Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Screening India Syllabus, Spring 2010
Screening India
The History of Modern Hindi Cinema
Spring 2010
T/Th 3:30-4:45 pm
Screenings: M 5-8 pm
HUMN 1B70
Professor Laura Brueck
office: HUMN 225
phone: 303-492-7241
email: laura.brueck@colorado.edu
Office Hours: Weds. 1-3 pm
Course Description
This course explores the history, music, and narrative conventions of popular Hindi cinema in India, commonly referred to as “Bollywood.” Bollywood movies, readily identified by their song-and-dance sequences and “masala”-style mixing of filmic genres, are among the most avidly watched films in the world. Focusing on films that engage major historical and cultural moments in more than sixty years of modern Indian nationhood, we will explore why Bollywood-style storytelling is so effective as well as examine how these filmic narratives both reflect and shape the culture and society in which they are created.
There are several objectives for this course. In one sense, it is an introduction to modern Bollywood cinema and we will watch several of the most significant (for both critics and popular audiences) films of the post-independence era. In another sense, we will also use these films as windows into postcolonial Indian culture and society, and through a chronological viewing, get a Bollywood-eye view of modern Indian history. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, we will “read” and interpret these films as cultural and aesthetic texts and think about the ways in which they make meaning through storytelling, music, and spectacle
Films (in the order to be shown)
\Main Hoon Na (2004)
Shree 420 (1955)
Devdas (1955)
Mother India (1957)
Guide (1965)
Deewar (1975)
Sholay (1977)
Roja (1992)
Bombay (1995)
Hum Aapke Hai Koun…! (1994)
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995)
Lagaan (2001)
Veer-Zaara (2004)
Rang De Basanti (2006)
Om Shanti Om (2007)
Required Texts
The Bollywood Reader (2008)
ed. by Rajinder Dudrah and Jigna Desai
Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire (2002)
by Vijay Mishra
* All other materials will be available on e-reserve.
Course Requirements
Film Reviews
You are responsible for writing five 3-page film reviews over the course of the semester. You may choose any five films we watch as a class over the course of the semester (excluding Main Hoon Na which we will watch in the first week). The reviews will be due (posted to our course website, screeningindia.blogspot.com) no later than ONE week after the film screening of the film under review. It is your responsibility to monitor the number of film reviews you are posting and to make sure that you have completed five and submitted them on time before the end of the semester. There will be no late reviews accepted. Over the course of the semester we will develop a communal database of these reviews. The sharing of your reviews with the rest of the class in a public forum will contribute to our evolving engagement and exploration of this filmic genre as a community of viewers and critics. A detailed rubric for the form and content of these film reviews will be handed out separately in class.
Group Presentation
Early in the semester, I will divide the class into small groups that will each be responsible for presenting and leading discussion on a film and the readings assigned for that film once in the semester. These presentations will take place on Thursdays between Week Six and Week Twelve of the semester. Each group is responsible for knowing the film and the assigned readings in great depth, and should be able to draw out significant issues, questions, and observations for the rest of the class. Each presentation will take about 45 minutes of class time, with 20 minutes devoted to the group presentation of the readings and film, and 25 minutes devoted to class discussion (to be led by the members of the group). More specific guidelines about the group presentation and the expected participation of each member of the group will be distributed later in the semester.
Short Papers
There will be two short papers due over the course of the semester that will require you to put various readings and films in comparative perspective. The first will be due on March 4, the second on April 8. Further details will be distributed later in the semester. No late papers will be accepted.
Reading Quizzes
I will give you five short reading quizzes (a handful of brief questions that should also help stimulate class discussion) over the course of the semester. These will not be announced. It is expected that you keep up with your reading DAILY.
Final Exam
You will submit a final exam as a short paper based on a set of questions and your analysis of another film, not among the films we watch over the course of the semester. Details to be distributed later in the semester.
Class Participation/Attendance
Attendance and participation are strictly required. Attendance will be taken daily. Each student will be allowed one unexcused absence, beyond which every unexcused absence will be reflected in the final grade. An absence will be excused only if there is an extenuating circumstance that is communicated to me well in advance and we have come to an agreement about how you will address the material to be discussed in that day’s class. Absences due to illness will be excused when I receive documentation from the campus health center. Attendance at the weekly film screenings also counts as class attendance. If you miss a film screening, you will be marked as absent, and it will be your responsibility to watch the film on reserve in the media library in the next week after the class screening and arrange with me to take a short quiz on that film.
It goes without saying that you are expected to prepare the readings assigned for every day of class. This is the most important element for fostering an engaging learning environment for everyone. I expect everyone to be active participants in the classroom, and I will not hesitate to call on you to ask your opinions and perspectives on the films and topics that we will address throughout the semester. While there is no formal evaluation process in place to make sure that you do the assigned reading, if I begin to get the sense that people are not coming to class prepared, I will create one (i.e.- give you reading quizzes).
