation, falling in love, loosing love and finally, life lessons derived and most plots focus on these aspects of life. There is a difference between plot and a screenplay. A screenplay is a script for a film or television show. It includes dialogues, as well as stage directions and character actions 1 and movement. I know, that many of you are aspiring screenwriters and therefore, you might be interested in this course. So, this is one aspect that you should learn, that screenplay is not just outline story or the plot, but it also includes dialogues and stage direction. We will also be looking at semiotics of cinema, which is also called semiology. It is the story of signs, film images are signs, s, i, g, n, s. Filmmaking is choosing the precise images for the particular story. Now, Peter Wollen in signs and meaning in cinema talks of signs as a tryptic index, icon and symbol and indexical signs lead to something important. You might have seen index signs like indexical signs, like clocks, for example In the Mood For Love, a, film by Wong Kar-wai, the Chinese director. So, these are, these indexical signs are something that point towards something important. You will also learn something about cinematic terms. Why, because these things will be referred to repeatedly throughout the course. So, you will be learning, for instance, about concepts such as androgyny and anagnorisis, counter cultures, emblematic shots, ethnicity, historical films, martial arts films, action cinema, meta-cinema, war films and much more. We will be also doing a session on surrealism with particular reference to the Spanish director, Luis Bunuel. Surrealism is a term related to art and theater movement, which explores subjective dream states and it is concerned with the, with subverting the logic representation. Bunuel collaborated with Salvador Dali on Un Chien Andalou, which is an unusual debut film with surrealist images and it has one of the most iconic images of the surrealist cinema, which is that of a hand slicing a woman’s eyeball. This is, this clip is, rather the movie is available on YouTube and I would like you to watch it. Surrealism is also technique, which demonstrated Bunuel’s obsession with playing with the narrative…. and when we talked about this eye splicing scene, it cuts to a cloud drifting along the moon and we, the viewers, get the sense the narrative is seemingly, not very logical. The film was shot in two weeks and was really a shocker, and we are talking about 1928 when, cinema was rather conventional. We will also talk about cinematography and editing technics. So, the film editor is responsible for putting the pieces together into coherent shots. Films are made using shots. So, there are film using shots and shots are pieced together, placed together and that is the editor’s job. He or she must guide our thoughts, associations and emotional 2 responses effectively from one image to another or from sound to another so that their interrelationships of separate images and sounds are clear and the transition between signs, scenes and sequence are smooth to achieve the goal. The editor must consider the aesthetic, dramatic and psychological effect of the juxtaposition of image to image, sound to sound or image to sound and place each piece of film and soundtrack together accordingly. In this, in this relation we will be also talking about editing techniques, such as jump cut and montage. In the past, filmmakers made routine use of several optical effects created in the film lab during the printing of the film to create smooth and clear transaction between the film’s most important divisions, such as between two sequences that take place at a different place of the time. These transitional devices include wipe, which is when a new image is separated from the previous image by means of horizontal vertical or diagonal fine that moves across the screen to wipe the previous image away. There is a flip frame where entire frame appears to flip over to reveal a new scene, creating a visual effect very similar to turning a page. There is also fade-out fade- in by last image of one-sequence fades momentarily to black and the first image of the next sequence is gradually eliminated. There is also the famous dissolve, the end of one shot and it gradually merges in to the beginning of the next, so that the effect is produced by superimposing a fade-out on to a fade-in of equal length or imposing one scene over another. See examples of all these scenes or all these concepts are very easily available on the net. All you have to do is to key in terms such as dissolve or wipe or fade and you will get what you want I would also at this the point try to make an announcement, that due to copyright reasons, we might not be able to show you actual clippings or even stills from films, but we will be referring to these. And you will also find, that perhaps I would give you a couple of links at the beginning of lectures and I would ask you to watch that. Go to the link, watch that particular sequence and come back to us. So, that would make the discussion easier. Apart from the editing and cinematographic techniques, we will be talking about narrative. We will talk about how shots are taken and how frames are used by filmmakers. We will also talk about elements of mise-en-scene, which is literally putting on stage. It is a French term, which originates from theater where it designates everything, that appears on stage including sets, colors, lighting, character movements, 3 elements of visual style and it is designed to create the narrative space and hence, progress the narrative. We will also be talking about cult films. For example, I know, for most of you a cult film would be something like Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, a kind of film that has a dedicated set of followers, who watch it over and again and discuss various aspects of it. They also try to interpret the film in its own way. Cult films have a huge following among a particular set or group of people. We will also talk about remakes and the theory of remakes particularly, as given to us by Constantine Verevis in film Remake, which talks about remaking as industrial category, as textual category and also as critical category. Remaking is a very integral part of world cinema, Indian cinema, regional cinema and we will be talking about that because I am sure, some of you are interested in this aspect of cinema also along with adaptation. Many of you who are perhaps in college, you might be having a course such as literature and adaptation or film adaptation where we talk about how a text is translated on to screen and you will be talking about what is lost and what is gained through this transition or adaptation. We will also discuss elements of full and feature films as compared to short films and documentary. At this point, I would urge you to watch a movie by Roman Polanski and it is one of his earlier films, called Two Men and a Wardrobe. This is a short film that I would like you to watch. We will also talk about, as I already told you, the seminal features of a documentary. Our next area of interest would be genre. Genre is a French word and it means, category or a type or a collection of instantly recognizable stylistic features. It is addressed as a system for organizing production as well as groupings of individual films, which have collective and singular significance. From the commercial point of view, genres are important because there is a demand for these categories. Classification of films into genre has always helped the film industry to produce and market films. There are variety of genre we will be discussing it, particularly with reference to mythological, musicals and also action cinema, which I know, most of you enjoy a lot. We will also be talking about traditions in world cinema. Now, what do you understand by traditions in world cinema? How cinema has evolved over a period of over hundred years or so? There have been major cinematic movements, experiments all over the 4 world. So, we have instances of German expressionism, which started in Germany, but it had a far-reaching influence, particularly with reference to a device of expressionism, a theory of expressionism. We will also talk about Italian neorealism, French new wave and French new wave is very influential. It had a far-reaching influence, particularly on cinemas of other countries and even America where the entire American new Hollywood period, you know, starting from the late 60s. It all owes and it is very largely indebted to French new wave and the seminal filmmakers of this period such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. We will be also talking about the British new wave, Iranian and Latin American cinema and also transnational Chinese cinema. Of course, a major thrust of this course would be on Indian cinema. We, I will be doing a module on, Introduction to Indian cinema. We will be talking about the history and growth of Indian cinema, the contribution of the great Dada Saheb Phalke, the studio system such a Bombay Talkies. I will talk about early films such as mythological and overall, how the history of Indian cinema is important to understand our cinema. We will talk about various theater and art forms, such as painting. I have already talked about surrealism, we will also talk, we will also talk about other art forms, such as cubism, etcetera. I have already informed you, that we will talk about neorealism and also realism. Realism is something, that finds it roots in the literature, in the writings of French writers such as Honore de Balzac, Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert and then, Zola is also famously associated with the naturalistic tradition in literature and cinema. Historically, this is a point where art is reacted against the romantic moment of the 18th and early 19th century. So, we will be looking at realism and one of the seminal works in this area has been done by a film critic, the French film critic Andre Bazin and we will be looking at his theories as well. We will be also talk about the growth of theater and its influence, rather than the growth of theater, the influence of the theater on cinema. Coming to Indian cinema, we will talk about the importance accorded to song and dance elements in films, the formulaic film, which are so popular, the genres and formulas in film. We will talk about, as I have already told you, mythology and also musicals, both in India and Hollywood. They were, in Hollywood we do not find too many musicals nowadays, but once upon a time musical was very important, very successful and popular genre in Hollywood as well. In India, of course, it goes without saying that musicals still exist and are extremely 5 popular. We will talk about masculine charisma and also stardom when we discuss Indian cinema and Hindi film stars, rather Indian film stars. We will talk about melodrama in Indian cinema. Melodrama in Hindi films are, or Indian films are rather known for their melodramatic aspect. Melodrama has its, good definition of melodrama is provided by The great M.H. Abrams in his book called, Literary Terms, where he mentions, that the terms melodrama and melodramatic are in an extended sense applied to any literally work or episode, whether in drama or prose fiction, that relies on implausible events and sensational action. Melodrama in this sense was a standard fare in cowboy and Indian and cops and robber