Grade Distribution
Film reviews: 25% (5% each)
Group presentation: 15%
Two papers: 25% (10% and 15%)
Quizzes: 10% (overall average of 5)
Final Exam: 15%
Class participation: 10%
Schedule of Classes
Week One: Main Hoon Na/I’m Here Now (Farah Khan, 2004)
Jan. 12 Welcome and film discussion:
Why Should we Study Bollywood Cinema? (aside from the fact that it’s awesome)
Jan. 14 “Bollywood” in local and global contexts
* Suketu Mehta, “Bollywood Confidential” in the New York Times, Nov. 14, 2004
* Mishra ch. 1: Inventing Bombay Cinema (p. 1-34)
* Madhava Prasad, “Surviving Bollywood” in Global Bollywood (ed. Kavoori and
Punathambekar, 2008) p. 41-51
Week Two (No film screening Monday, MLK Day):
Jan. 19 watch film in-class: “Larger than Life: India’s Bollywood Film Culture” (2005)
Jan. 21 Historical antecedents and the birth of Hindi cinema
* Tejaswini Ganti, ch. 1 “Introduction” (p. 1-52)
* Rosie Thomas, “Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity” in The Bollywood Reader
(p. 21-31)
Week Three: Shree 420/Mr. 420 (Raj Kapoor, 1955)
Jan. 26 film discussion
* Rashmi Varma, “Provincializing the Global City” in Social Text 22/4, Winter 2004 (p. 65-89)
* Sanjay Srivastava, “The Voice of the Nation and the Five-Year Plan Hero: Speculations on
Gender, Space, and Popular Culture” in Fingerprinting Popular Culture, ed. Lal and Nandy
(p. 122-155)
Jan. 28 Foundational myths: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
* Vijay Mishra, “Towards a theoretical critique of Bombay cinema” (ch. 3 in The Bollywood
Reader) p. 32-44
* Gregory Booth, “Traditional Content and Narrative Structure in the Commercial Hindi
Cinema” in Asian Folklore Studies 54/2 (p. 169-190)
Week Four: Devdas (Bimal Roy, 1955)
Feb. 2 film discussion
* Ravi Vasudevan, “The politics of cultural address in a ‘transitional’ cinema: a case
study of Indian popular cinema” in Reinventing Film Studies ed. Gledhill and Williams
(p. 130-164)
* Poonam Arora, “Devdas: India’s Emasculated Hero, Sado-Masochism, and Colonialism” in
Jouvert 1/1
Feb. 4 De-coding Bollywood melodrama
* Mishra ch. 2 “Melodramatic Staging” (p. 35-60)
* Rosie Thomas, “Melodrama and the Negotiation of Morality in Mainstream Hindi Film,” from Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in a South Asian World (157-182)
Week Five: Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957)
Feb. 9 film discussion
* Mishra, ch. 3 “The Texts of Mother India” (p. 61-87)
* Parama Roy, “Figuring Mother India: The Case of Nargis,” ch. 9 in The Bollywood Reader
(p.109-121)
Feb. 11 Viewing religion in Hindi cinema
* Philip Lutgendorf, “A Superhit Goddess: Jai Santoshi Maa and Caste Hierarchy in Hindi Films” in Manushi no. 131 (p. 10-16, 24-37)
* Rachel Dwyer, “The religious and the secular in Hindi film” ch. 4 in Filming the Gods (p.132-161)
Week Six: Guide (Vijay Anand, 1965)
Feb. 16 film discussion
* Sumita Chakravarty, “The national-heroic image: masculinity and masquerade” in The
Bollywood Reader (p. 84-96)
* The Changing Image of the Hero in Hindi Films,” by Ashok Rao Kavi in Journal of
Homosexuality 39: 3/4 (2000) p. 307-312.