types of silent films and remains alive and flourishing in current cinematic and television production. Again, according to film critic David Thomson, melodrama in film is often a world in which few people live in mid shadow. The image sustains a thought, that romantic dreams are the pivot of life. These days the melodramatic is used mostly to dismiss a film as excessive and not worthy of discussion, but then, that is not really true because there has been a resurgence interest in serious study, academic study of melodrama. And in India, people have done good work on melodrama and Indian cinema. And in Hollywood, the cinema of Douglas Sirk are studied there for melodramatic content. We will be talking about the so called categories, A list films and B list films also as along with canonical films. Coming to India, we will also talk about canonical Indian films as well as parallel cinema in India, which are not so mainstream. Parallel cinema is generally associated with the late 60s, efflorescence of cinema in the late 60s, can be early 70s and it went on till the mid-80s when we had films like Ardhasatya, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and Arth. We are talking about that kind of movement and for a while there was a dip in this kind of cinema, but then avant garde cinema has found its voice again in India. And I will be talking about post liberalization films in India where we will be discussing mainstream films, NRI films, as well as avant garde films, especially with people like Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap and Balki at the helm of these films. So, I am glad to see you here for this course and we will be having regular interactions. So, keep watching this place for more. Thank you very much. 6  Film Appreciation Prof. Aysha Iqbal Department of Humanities and Social Science Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Lecture - 10 Traditions in World Cinema British New wave (Refer Time Slide: 00:18) Good morning. We continue with our discussion of traditions in world cinema, and the topic is British new wave cinema. How many of us are aware of the, so called British new wave cinema, or even the British cinema. Surprisingly we get very little response, whenever we try to discuss British cinema. And particularly, British new wave cinema which had made an important contribution to the tradition, towards the tradition of world cinema. So, the beginning is the end of the 1950’s, which witness the advent…. in Europe…. of a succession of new waves. We have been talking about, the French new wave we also know German expressionism, Italian new realism. So, British new wave, and this is a part of success of new waves in cinema, all across Europe. It was marked by the growth of innovative productions, and characterized by emergence of young film directors, and writers. Generally it all lasted till the seventies. The British new wave movement refers to a trend, that took place in the British film industry in the late 1950’s, and early 1960’s. It drew inspiration from the works of 7 French directors such as Francois Truffaut, Jean Luc Godard, who are the pioneers as you know of the novel work of the French new wave cinema. British new wave is concerned with realism, and the aesthetics associated with it. The films between 1959 and 1963 are collectively known as the British new wave. And sometimes, also the kitchen sink drama is a new term you should know the kitchen sink drama, and the British realism, social realism. Developers in the British film industry had from beginning very strong, literary routes. British new cinema was an extension of the changes in subject matter, style and themes that had first taken place during the fifties in poetry, novel , drama. So, at the major, all the major productions of the major new wave literary adaptations, according to the critic, film critic, and scholar, Peter Wollen contrary to the French practice. The British series of films is not marked, by the leadership of a group of prominent auteurs,.cinema was more literary, than its French counterpart, and that British cinema is not auteur based. Still if a new wave cinema is defined as youth oriented nationals, a movement of the period then 50s and 60s can be qualified as, British new wave cinemas. Since, the late 30’s, the British film industry had an experienced, three decades of continuous crises. The crises was averted occasionally by the fixing of quotas, and in position of high duties, and competing films, imported from Hollywood. The situation was that, people did not want to watch films, made in Britain as compared to the high production values, and glossy films of Hollywood. The studio films, it is also the time you know, when even the greatest of all film actors such as Laurence, Olivier, and Vivien Leigh, they were seeking you know carriers in Hollywood cinema. Of course, there were great British stars also, and continued making films in Britain, but they did make wonderful films in Hollywood. Before we all forget, we have to remember how Vivien Leigh was particularly discovered by the makers of the classic Gone With the wind and although she was an established actor in British cinema, and also a very unrenowned actress on the British stage, and theater that she had to go and prove herself, and there were lot of you know. There are lots of legendaries stories related to, how Vivien Leigh was cast as the great characters is Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the wind. 8 So, the idea is that British film industry always had to compete with Hollywood with very little success, or rather no success. They are just people, just could not compete with Hollywood cinema, and the greatest of all stars were also seeking fortunes, and carriers in the Hollywood. So, the idea was what to do, how to compete with all this. Now, some of the directors whose body of works can be associated with the, so called British new wave, Tony Richardson, Jack Clayton, and John Schlesinger, Lindsay Anderson, Ken Loach and Desmond Davis. As if, the French new wave movement, many of the filmmakers, begin as movie critics, and film journalist. We have been talking about the lasting impression, of the French new wave cinema, and this was one of the influences, this was one of the consequences. So, these British makers are affiliated with prominent left wing political journals magazines, such as Sequence, The New Statesmen, and the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound. They were influence by a normative idea of cinema, a vision of what cinema should be, and this was that British cinema needed to, break away from its class bound attitudes. You see the British society has always been marked, by definite class system, and the idea was that, there should be culturally, there should be a kind of a revolution, where class system should break down, barriers should break down, the cinema and theater, made their own contribution towards breaking these, crossing these barriers. I will be talking repeatedly about some of these films, of this period, Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey, Billy Liar, and The L Shaped Room. The movie A Hard Days Night, starring the great Beatles, the rock band, pop band Beatles,, it marked the end of the movement although this is very fitting tribute, to the British new wave. Oneneeds to watch A Hard Days Night, just in order to understand the things, that we have been talking about with more, the key features of the French new wave cinema. You know shooting on location camera, fluidity of camera movement, and shooting in natural light with mostly employing natural sounds, Beatles playing themselves. You know very personal kind of filmmaking. So, we will come back to the common themes in the works of these directors, and examine some of those films a little later, in this topic, in this lecture. The changes in literary environment of the period are very significant when we considered the British 9 new wave. In the beginning of the 1950, the anti modernist writer such as C P snow, and J B Priestley, they expressed a preference for social relevance, and provincialism. This style of literary tradition was supported by poets, such as Philip Larkin and Tom Gunn, novels such as John Wayne, Hurry on Down along with Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim that dealt with dissatisfy the young men, from the provinces, from working class areas. The literary event of this era is of course, was John Osborne, classic play look back in anger, which was a staged in 1956 featuring the disgruntle protagonist, Jimmy Porter who was described as the first of the, so called angry young man. So, you have to use this, you have to remember this term, the expression, angry, young man first used by in British cinema, to describe disgruntle young man, who is extremely anti establishment. We have our own version of angry young man, as we have seen in the films of Amitabh Bachchan in the early 70s. Then again it is a throwback on, these kinds of films where young person was anti establishment, anti authoritarian, and he had an axe to grind with the social injustices of the period. So, British new wave cinema, we have also talk used in expression, kitchen sink realism. It refers to as kitchen sink realism, for its attention to class is one of its central themes. Class and class conflict came to be one of the central defining themes, of the new wave movement. For the first time, class came to be a subject in itself, and not a source of comic relief, as most seen in the works of earlier play rights and filmmakers. Important literary works and most of the literary works are later adapted in to films Alan Sillitoe’s, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, then David Storey, The Sporting Life, John Braine’s Room At the Top, Lynne Reid Banks, The L Shaped Room and Eliot George’s The Leather Boys and of course, Billy Lair. In particular these films, a paid close attention to the nitty-gritty’s of ever day life of in the working off, the working classes and there the highs, their lows, their lies, their loves of great important is the fact, that working classes were portraits, neither as victims nor as heroes. But as people with everyday life, through the use of domestic, and leisure time settings in the films, this represented a break from earliest cinema, that shied away from representation of the industrial, north, and Midlands and the use of local accents on screen. 10 Until the new wave most of the characters in British cinema, were from London, and spoke in the accents of the educated upper class. You have to think of the way, how accent marks class, and most of the films before the British new waves, have starring upper class characters, and using upper class accents, the standard R P. That is Received Pronunciation of the English language, but this was the first time, the characters, the protagonist started speaking, the working class accents, and also the regional dialogues, and also a particularly you know cockney language. So, this was this head to be accepted, and defiantly this was a period, when thinks were changing in Britain. So, in addition to class the frustration and rebellion of the youth, and sex, and gender relation were also prominent themes of these films. What was unique about the British new wave was the great emphasis; it laid on the social environment, its treatment of sex, and sexuality. The focus on the youth culture, their frustrations, and the dominant political attitude, especially after the Second World War, there is a remarkable amount of overlap, between the British new wave movement, and the angry young man movement. In British literature, this movement refers to playwrights, and novelist who shot to prominent in the 1950’s. We are again talking about people like Osborne, and Tony Richardson, again the key concerns about their works was also, were also a disillusionment with traditional society. Their work sort to draw attention, to the working classes in the north of England. Canonical films that were made in this period were adaptations of earlier plays or novels, that had captured the heart condition of the working classes, especially after the wars. In the time when the people were, assume to never had it better, these films came to be seen as almost …. they rocked the boat, those things were not all that good in Britain. But there was a section of society that was living, under extremely trying conditions. The marker that sets apart the British new wave films, are the stylistic convention it followed, a few of them a words mentioning are like most of the films are shot in black, and white. This is important that these even a Hard days Night, which was made in 1963, it starring the Beatles. It is a black and white film, and it followed a pseudo documentary style of shooting, showing clear references to the cinema, verite mode of film making in addition these films are often shot on location. Just like the French new wave films, with real people or non-professional actors, and focused on the process of capturing real life. 11 For example, Room at the Top were shot in Bradford, and A Taste of Honey in Manchester, and Blackpool among real locations. And of course, Billy Lair in the street in the streets of Bradford, and Leads again sound was daubed, and the musical score was locally influenced as well, and like the major movies of the time, these movies were often shot in 16 mm. As a result, these films often had a very spontaneous quality, and came to a body what is today known as audio realism. The idea of subjective reality, found a lot of favor research cinema audiences were allowed in to the minds of characters, through the use of interior monologue point of view shots, and subjective camera work allowed the audience to see, what the characters could see. The purpose was to laid there his or her character detail, it is worth making the distinction here between socialist realism, and the kind of concerns, that British new wave cinema addressed often term social realism. Unlike the former, the British new way was not produced under supervision by the government, and did not aspire to the status of official art. In addition the protagonist of social realism was often the anti hero, and was not portrait as an ideal type worthy of ambulation, he or she was dissatisfied with life and work and often frustrated in their quest for better provincial life of portrayed as claustrophobic alienating. So, some of the important movies I mean, again I will talk about Look Back in Anger, Taste of Honey, Billy Lair, and particularly made in 1959 by Tony Richardson, Look Back in Anger. It starred Richard Burton, Mary Ure, and Claire Bloom. It is based on, as we have been talking about John Osborne’s play, and the film is a love triangle between an intelligent young man Jimmy Porter, his upper middle class wife Alison, and her snobbish best friend Helena, set in Derby. The plot explores many questions about love, sex, and morality against the background of class, that underpins the surface of working class life, the main character that is Jimmy Porter he came to symbolize the so called angry young man, and offered insight in frustration felt by the British working class. The second movie A Taste of Honey, which is also in adaptation of a played by Shelagh Delaney, was directed by again by Tony Richardson, the movie starts Rita Tushingham 12 as Joe, and a pregnant 17 year old school girl, and Murray Melvin as Jeffry her homo sexual, flat mate and friend. Relationship between the two is a cent of piece of the movie. The large part of the films commentary, involves question of motherhood, sexuality, and raise explode through the character of Joe. The movie was critically a claim for the manner in which drew an attention, to such issues and then there was Billy Lair, which was made in 1963 starring Tom Courtenay, and Mona Washbourne. The film was directed by John Schlesinger and he is an adaptation of a novel by the same name. The story revolves around funeral furnishing seller Billy Fisher, who dreams of escaping to London to become a comedy writer, Billy chooses to escape his reality through his Walter Mitty imagination, using it as a crutch to help him scope with the feeling of claustrophobia and alienation, The real world in Billy life lives much to be desired, and his quest to do better gives us insight to his life. So, these films are basically canonical work for the way in, which they dealt with the themes, that came to be associated with British new wave. In addition, they certainly bring up issues, that worth taboo at the time such as unwed mother pregnancies, homosexuality race relations etc. You know working class conditions, and told in gritty terms, and in doing all this they gave as a critical insight into the British new wave, and its importance another film, that I wanted to talk about This Sporting Life, which was released in 1963, directed by Lindsay Anderson. It was adopted from a novel by David Storey, and it has strong northern working class credential story himself of the miner’s son, who like his novels here had played rugby in a northern town. The writer had a disdain for the typical, which is specially demonstrated in the film’s presentation, of its two principle characters, the rugby player, Frank Machin, and his land lady and occasional lover Mrs. Hammond. frank is full of muscular aggressions, and Mrs. Hammond represents famine, restraint. The film is unique in the way it puts a distance between itself, and the earlier new wave films. The quality of the film dwells in the awkwardness, we seems to parallel friends, own awkwardness, and lack of articulation, which is again a hallmark of the, so called angry young man, lack of articulation frustrations, aggression, suppressed aggression overt and covert aggression. By 1963, as we have been talking about, the British new wave of was 13 on its last legs, and its major players such as Jack Clayton, and Tony Richardson, turn to other kinds of production. But they had a lasting impression, they had left a legacy for the directors, which followed them. So, we had people like John Schlesinger, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Karel Reisz, The French Lieutenant’s Women, and Lindsey Anderson’s If. A new generation came into prominence with people, such as Ken Loach, Danny Boyle, and Mike Leigh, these directors have kept the tradition of social realism alive, and communicate directly to the contemporary world think, films like, Trainspotting. So, the British cinema continues to talk, to speak, with a contemporary look. Thank you very much, and we will meet again in our next class. 14  Film Appreciation Prof. Aysha Iqbal Department of Humanities and Social Science Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Lecture - 11 (Refer Time Slide: 00:20) Good morning. We continue with our discussion on traditions in world cinema, and today we are going to focus on Chinese cinema, rather what is transnational Chinese cinema. You understand what is transnational happening across the nation, we are talking not just about, because Chinese cinema and in China, but how it is leaving a kind of impact globally. Chinese cinema is a force in world cinema and that is, in the era of globalization, that is what we are going to talk about. We are going to talk about the cross over, and subtitled Chinese cinema. And as we know transnational cinema is which is subtitled, which is more which is made basically for globalize, rather than local audiences and then, we will also talk about thus pivotal moments, or movements in Chinese transnational cinema.For example, Hong Kong action films, art house films also Wuxia films, we also talk about the major auteurs, and directors, and actors of Chinese transnational cinema. A brief background on Chinese cinema, the early Chinese film industry, thrived in Shanghai in 1920’s and 30’s. First in the form of supernatural martial arts, and then in left wing realists melodramas dealing with social issues, and patriotism. These two tendencies reflect different attitudes to the modern. The former was a magical popular belief in science, the latter, a rationalist belief in political movements whose adherence was to super natural as a feudal quality, or feudal aspect. During the 15 1930, the government banned supernatural martial arts films, along with dialect cinema, the cinema which was not in the national language. Now, these bans and this certain political policies, they shifted martial arts and Cantonese cinema to Hong Kong. So, you have main land China, you have Hong Kong island. So, we are talking about cinema in Hong Kong, and Shanghai at this period. During this period was occupied during the 1937 to 45 war of resistance against Japan. So, a second golden age developed in Shanghai after the war. The establishment of the People’s republic in 1949 was followed by the nationalization of the film industry. The government treated cinema as the vehicle of propaganda, while controlling the industry. It also established new studio throughout the country, and brought cinema to the masses. A Shift from social realism, to socialists realism, resulted in increase thematic changes. Where pre revolutionary films had raised issues, without offering solution, post revoluationary films, had heroes from the approved worker former and soldier classes, happy endings in which the communist party, headed the success, however there were exceptions. Possibly the most famous post revolutionary film maker , Chusheng include, his film includes films about sports, heroics and opera in his repetoir. Few cinemas have impacted contempory popular culture, as deeply as the Hong Kong action cinema. Since, the 1970s, the genre has been staple in cinemas theaters, and on television and on video. Martial art stars such as Jackie Chan, all of us here I am sure are admirers of Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet li. There house hold names idolized by the masses, and the films are remade even in number of Indian languages cinema, with major stars. Now, one of the first films of these martial arts category was Enter the Dragon with the martial arts experts 3 three of them, John Saxon, Bruce Lee, and Jim Kelly. The film was produced by Warner Brothers and it struck, and it called with the Indian film goers. Also largely because of its entertainment values, spectacular action and of course, the famous Bruce Lee charisma, the plot is centered on the machinations of a cunning crime lord Mr. Han, who stages annual martial arts tournament, on an island. The film was dubbed, in every possible regional language in India, and spawned of several cinematic imitations. The martial arts schools, teachers and posters, wearing the figures of Bruce Lee played the major rule for thousands of young man in India in learning, what it means to be a man in contemporary society. Bruce Lee’s brand of cinema, influenced a generation