Feb. 18 Amitabh Bachchan and the “Angry Young Man” of the 1970s
* Mishra, ch. 5 “The Actor as Parallel Text: Amitabh Bachchan” (p. 125-156)
* Fareeduddin Kazmi, “How angry is the Angry Young Man? ‘Rebellion’ in Conventional Hindi Films” in Nandy ed. The Secret Politics of Our Desires
(p. 134-156)
Week Seven: Deewar/Wall (Yash Chopra, 1975)
Feb. 23 film discussion
* Ashis Nandy, “Introduction: Indian popular cinema as a slum’s eye view of politics,” in The
Bollywood Reader (p. 73-83)
* Jyotika Virdi, “Deewar/Wall (1975) – Fact, Fiction, and the Making of a Superstar in Global
Bollywood (ed. Kavoori and Punathambekar, 2008), p. 223-239
Feb. 25 Filmi geet I: playback singing
* Neepa Majumdar, “The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi
Cinema” in Soundtrack Available, ed. Wocjik and Knight (p. 161-181)
* Sangita Gopal and Biswarup Sen, “Inside and Out: Song and Dance in Bollywood Cinema”
in The Bollywood Reader (p. 146-157)
* Rajinder Dudrah, “Singing for India: Songs in the Bollywood Film” ch. 2 in Bollywood Goes to the Movies (p.47-64)
Week Eight: Sholay (“Flames,” Manmohan Desai, 1977)
March 2 film discussion
* Priya Jha, “Lyrical Nationalism: Gender, Friendship, and Excess in 1970s Hindi Cinema” in
Velvet Light Trap no. 51 (p. 43-53)
* Sheila Nayar, “Invisible representation: the oral contours of a national popular cinema” in
The Bollywood Reader (p. 158-171)
March 4 Cracks in the nation: domestic terrorism in the films of Mani Ratnam
PAPER DUE
Week Nine: Roja (Mani Ratnam, 1992) and Bombay (Mani Ratnam, 1995)
March 9 film discussion – Roja
* Nicholas Dirks, “The Home and the Nation: Consuming Culture and Politics in Roja” in
The Bollywood Reader (p. 134-145)
* Tejaswini Niranjana, “Integrating Whose Nation? Tourists and Terrorists in Roja” in
Economic and Political Weekly (p. 79-82)
March 11 film discussion – Bombay
* Mishra, ch. 7 “After Ayodhya: The Sublime Object of Fundamentalism”
(p. 203-234)
* Ravi Vasudevan, “Bombay and its Public” in Dwyer and Pinney (eds.) Pleasure and
the Nation (p. 186-211)
Week Ten: Hum Aapke Hai Koun…! (Who Am I to You!?,1994)
March 16 film discussion
* Shohini Ghosh, “Hum Aapke Hai Koun…! Pluralizing pleasures of viewership,” in Social
Scientist 28: 3/4 (March-April 2000) p, 83-90
* Patricia Uberoi, “Imagining the Family: an ethnography of viewing Hum Aapke Hain Koun”
in The Bollywood Reader (p. 172-189)
March 18 Filmi geet II: staging social transgression
* Gayatri Gopinath, “Bollywood/Hollywood: Queer Cinematic Representation and the Perils of Translation” ch 4 in Impossible Desires (p. 93-130)
* Monika Mehta, “What is Behind Film Censorship? The Khalnayak Debates” in The
Bollywood Reader (p. 122-133)
Spring Break!
Week Eleven: Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge /The Lover will Take the Bride (Aditya Chopra, 1995)
March 30 film discussion
* Ashish Rajadhyaksha, “The ‘Bollywoodization’ of the Indian cinema: cultural nationalism
in a global arena” in The Bollywood Reader (p. 190-200)
* Nitin Govil, “Bollywood and the Frictions of Global Mobility” in The Bollywood Reader
(p. 201-215)
* Mishra, ch. 8 “Bombay Cinema and Diasporic Desire” (p. 235-269)
April 1 Nationalism and sport: the case of cricket
* Ashis Nandy, “Tradition, Transgression, and Norms” ch. 1 in The Tao of Cricket (p. 1-51)
Week Twelve: Lagaan/Tax (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001)
April 6 film discussion
* S. Anand (ed.), Brahmans and Cricket: Lagaan’s millennial purana and other myths (entire, to be handed out in class)
* Chandrima Chakraborty, “Bollywood Motifs: Cricket Fiction and Fictional Cricket” in The
International Journal of the History of Sport 21: 3/4 (p. 549-572)
April 8 India and Pakistan: reality and representation
PAPER DUE
Week Thirteen: Veer-Zaara (Yash Chopra, 2004)
April 13 film discussion
* Srijana Mitra Das, “Partition and Punjabiyat in Bombay cinema: the cinematic
perspectives of Yash Chopra and others” in Contemporary South Asia 15/4
(p. 453-471)
* Rajinder Dudrah, “Borders and Border Crossings in Main Hoon Na and Veer-Zaara,: in Fiming
the Line of Control (ed. Bharat and Kumar) p. 40-55
April 15 Youth culture in the 21st century Hindi movie
* Corey Creekmur, “Bombay Boys: Dissolving the Male Child in Popular Hindi Movies” in
Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of Boyhood, ed. Pomerance and Gateward (p. 350-376)
Week Fourteen: Rang De Basanti/Paint It Saffron (Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, 2006)
April 20 film discussion
* Jasraman Singh Grewal, “Rang de Basanti: Morality and the Reservation Issue” in
Economic and Political Weekly (p. 4114-4116)
* Sunny Singh, “Defining a Non-Pakistan-centric Post-Globalisation Self in Hindi Cinema
1996-2006 in Filming the Line of Control (ed. Bharat and Kumar) p. 111-127
* Aarti Wani, “Uses of History: A Case of Two Films” in Film International 5:1 (2007)
p. 73-78
April 22 The Future of Bollywood?
* Ashis Nandy, “Notes Towards an Agenda for the Next Generation of Film Theorists in India”
in South Asian Popular Culture 1/1 (p. 79-84)
* Ashok Raj, “The curse of globalised culture: the fall of Indian cinema foretold” in Futures no.
36 (p. 797- 809)
Week Fifteen: Om Shanti Om (Farah Khan, 2007)
April 27 film discussion
April 30 wrap-up!
FINAL EXAM
Online resources for Bollywood films:
Fabulous site for scholarly reviews of many Bollywood films:
Sites for buying Bollywood films, music:
For Bollywood gossip, news etc:
Bollywood news/gossip/music podcasts:
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