of Indian film actors, and we have example from all 16 over. For example, we are in during 70s and the early 80s, we had Mithun Chakraborthy who would often show echoes of the Bruce Lee persona. Now, will talk about art house kind of films, of Chinese cinema, especially the fact that we are talking about transnational globalize cinema, in contemporary times. We have something as the fifth generations of cinema, and these of Chinese cinema, which came to global attention with Yellow Earth, which was made in 1984. And it was shot by someone called Zhang Yimou. Now, we say someone called because he started off as a cinematographer and went on to become a major renowned figure, in world cinema. Zhang Yimou then moved in direction with something called Red Sorghum, which was public, which was released in 1987. The first post graduation, fifth generation film was one and eight directed by Zhang John Woo, and also short by Zhang Yimou. But when yellow Earth screen at the night at 1985 Hong Kong international film festival, the people set up, and took notice. Because it was some different from the films, that had being coming out of the people republic of China before. While the 70s witness wildness, and manly dangerous exiting, and toughness emotional self control with globalization, in the late 1960s, India also along with the rest of the world, and awakened to the films, and outside the genre of the conventional Kung Fu from china. Again I am talking about how Chinese cinema, as crossed boundaries over the decades. So, one of the early films in this category was Ringo lam, City on fire, which in a many ways is started, the trend of aesthetic and action. I am giving you the terms, which have been used by great films scholar David Bordwell, who uses the term aesthetics in action. This movie City on Fire was remade, as Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs, which was an international cult classic City on Fire, also inspired Hindi film Kaante. The film had stellar casts, and capitalized on the theme of honor among thieves, masculine pride, and friendship among men. I am sure most of us familiar with Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and also we have art house actors such as Tony Leung, and Maggie Cheung. We have John Woo from China, who has become a truly global icon, and as well as Ang Lee and more art house kind of directors Zhang Yimou, and Wong Kar Wai, and we would be referring to their films. Now, before I start, let me talk about Wuxia this is the genre in fiction in Chinese fiction in how it has become, so popular in contemporary Chinese cinema. Also Wushia is the genre of traditional Chinese martial arts, wu stands for martial arts, war and military, wuxia is the type of protagonist found in Wuxia fiction. 17 The constraints of everyday reality nature, do not apply in Wuxia film, warriors in Wushia films are able to fly through the hair, run a falls, shoot balls of mystical energy. We have example of Zhang Yimou, who is who I just told you, he was the first he belongs to the fifth generation of the Chinese trained in Beijing Film Academy, debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum, a critically acclaim film. He also made several films, which we are going to talk about, but most importantly and one of the most important well loved film by Zhang Yimou, was is 2002 Hero staring Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen, and of course Jet Li. It is one of the more successful indigenously produce Chinese films, and what it was distributed by North America. It was marketed as Jet Li Hero obviously, because Jet Li was one of the most well known actors, in this film. The style is Wuxia it is also historiography which is telling, retelling certain aspect of Chinese history, but in a fictionalized way. The stories told in terms of color coding, with cinematography by Christopher Doyle, and it also has a Roshoman kind of narrative structure, were the stories told through several versions. We have the Jet Li, who plays the character called nameless, and his version were, he were the director use psychological methods, to discover the weak points of the person, who is his interlocutor. In Hero martial arts, genre transcends action in violence, and moves into sheer poetry bale, and philosophy, and makes great use of symbolism, and imagery. Will talk about Ang lee who was trained in the US film industry, he has successfully collaborated with American screen writers such as James Schamus, with his diverse transnational filmography, Ang lee has established himself as most versatile, and commercially successful film maker of the new Taiwanese cinema. Cinematic filmmaker, along side Stan Lai, and Tsai Ming-liang works. These films can be categorized into a second way of new Taiwanese cinema characterized by fluid identities, and urban sensibilities. This is necessary for understanding, Lee exploration of personal identity such as sexuality, gender generation, within a transnational Chinese framework and within other cultural, and historical context of displacement, and social change says the international success of his, The Wedding Banquet, which was made in 93 Lee’s career has been characterized by different type by broader crossing. lee’s career was launched by a ecology of Taiwanese American family comedy drama, such as Pushing Hand, The Wedding Banquet, and Eat Drink Man Women. One of his most cherished films, subsequently Lee directed four period films literary adaptation from diverse 18 cultural, and historical setting. You have to look at Ang lee’s versatility, here he adopted Jane Austen England in Sense and Sensibility in American suburbia of the 90s in The Ice storm. The American civil war Ride with the Devil in the 98, and early 20, early nineteenth century China in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which was such a massive international success released in 1999. Lee also director in the gangster film, The Hire (The Chosen) in 2001, and the comic book adaptation in 2002, Hulk in 2003, and later on he made is controversial western set in the 1970s, Brokeback Mountain which is about homosexuality, and gender identities in 2005, which was released in 2005. Now, Lee’s versatility places him in the distinguish category, of asian directors alongside Zhang Yimou, and Wong Kar Wai and also Takeshi Kitano. It is interesting to note how lee has specialized, in popular genre film something that has won him audience in Asia, North America and Europe. One of the key aspects of his work that fascinate, that you will all find extremely fascinating is how, taiwanese has moved in from telling family stories such as to Eat Drink Man Women to the world of Jane Austen, and to the world of the western. He was universally praised for his achievement, and is the way he has successfully established himself on the global forum. You considered Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, and the wired action scenes, with a touch of an escapist fantasy, and magic realism and I strongly recommend that, you watch if you have Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon,, and the heart of the film is coming of the age tale. It is the girls story, it is the stole to the prospective of the young girl on the verge of women hood, and the parallel stories are there love story revenge, story of theme of Betrayal, but at the heart it is a coming of the age story, and perhaps that is what found resonance among the global audience. Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, is also noted for the way tackles gender representation, where there is masculine, feminine, and vice versa. Coming back to Brokeback Mountain, Lee won academy award for best direction, and which is you know great aceptance of foreigner in the main stream cinema main stream global cinema. He also has directed, very successfully Lust, Caution, which won the Golden Lion at Venice, and Taking Woodstock in 2009 is most recent successes Life of Pie which is based on Yann martel’s 2001 novel. The film was as you all know was a critical, and commercial success, and won 11 academic awards including the best directors, for the Lee’s work illustrate inevitable conflicts, and negotiation, between individual bound by familiar, and societal obligations. Lee’s films now, 19 consistenly negotiate among cultured nations generations, and genders illustrating the repressive, as well as rivitalising forces of Chinese tradition in the intersection of the residual past, and the emerging feature. The next directors, that I would like to draw attention to is Wong Kar -Wai, who has famously made Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Ashes of Time, Happy Together, In the mood for Love, and My Blueberry Nights. Now, Chungking Express is one of his most beloved films, most cherish films of all. Chungking Express is an interrogation of cultural authenticity, and critiques the Americanization of local conditions in contemporary Hong Kong. It operates as the study of masculine anguish, and Hong Kong post colonial urban culture of movement dislocation and transition. You have to watch the film, you have to watches, and you have to be attention to its sound track and you will understand, how important this film is if you look at the movie as a post modernist text in global times, another important films, film FallenAngels in 1995, which is about love, and desire that must be the tag line. It is about love and unfulfilled desires. It was originally intended t, to be the third story in Chungking Express. But then, decided to make it to an independent film and here, the protagonist struggle with the notion of dual identity. You know Hong Kong Mainland China Hong Kong verses, Mainland China, and film actually the character aspire to create to localized identity, and the mood is very distinctive as is all Wong Kar-Wai film. There is an atmosphere of color, and emotion you have to know the Chinese cinema. Contemporary cinema is known, for this expressive colors expressiveness of color. Some of you would be interested if you are interested, these things mise en scene, and color and lights. then you need to watch a Wong Kar-Wai film FallenAngels, is a fractured tale, and fracture narrative of an unconsummated love between hired professional killer, and his female partner is very allusive. It has a very elliptic style, but that is the beauty of it. Roger Ebert the great the late great film critic. He says that it will appeal to the kinds of people you seen in the Japanese animations section of the video store with there sleeves cut off. So, you can see that tattoos and to those who subscribe, to more than three film magazines, that is the intellectual types, the crunch types, and then to members of garage bands to and art students is not, for your average movie go. So, you know comes with the disclaimer that is not for everyone, but never the less highly enjoyable films, if you seriously into world cinema, We’ll talk about to John Woo, and his brand of heroic bloodshed. This is term coined by British journalist, Rick Baker heroic bloodshed, and John Woo, he is known for his films, such as A 20 Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, The Killer and Bullet in the Head. Also Hard Target, Face/off, Broken Arrow, and MI 2 and as well as Paycheck is more recent, and Hollywood films Woo’s films are characterized by social chaos, apolitical feelings, ….Hong Kong in 1997. So, several spectacular actions scenes in Woo’s films, if you are the type please watch John Woo’s cinema highly entertaining, less arthouse as compared to Wong Kar Wai. So, were does all this leader to is Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou they are more like exotic film makers, but still doing extremely well with their brand of cinema in the global scenario. You have John Woo known for this heroic bloodshed, and up course he is very successful mainstream kind of a film director. He had several blockbusters in Hollywood, then Wong Kar Wai and more post modernist their films are more hibrid, and fragmented kinds of narrates, there is no single cinema that is national cinema, but Chinese cinema at this moment several national cinemas. The sixth generation that took off in the 1970s, but it had in uphill task of distinguishing itself, from the fifth generations in the aftermath of censorship. Some gave up and went straight from film academic in to the main stream industry, while others went underground, this means not submitting films for censorship prior to distribution, and exhibition inside China. This leads to low budget and dependence on income from overseas. After making the first film drama about difficulty of disable children in china, which is Mama. For example, a film maker like Zhang Yuan went underground with Beijing Bastards, the film about the rock scenario, rock scene, this was followed by the documentary about everyday life in Tiananmen square called The Square, which was co-directed with Diao Yang, and feature is about gay life in Beijing called East Palace West Palace which was made in 1996. In the fifth generation favored exotic locales, on the boarder of the country, they focused on history and high style, in contrast. Almost all the sixth generation films emphasize on urban youth, and contemporary life, and naturalistic realisms bordering on documentary mode many of them are dabbling in. However the underground mode of production was not economically, and apolitically viable since the millennium, the sixth generations have been attempting to join the main stream, looking for investment at the domestic market. Some have found modest box office successes, but few have one critical success for their efforts so far. 21 So, the eyes of critics today are on the newest film makers, who no one as designated as the generations at in china. There is the culture of calling filmmakers according, to the generations. So, far we do not have generations, but Chinese cinema something that is very well established at Chinese film makers of the feature someone, to watch out for. So, this is one more addition in our talk on tradition in global cinema, world cinema we will continue this with more discussion on world cinema in our subsequent classes. Thank you very much. 22  Film Appreciation Prof. Aysha Iqbal Department of Humanities and Social Science Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Lecture - 12 Action Cinema (Refer Slide Time: 00:17) Good morning everyone, and welcome to another class as part of the course on Film appreciation, but today’s class, we turn our attention to the action cinema, very popular genres for many of us. And although Hollywood genres are not water tight, the heroes or hero of an action film or put through various physically demanding challenges and perform physical fetes typically involving violence fighting sequences and chases. This action cinema has always been extremely popular it is one of the safest genres all over the world, and it is a rare movie know you also have the genres of that is so called b cinema the b grade films. And so if you cannot make a high budget film, there is always a scope or opportunity to make a b class, b grade movie that is so called b film which will do extremely well in certain pockets. And it is true; it is a universally accepted fact. The physical bodies of the heroes specially and also the other characters is put through risk infused an environment and is subjected to forces that try to push it out of that environment. This is important to remember in action cinema the resulting battle and you know that triumph and fantasy of empowerment are physicalized in characters of action cinema. One of the greatest films and earliest examples of this was the Great Train Robbery released in 1903, which is 23 considered to be the first action film is a very short film, but it has a distinction of being the first narrative film - a complete film as you know cinema was still in its early stages you had the short features by the Lumiere brothers and George Melies but a full pledged narrative film; however, short it may be was the Great Train Robbery which had a narrative. But as a time passed, action cinemas they tended to take a more larger than life image with the hero is a one man army that is the time we are living in now a days or but you know this reached its speak in the seventies think of the Dirty Harry movies starring Clint Eastwood and think of our own cinema. Starting Amitabh Bachchan hero as a one- man army and this phenomenon reached its pinnacle in the eighties with the films of Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Van Damme. The type of action films moved from cowboy films, especially in Hollywood to war adventures like The Guns of Navarone to James Bond movies of the sixties which present the resource full hero. Some of the early action heroes include John Wayne, Steve McQueen, the greatest Steve McQueen, and I suggest that you should watch some of his movies like Bullitt. Bullitt is important and also The Great Escape. Also actors like Bruce lee, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood they became a very popular in the seventies. Bruce lee of course, was the ultimate in Hong Kong martial art cinema and his brand of cinema also became very popular worldwide. The time action movies became more nuanced and more sub cultures emerged in the Lethal Weapons series Mel Gibson and Danny Glover popularized the buddy cop cinema where Chuck Norris and Bruce lee were pioneers in the martial art cinema. Given the importance of creating in and an audiovisual is spectacle a combination of economic incentives and artistic imperatives, filmmakers to create a certain you know wow factor in action films. It is therefore, important to create a sensory experience that is beyond every day experience that is spectacle or is spectacles sake rather than be an entity to assist a narrative it is suggested that action sequence could aid in taking the narrative forward. In action films there work of the body is constantly, the image of the body is constantly in focus and film makers use rapid editing as a device and also close up shots of the face and body wide ranging camera movements of the action films are intensified using these devices. So, the action audiences are not passive spectators, but in the case of cinema, action cinema they are active and I use it in quotations participants who are responding to be on screen stimuli. While visuals are an important component to action cinema, the auditory 24 sense is also constantly used to enhance the action experience apart from explosions and gun shots background music to plays an important role in the setting the mood facing the film etcetera and sound tracks are not used to offer the real bodies, but represent heroic idealized bodies. Now action cinema is body centric in that the body within the universe of the film the laws of physics are constantly set and broken by the protagonist to enhance the heroism of the performer and to emerge the viewers body itself within the stunts and action sequences of the film. So, this is the reason why people identify so much with that you say we have been talking about cinematic terms such as suture where the viewers they almost feel one with the happenings on the screen. And therefore, this is a reason why many youngsters try to imitate the action that dangerous action scenes which they watch on the cinematic screen. Until about the nineties action cinema were dominated by man and it was scene as a male bastion the protagonist was typically white male who would emerge from the crisis by performing physical feats and stunts. and of course, the great heroes were Bruce Lee , BruceWillis, Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Women in such cinema were reduced to few archetypes such as the Damsel in Distress, but that was also a fact a fact in the western genre and this is a constant allegation by cinema experts towards the action films led by Amitabh Bachchan big that the idea was the allegation was that there were nothing for his heroines to do, there his heroines are nothing to do there, it was a one man show and he was a one man army. Most of his action films are all over and if you watch those movies some of the greatest films starting Amitabh Bachchan, you will feel that women are just relegated to the side lines mother however, was an important character in most Bachchan movies. So, we also talk about action movies for example, characters of Rika in the Lethal Weapon the second part, who exist to affirm the heterosexuality of the protagonist. So, you either have damsel in distress or the prostitute with a golden heart. So, this is you know Yarki type characters in action films the bodily integrative of the hero and the male body as a location of security were maintain through such unidimensional characters. However, things started changing and Brigitte Nielsen was one leading lady who posited an interesting challenge to this masculine space as her androgynous image was complimented by her exaggerated female sexuality, and she acted in action film such as a Red Sonja, Cobra and Rocky the fourth Rocky. Although the female protagonist is relatively new to Hollywood, the action female protagonist, we should also understand 25 the success in of female characters in Hong Kong action movies. When there is an increase in the number of action heroine films of late especially the female and the action film is simultaneously being marginalized. Earlier the hero advanced the narrative while the woman was just a spectator the male heroine contemporary action picture provides both action as well as spectacle, and the woman is again reduced to motivation for the heroes revenge. Now, there has been you know some challenges to the male bastion in action cinema film such as Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels and Lara Croft which are situated in post-feminist societies. The present to the viewer action girls who are sanitized of the biological and psychological realities. While these films can be seen as progressive in their representation of the female body and its capacity for action, there also generally heterosexual their white and situated within a family, so there conventional, but it still unconventional. On other hand the end of the millennium a series of films ….there was a spate of films such as Fight Club and Dark City, also the Matrix which portrait the crisis of masculinity. So, given the public engagement with queer identities the constructive nature of gender identities where in these films especially Fight Club. However, it doesn’t mean that the epic male body is over, or the spectacle is over. it still continues in films such as Gladiator, but just that a parallel discourse challenging traditional male bodies has already emerged. Now we have to also think of the eighties. Let’s talk about the eighties and the beefed up bodies of Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone as well as Bruce Willis. And now this has given way to people like Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise and Nicholas Cage who are not so beefed up. So, this new set of action heroes like Frank Martin in The Transporter comfortable with making up affluent life style choices and even comfortable with dancing so much so that it is even used in a fight sequence. And in Vin Diesel’s one of his films he is seen a wearing flamboyant costumes and the Fast and Furious franchise brought out high-speed cars and certain flavor of metro sexuality through its protagonist. Now a think of films such as Die Hard especially Live Free or Die Hard which explore the intra generational tension between John McLane and Farrell in which the older hero gets to displaced masculinity to a younger tech savvy hero the idea could be that see whatever may happen to the modern man and metro sexual man the old world 26 masculinity still prevails still dominates. Another way traditional sense of masculinity is still persists through the use of catch phrases for the hero that continue in the Die Hard franchise, the Bond franchise and also of late in Expendables franchise. The representation of race is another key theme in action cinema the kind of racism that exists in action cinema ranges from hegemonic representation of whiteness in contemporary Hollywood films such as City of Joy which portrait a white man as a savior or so, the casual racism present in Transformers non-white characters typically Black and Hispanics are either used for humor through stereotypes times or they are just treated as sidekicks of the hero, the white hero. Now non-whites in action films are typically portrayed as fetishized ‘other’…. taking on roles such as help buddy or sole action hero. The advent of action heroes or actors such as a Will smith and the Rock Johnson, Jet Li, Lucy Liu has opened up new types of spaces within action film genres in Hollywood, but despite their emergence there exists a sort of racism in a way non-white characters are discussed and represented. I would urge you to watch Lethal Weapon the fourth part to understand race and masculinity in an action movie. Now coming to more recent blockbuster Avatar, so in Avatar the trope of the non white character in this case Trudy Chacon played by Michelle Rodriguez, she sacrifices herself for the sake of the white men and this trope continues in this film… and Jake played by Sam Worthington stands as a mediator between the savage world and the civilization and yet, it is he who saves the ‘savages’ from the conquering. Now homosexuality’s another angle that is constantly being renegotiated in contemporary Hollywood action cinema, which typically has a heterosexual hegemony. So, far it was a completely white and heterosexual male bastion things are changing now homo sexuality is either used as a comic relief as in the case of Michael Bay’s Bad Boys of second part or the demonizing of seemingly homo sexual characters in Zack Snyder’s 300. in 300 Xerxes sticks to all the stereo types of homo sexuality transvestism, transexuality while at the same time glorifying the homo erotic nature and potential of the army of 300 as played by Gerard Butler. Similar depictions of homosexuality are also found in The Silence of the Lambs, Watchman, A Man Apart et. Films like Spider Man second and the third part, they take a 27 more settle turn as they play on the campiness of peter parker as being evil specially in the third part where that you have the dark Spider Man with dark edges, this is exemplified when he comes into contact with symbiote. on the other hand film such as Alexander are comfortable positing the protagonist a sexual grey area. So, the mark shift in the nature of Hollywood action films occurred after the nine eleven attacks on America; heroism is enhanced when a heroes violence is emitted out in the name of justice; nine eleven was a new currency through which such heroism could depicted although films such as Black Hawk Down and Fahrenheit nine eleven dealt with the sensitive subject directly many other more casual references to eight hour made in film such as Transformers, Iron Man and War of the World. While it is important as we are interested in cinema. So, we love cinema, so as a students or cinephiles to keep in mind the existence of stereo types and politics within Hollywood action films and also in Hindi action films we have to understand that no film industry is devoid of politics Indian films too are full of negative stereo typing, the hero being a fair North Indian heterosexual male or the villain being darker in color or crude references to homosexuality are persistent in our cinema as well. While new spaces are being opened up for discussion it is important to remain alerts to the larger political project that action cinemas are part of. So, thank you very much, and we will meet for our next class. 28  Film Appreciation Prof. Aysha Iqbal Department of Humanities and Social Science Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Lecture - 13 Deewar (Refer Slide Time: 00:28) Good morning everyone. So, today’s class, you will find little different from whatever we have been doing so far. It’s on melodrama and I will be discussing a very popular Hindi film. I am sure all of you have heard of it or you are familiar with it; this is Deewar, 1975 film, directed by Yash Chopra and written by the great screenwriter Duo Salim - Javed. The movie star Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, and Nirupa Roy, who played their mother. Now, why Deewar? Generally, when we talk about popular cinema, which impersonates a national myth; we talk about Meheboob Khan’s Mother India, which is one of the milestones in Hindi cinema. I would like to talk about Deewar, which I think, you know, came at a particular time in Indian history. Also, it was the time of certain national upheaval especially, the emergency in India, during that periods. So, it was a turbulent time. It was also historically, a very important period in our history. So, this is the significance of Deewar and of course, the fag that it gave birth to it, consolidated Amitabh Bachchan’s position as one of the greatest superstars or leading men in Indian cinema. It is still referred to very frequently, seriously and sometimes, frivolously, particularly in 29 a Hinglish movie called Loins of Punjab and A.R.Rahman too in his academy award, acceptance speech, quoting the famous line from Deewar mere paas maa hai. So, what I would like you to do is watch that particular scene… go to the You tube and please watch two scenes from Deewar and then, resume watching this video. I want you to watch two scenes; one is the scene, which where Shashi Kapoor says mere paas maa hai and also, the scene where Amitabh Bachchan refuses to sign a particular document that Shashi Kapoor, his brother, who is a cop now, and he wants him to sign. So, he says that I am not going to sign unless and until, you get signatures from every crook, who has committed various sins against him. So, these are the two scenes that I want you to watch and then, resume watching this lecture. We will be talking about, discussing those two scenes also, with reference to what we are doing now. So, let me continue. Deewar is a allegory of the partition of India. This is not something very new. This was done in Mother India. It was also shown in Yash Chopra’s blockbuster, Waqt, which is again, about the great joint family particularly, Hindu joint family that is scattered. Also, Manoj Kumar’s Upkar, where he plays his iconic character, Bharath, just come to be identified as character Bharat, where again, the dichotomy, the binaries between two brothers; the good one, the bad one, the wayward one. The wayward brother goes away; he is westernized; he is educated; city brought and born … not born exactly, but city bred and influenced by a corrupt, forces of city, you know, morally a decadent system. The good brother, is the older brother, as played by Manoj Kumar, who is called Bharat. In the film, he is home grown; he is the son of the soil; he is Bharath. So, the allegory is very clear and he is the essentially, good man. Also, he represents the rural India. So, all the virtues of the rural are represented or embodied in his character. So, at the end, wayward brother is brought back to the family. The point is that all these films are like allegories of the partition of India. At the end, Bharath looses both his arms very significantly, and there is a metaphor. You can read; there is a subtext there, which remains to be read there. He loses both his arms, but then the wayward brother, as played by Prem Chopra, he comes back and he says, you know, Bharath can never lose his arms and he offers both his arms to this wounded hero of ours. So, the idea is that the wayward brother will always return. There was an imagination; there was a hope that the wayward brother would return, would come back into the fold, into the family, great joint family fold. So, this is what we are talking about, you know, 30 the romanticized nation. Coming back to Deewar. Now, this was a period of the emergency and there was a feeling of deep disillusionment with the system. It was also a period, when society was getting corrupt politically, morally. There was an overall atmosphere of fear, which is often reflected in the dialogues. It has, Deewar has some of the greatest dialogues and greatest scenes of all time. As you have just watched, the phenomenal scene, and look at the framing of the scene; the two brothers, they are standing under the bridge; the bridge access a metaphor. This is the place from where, they started of in the beginning sare jahan se achha where the little boy Vijay, you know, who rose up to become Amithab Bachchan. He stands there and listens to the songs that this anthem that school children are singing. So, this is what we are supposed to read into the film that the bridge acts as a kind of a symbol, which was in the beginning, it joins them and later, they stand under the same bridge and now, they are both in; there is a fracture; there is a rupture between the two brothers; so, great scenes. Again, look at the facts that the movie motheris the central figure. It is the story of a mother and her two sons. It is very interesting. The leading ladies or the love interest of the two sons; they do exists, but they are peripheral characters. They, even if you remove them particularly, Shashi Kapoor’s leading lady, it wouldn’t really make much of a difference to the movie. She is there just for the song and dance routine, but the brothers fight for the love and affection and recognition by the mother; this is significant. Like most Indian epics, we also come across the trope of the absentee father, you know, this was very much brought about in Mother India; absentee father; and it is all up to the mother. So, mother is the motherland. That idea is very clearly brought about in Mother India as well as Deewar. There is also the scene with a tattoo; the son is marked forever, my father is a thief, you know mere baap chor hai scene and which leads to migration. So, migration from rural to the urban; it becomes an important theme in Deewar, because that was that point. Newly developing and industrialized countries such as ours, where the migration from the rural to the urban was becoming a major concern. So, Vijay and his family, they are small town people and then, you know, they come from this mining town and after that, they are brutally treated by the owners and they are forced to leave and the father just disappears; the absentee father, where very symbolic 31 scenes in Deewar. For example, Vijay and Ravi in the beginning and also, when the first meet and then, when they come back together under the bridge. You find them walking off in two different directions; this is very telling. They are two brothers; they love each other, but how different are their ideologies. One of the most memorable scenes of Deewar and which perhaps, established Amithab Bachchan as the angry young man of our times, was his confrontation with the dockyard goons. These goons, they collect certain amount of money on a weekly basis; it is extortion money, and from the dockyard workers. The poor workers don’t have a choice, but they have to give up the money, till Vijay can’t take it anymore, and then, he rises up in protest and confronts the evil dockyard goons. So, the idea is that one man can always do that. This was also, something very new for the Indian audience; however, the movie does have certain resonance of Elia Kazan’s great On the Waterfront, which is also about the goons and extortionists that exist on the peripherals, you know, in the dockyard and in the backyard of our homes, where everyone is so terrified of the arm twisting tactics that they have a no other choice. So, idea is that we need a hero of that power, that stature, that strength, who can confront these people and deliverers of them. So, that idea comes and that what also, the central theme On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan’s directed, where Marlon Brando’s character stands up to the mafia, to the dockyard mafia. Deewar is full of great lines and at one point, the little Vijay tells one of the gang lords, mafia men, who is a good guy at heart, played by Iftekhar, and he says Vijay is a shoe shining boy. So, he and wherever this mafia lord, he goes up to the races; he stops at a particular point and Vijay is a little boy, who always polishes the shoes. So, he is the shoeshine boy, regular one for this character. When this man throws a coin at little boy, a little boy gets up and he says :I don’t pick up coins; I am not a beggar and this scene is repeated. There are lots of repetitions in Deewar; scenes and lines are repeated; metaphors are repeated; symbols are repeated. So, this is something that you know, we are doing a course in film appreciation. So, this is something that you should be sensitive to. I just told you about the fact that Deewar doesn’t have a leading lady, which is true in the case of a Shashi Kapoor’s love interest, but interestingly, Parveen Babi’s character, which is there for and she is the love interest of Amithab Bachchan, and very interesting character. She plays Anitha, who is a morally, ambiguous heroine. Now, this was 32 something, very unusual for those times; she smokes; she drinks. You know they have a living relationship; Vijay and Anitha, and there are known judgments pronouns there. We a talking about a movie, which was made in 1975. So, they share a cigarette; then she gets pregnant with his child; they drink, but they smoke and she is still, a heroine and it was played by Parveen Babi, who was you know, if you remember; she is one of the heroines, leading ladies of Hindi cinema, who can be credited for breaking the shackles of the conventional traditionally, portrayed or represented the good girl kind of Hindi film heroine. So, she is definitely not the good girl in the conventional way, but she is still the heroine. She is the one, who he loves. Of course, you know, mother is the woman, he loves most in the world, vies for her affections and attention. She is the one, she is a catalyst for causing a change in him. He is willing to give up his criminal base in order to start a family with Anita. So, therefore, she is important and at the end, when he murdered someone, it is because he has lost a love of his life. So, Anitha is a character, you know, some of you are interested in doing work like representation of women on Hindi films. So, you can look at the 70s, very important period as far as, representation of women is concerned. Another great scene is the point, where Vijay and Ravi, they that a realize that their father has died, very anonymous death, and Vijay’s mother or Ravi’s mother, as she is applying the vermilion dot on her forehead, Ravi comes and pulls her hand away. This is a symbolic that she is no longer entitled to she has lost the right to call herself, a married women, in the sense that she is a widow now. Again, we think we talk about the family, where the older brother has all the rights and Vijay, although he is a strange brother. He comes and serves the funeral, fire ablaze. Now, this scene is done very quietly. You don’t find too many dialogues, too much of hysteria, but it is still what we are talking about; still fits the melodramatic movie. The way that director sets the mise-en-scene here; the music; the clause; the costumes; the framing of the scene; this is important. So, at the end, when he extends his arm to set the funeral fire ablaze, you find the same old tattoo on Vijay’s arms. That is permanently, etched on his arm but more significantly, on his soul. It has scarred him forever; that is mere baap chor hai …my father is a thief. This was done to him by a group of the town people, who believe that father has sort of, sold them of the rights of the workers, have been sold off to the mine owners, which is not true, but this is a stigma that this family has to live with. 33 Again, bridge serves as a memory, as a motive or memory and also, song, the song that sare jahan se acha which plays constantly, in the background. Ravi has almost erased the past, but Vijay remembers; this is important. You also have echoes of Elia Kazan’s East of Eden and Elia Kazan, strictly speaking, is a social realist, but his movies are also known for very refined melodrama. So, if you watch that so, his brand of social realism, his brand of allegiant melodrama; I am very sure that it must have impacted the writers and directors of that period. It was very relevant to that period. So, East of Eden is also referred to in certain scenes, where the two brothers compete in East of Eden for the father’s affection and here, the gender is reversed. The two brothers compete for the affections of the mother. The mother, you remember the scene, where mother is hospitalized and Vijay goes to the temple for the first time in years and confronts God. He stands before the statue and then, the famous monologue aaj kush to bahut ho ge.So, Amithab Bachchan, you know, he has delivered a series, a number of monologues, great monologues and one of his greatest most often, quoted monologue of all time when he confronts the Gods. So, he is the hero; who not only just scared of a standing up to the mortal goons, but he can also stand up to god themselves. So, he is like our captain Ahab the character from Harman Melville’s Moby Dick. He is a Marked man, but he is also hero; a hero of an immense stature and who can confront any one. He can look at sun in the eye and interrogate; that is what Melville talks about and that is how Melville describes his hero in Moby Dick and in Vijay’s character also; we find echoes of similar pride. His pride is important, He is a man who wouldn’t allow, won’t allow anyone to hurt his pride. We are talking about the social situation and the emergency period and there is a scene, very melodramatic scene, where Ravi opens fire on a little boy and then, he realizes the boy; what was the boy steeling? It is a piece of bread, you know, the family has been starving for a couple of days, and here is a teenage boy, and he shoots him in the leg, but he realizes that the boy is innocent; he was just taking food for his family. Ravi is then, cursed by his mother, by the boy’s mother. She says that you know, there are bigger goons in this society, in this country, and all that you could do was to shoot my little boy. So, now, this is a condemnation of Ravi; does it upstage Ravi as the moral voice; we don’t know. So, Deewar is a very interesting study in moral ambiguity. All characters have this touch of ambiguity. If Ravi is morally, a pride, doesn’t he go too far? At the 34 end, he is the one who open fire on his brother and shoots him, and mother is the one, who has blessed him, is mirroring the ending of Mother India, where the mother herself, shoots her son dead, because she feels that he strayed from the righteous path (from the righteous path and that path, Ravi also does, as he is urged by his mother to do; he kills his brother. This is also a movie and you can also read melodramatic readings into it. The motive, you know, 786, the batch appears quite frequently, and Vijay treats it as a lucky mascot So, many scholars have seen this motive as playing to the gallery, , like a tokenism is there for communal harmony. So, he is always wearing his batch, wearing the numbers 786; this is his number when he is a worker at the dockyards, but once he comes up in life through crime, he always keeps the batch close to his heart and often, in the movie, that batch saves his life, but again when he loses the batch, gets killed by his brother. Vijay is denied, a complete family, because of the death of his pregnant girlfriend and mother is a lawgiver. She is the one, who hands Ravi a gun, and gives blessings. The idea is she tells him the woman has done her duty. Now, a mother will do hers Then she goes off to meet her son at the appointed place, which is the temple, where the three of them use to go together, once upon a time. Vijay dies in his mother’s lap, and again it reflects crisis in the state. The family has been prevented from coming back together; again, a metaphor, and crisis of the state. So, there is an internal schism of the modern state, where the coexistence of the law and the community is a conflicting, terrain and here, I quote you form Madhav Prasad Ideology of the Hindi Film. We should also know that there is the, mythologically speaking, the good brother, the favored brother and also, the brother who sacrifices more and gets killed at the end, but the brother, who is conventionally, the good brother. Deewar is also interesting, because there are certain experiments. I just told you about a morally, ambiguous characters, morally ambiguous heroine, and the absence of songs. Now, there were six songs initially, in this movie, but three were retained and none of which appeared consequential to the narrative at all, even if you remove that, those songs, it really wouldn’t matter to the overall narrative. So, thank you very much. 35  Film Appreciation Prof. Aysha Iqbal Department of Humanities and Social Science Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Lecture – 14 Good morning. So, we are going to talk about melodrama in cinema and I would also like you to refer to one of the lectures that is a part of this course, in the great Hindi film Deewar, and apply the features of melodrama in cinema. See, why are you doing this course; you will understand that whether, I discuss Hindi film or Hollywood film or foreign film, if you now the theory well and that concepts well, you can apply all the aspects of that concept and that theory to any cinema from any part of the world. (Refer Slide Time: 01:02) So, while talking melodrama the key words here are high drama, excessive emotions, interplay of and the dynamics of class and sex. The term melodrama, as you know is used very pejoratively. We often say don't watch this film it is highly melodramatic. Then also, the fact has to be taken account that melodrama happens to be a very successful genre; if not a genre, style of film making. We call a film melodramatic when it has excessive sentiment over the top emotions, over the top larger than life characters, and it intends to squeeze emotions out of us. One example is the traditional soap opera, where the emotions are always over the top. The term melodrama has its roots and origins in the Greek word, Melos, which is used for song, to suggest a song and in the early 19th century, many plays were produced with a musical accompaniment that 36 heighten the emotional aspect of the various scenes; for example, Sweeny Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which was made in 1979 for stage, but has also been recently made as a film, directed by Tim Burton. Melodrama is not a recent concept in literature. Think of a play such as Oedipus Sophocles Oedipus which came into existence in 429 BC. In the place such as Oedipus where the hero inadvertently, kills is father and ends up marrying his mother, but when he realizes the truth, his wife or mother hangs herself and Oedipus blinds himself. That is his way of self-punishment and lives in a state of self-exile. So, that was melodrama at it peaks. So, melodrama has always been in existence. The idea is to produce excessive emotions. You are also familiar with the Rule of Songs and Background is Course play and what an important role, these elements play in increasing the sentimental aspect of a scene in Indian cinema. Best, consider that what MH. Ibrahim says; the term melodrama in melodramatic are like you know, they can extend to any work and we have also, seen that how most of these melodramatic works, whether in drama or pros friction or even in cinema, they rely on impossible events and sensational acts. Melodrama in the sense was you know, in earlier Hollywood cinema, was a standard fair in good versus evil kind of plot. DW. Griffith’s Grateful Birth of a Nation is an example of this kind of film. So, good versus evil is a standard fair of melodrama. Now, these days we now that we use the word melodramatic to dismiss a film as worthless; however, this belies the fact that the melodrama as a film genre, is as worthy as any other and as an aesthetic. It has a countless elements to it. You have movies, ranging from or raging between westerns and ethics and comedy, and in all melodramatic contents or aspects can be found in any of these genres. Drawing on influences as wide ranging as Greek tragedy and sentimental Victorian novels, melodrama was a hugely popular theatrical form in the late 19 th century, like slapstick comedy, which had its roots in vaudeville it adapted easily to the silent films as well. Melodrama placed a heavy emphasis on expressive gestures and visual iconography than on dialog and naturalism; for example, Birth of a Nation that was made by DW. Griffith and melodrama often had tragic outcomes. In Hindi films, you can think instantly, of film such as Mother India, Deewar, that is part of this course and also, think of film like Muqaddar ka Sikandar staring Amitabh Bachchan, which is one of the most popular entertaining, but highly melodramatic film. So, stories are good versus evils were told, using familiar motives and architects, and creating over the top emotions in melodrama. 37 The themes of drama, which is the oldest stage form, an art form, were exaggerated within melodramas, and the liberal use of music often enhanced their emotional plots. You think of songs and background discourse and how they in a serve to enhance the melodramatically excessive emotional content or quotient of the film. Often film studies refer pejoratively, to the genre of melodrama, calling them unrealistic. …of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters. The often include a central female characters, and I am not talking about the women’s pictures, that would directly appeal to feminine audiences. The sub genre like this is typically looked down upon by critics and especially, the more elitist kinds of audiences. From our own examples in recent times, we can think of a blockbuster, star studded film by Karan Johar; that is [FL], Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham which was made in 2002, where you feel all the leading characters are good hearted and pure characters, but they are victims of circumstances. Then it is a tearjerker; At the end, it ends happily, but then every emotion, which is squeezed out of view through the running length of the film. Again, in Sooraj Barjatya’s romantic melodrama Maine Pyar Kiya, which was a 1989 film, we find again, pure characters versus stock evil characters. It was a huge blockbuster, staring Salman Khan and young Bhagyashree, and the song and dance situation help to enhance the entertainment, entertainment as well as melodramatic content or quotient of the film. Again, some of the greatest films of the 80s are made by Subhash Ghai; for example, Hero, Karma and also, Ram Lakhan and Trimurti, as well as Pardes, which was made as late as in 1997. All these films are phenomenal success great entertainers, but extremely, melodramatic and you have, you know, extremely larger than lives characters here, with stock good and evil, versus evil characters; very sentimental, but very popular and of course, all great musicals as well. We have to remember that evil characters have no redeeming features on these types or these categories of melodramatic film. You have to also consider cinema of Rakesh Roshan who has given us films such as Khoon Bhari Maang and Koyla, Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai and how melodramatic they are, although, extremely popular and hugely successful. One of the greatest examples of melodramatic films from Hollywood is Duel in the Sun, which is directed my King Vidor in 1946, and interestingly, it was branded lust in the dust at the time of its release. This film, which stars Gregory Peck and Jenifer Jones and also, Joseph Cotten, is a classic epic western produced by David O Selznick, who was you know, he failed in his desire to make it, the western equivalent of his earlier civil 38 war Epic Gone with the Winds. So, this film was produced by the great David O Selznick; however, the film was not so successful in spite of having every formula; perhaps, it was thought or that it was believed to be too lusty for those times. It is an overwrote script, based on 1944 novel by Niven Busch and it is about sexually charged; how breed women played by Jenifer Jones, who becomes the point of contention between two brothers; one a lusty brother, played by Gregory Peck and other, the good brother, played by Joseph Cotton. Again this is a reworking of the cane and evil opposites; one brutish and one refined. The film is set in Texas in the 1880s, which is like you know, again, sort of western. We will find lost of horses and terrains and open terrains and taxing landscape; beautifully shot, very lavishly mounted film and quite a melodrama. Interestingly, it also opens with a prologue, which is spoken by Orson Welles and there is a fading on a mountain in the shape of face, which is a hard rock; that is base in the bloody red color of the settings. So, what we are saying is that mise en scene saw tells is the kind of index of film sets going to be the excessive emotion that you are going to find in this film. I would like you to draw your attention to the opening prologue from the film; Deep among the lonely sun baked hills of Texas. (Refer Slide Time: 12:14) This is the prologue which was spoken by Orson Welles. The great and whether beaten stone still stands. The Comanches called it Squaw’s Head Rock. Time cannot change its impassive face, nor dim the legend of the wild young lovers, who found heaven and hell in the shadows of the rock. For when the sun is low and the cold wind blows across the 39 desert. There are those of Indian blood, who still speak of Pearl Chavez, the half-breed girl from down along the border and of the laughing outlaw with whom, she here kept a final rendezvous, never to be seen again. This is what the legend says: A flower, known nowhere else, grows from out of the desperate crags, where pearl vanished. Pearl, who was herself, a wild flower. It sprung from the hard clay, quick to blossom and early to die. So, this is the way, the film opens and the stage is set that you are going to find, you are going to see a tragic tale of love, or a doom love story. The melodrama achieve the particular status with you know, the film academicians with film academicians, showing interest in the works of DW. Griffith, Lawn Shennoy, John Stall, Nicholas Ray, Wilson Manely, Otto Preminger….according to film critic and expert Christine Gladhill the study of melodrama as a cinematic genre, is a recent development. It achieved public visibility in 1977, when the society of education in film and television commission papers for a study weekend. Melodramatic plots with hard tagging literally tear jerking emotional plots, requiring multiple, you know, we are talking about those kinds of films; a woman go and just cry there eyes out. So, these films required multiple hanky pictures…. usually, emphasis and seasonal situation or crisis of human emotions. Again, consider Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham or The Dual in the Sun; these are feel romances, stories of feel romances, friendship, strange familiar situations, tragedy, illnesses, deaths, neurosis emotional and physical hardships within everyday life. You can also consider a film such as Terms of Endearment and also Mommie Dearest, which was based on Faye Dunaway’s daughter, writing about; it is her own story actually, based on autobiography written by Joan Crawford’s daughter, who was apparently mistreated by the great star of the classic golden age period. This movie, Mommie Dearest is based on that autobiography, with Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford and it is also considered one of the most melodramatic films ever made. So, what kinds of character we find in our melodrama; victims, couples, evil hearted laggards, pure and good heroes and heroines, pure and chaste heroines, virtuous heroic characters. This offers in melodramas, and are presented with tremendous social pressures, threats, fears in probable events, difficulties with friends, communities, lovers or family. So, the melodramatic format allows the characters to work through the difficulties or surmount the problems with endurance and dignity. Often it ends in sacrificing or death, but then that’s the way a melodrama is constructed. Melodrama can also has several categories, 40 but some of the important ones are the Women’s picture, the romantic drama and the maternal melodrama. For such kind of cinema, film theorist Molly Haskell draws our attention to women’s films and family melodrama and raises questions about the esthetic and cultural significance of this kind of cinema. These is also another important theorist, Thomas Elsaeser, according to whom, melodrama can be analyzed through complex mise en scene (and ideological criticisms. Elsaeser, also considers the family melodramas of the 1950s as the peak of Hollywood’s achievement. In Hollywood, Douglas Sirk is considered one of the most melodramatic filmmaker