Studying Indian Cinema

INTRODUCTION

Today’s Indian cinema does indeed provide a partial reflection of the problems of our existence, a reflection of what our history and modern experience have made us into. (Sardar, 1998: 88)

In India, as in the US, popular cinema has increasingly tended to become a battleground of cultures, tastes, aesthetics, and political ideologies. (Lal & Nandy, 2006: xiv)

This book is not a comprehensive study of Indian cinema but traces the historical evolution of Indian cinema through a number of key decades. There are 14 chapters, each one focusing on one key film. The chosen films have been analysed both in detail and within a wider social, political, ideological and historical context. In addition to exploring the films in their wider contexts, I have also approached analytical work of selected sequences through the conceptual framework common to both film and media studies. This includes a consideration of narrative, genre, representation, audience and mise-en-scène. Before I move on to outline the contents of each chapter, I should say that narrowing down Indian cinema to a handful of films was a difficult task. This meant sacrificing personal choices and favourite film-makers for a more holistic appreciation of Indian cinema. For readers to appreciate the book, they need to have access to the primary material. However, one of the main problems with Indian cinema tends to be the lack of availability of films on DVD. Popular Indian films are easily available through specialist online stores and more mainstream DVD retailers, but independent/art films with subtitles are more difficult to track down. Therefore, the films I have chosen are all currently available on DVD through most UK-based retailers.

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE ON INDIAN CINEMA

Considering the quantity and quality of films produced, the academic literature on Indian cinema is unimpressive. Not only does it lack depth and rigour, but the critical discourse has tended to focus on populist aspects of Indian cinema that are particularly palatable in the West. In the context of a global academic discourse, a great deal of Indian cinema has been ignored, overlooked and under-discussed. In view of this, my approach is to go beyond the usual limits of academia and focus on films, genres, directors and histories that have been undervalued and marginalised. However, notable academic authorities emerged on Indian cinema, especially after partition, reclaiming a colonised past and uncovering aspects of Indian film history that challenge traditional western assumptions about the industry.

Before I move on to briefly discuss the way in which critical discourse on Indian cinema has evolved over the last ten years, it is important to acknowledge what I regard to be some of the key writers and titles on Indian cinema. First and foremost, this book would not have been possible without the groundbreaking Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen. The encyclopedia was first published in 1994 (revised edition, 1999) and offers a comprehensive account of Indian film history, with detailed entries on films and key people in the film industry.

One of the most significant aspects of Indian film discourse has been the study of the relationship between ideology and the wider context. Key ideological critiques on Indian cinema include Madhava Prasad’s Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction (1998), Ravi Vasudevan’s Making Meaning in Indian Cinema (2000), Sumita Chakravarty’s National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947 – 1987 (1993), Vijay Mishra’s Temples of Desires (2002) and Jyotika Virdi’s The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social History (2003).

Many books have also been written on the history of Indian cinema, offering an informed and engaged overview of key themes, genres and directors. This includes Rajinder Dudrah’s Bollywood: Sociology goes to the Movies (2006), Rachel Dwyer’s 100 Bollywood Films (2005), Tejaswini Ganti’s Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema (2004), K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake’s Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change (1998) and Lalit Mohan Joshi and Derek Malcolm’s Bollywood: Popular Indian Cinema (2002). Academic work on individual films, directors and genres has been less forthcoming, but there have been some notable publications. Auteur-led studies include Rachel Dwyer’s Yash Chopra (2002), Sangeeta Datta’s Shyam Benegal (2002), Nasreen Munni Kabir’s Guru Dutt: A Life In Cinema (1996), John K. Muir’s Mercy In Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006), Susmita Dasgupta’s Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar (2006) and Madhu Jain’s The Kapoors: The First Family of Indian Cinema (2005).

Books on Indian films are steadily increasing in number. Harper Collins India recently launched a series of books written by various film academics on popular films such as Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Disco Dancer and Deewaar. Penguin has also published books on Indian films, including Sholay and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, both by film critic Anupama Chopra, and also on Awaara, by Gayatri Chatterjee. The BFI has published monographs on Indian cinema, including Lalitha Gopalan’s Bombay and Philip Kemp’s The Apu Trilogy. The academic film discourse is richest and strongest around director Satyajit Ray. At least twenty books have been published on Ray, counting most recently Andrew Robinson’s The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic (2010). Postcolonial film criticism is a relatively new area of research and has produced some interesting works including Kavita Daiya’s Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender and National Culture in Postcolonial India (2008) and Jigna Desai’s Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film (2003). Writings on the cinema of South India is another emerging research area and has produced some exciting work such as Sara Dickey’s Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India (1993), Preminda Jacob’s Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India (2009) and Selvaraj Velayutham’s Tamil Cinema: The Cultural Politics of India’s Other Film Industry (2008).

THE ROLE OF NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES

Next I want to briefly address some of the factors that have played a part in accelerating the breadth of research on Indian cinema. For a long time the availability of Indian films with correctly translated English subtitles was a major obstacle, hampering the research process. Such obstacles have become less significant today. Research into Indian cinema has moved rapidly over the last few years. It is a process that has been helped by the proliferation of new media such as the Internet, YouTube, blogging and DVDs. The emergence of Asian TV channels that cater to the Indian Diaspora has led to regular broadcasting of Indian films with English subtitles. New media technologies have played their part in creating multiple platforms, but the most common and traditional platform, cinemas themselves, has been enlarged with the expansion of UK multiplexes. This development has undoubtedly helped to raise the international profile of Indian cinema.

Additionally, the ability to purchase DVDs through online retailers has diminished the problems of accessibility and availability for fans of Indian cinema. Indian films have made an impact at the UK box office, but a closer look at the content of many of the films that have been successful in securing distribution tells a different story. The Indian films distributed and exhibited in the UK tend to be narrow; this means they are either mainstream, populist or star driven. Independent and art house films have by and large been pushed out on to the fringes, with some specialist films surfacing months later only on DVD. However, the situation for independent and art house films is more favourable in multiplexes in India. This leads on to the next point about an increasingly cine-literate middle class film audience.

For many fans and cinephiles of Indian cinema, the Internet and especially blogging have produced an alternative source of online discourse. It is a discourse controlled by bloggers who write regularly and passionately about Indian cinema, bringing to light the innovation of directors and films that have been ignored or crushed beneath the commercial weight of the mainstream. The blogosphere has in turn given rise to hard-to-find Indian films being made available to download on torrent sites or uploaded on to YouTube. Many of the major Indian DVD labels have also tapped into the commercial potential of YouTube by setting up dedicated channels, allowing users to stream films for free with English subtitles. In conclusion, the new media have played an important role in expanding research opportunities and broadening academic discourse, but at the same time Indian films have become more sophisticated, niche and international in their reach.

INDIAN CINEMA TODAY

Next I want to provide some wider context to the current state of Indian cinema and how it has changed considerably in the new millennium. The term Bollywood, ‘a slang term for the commercial side of the Indian movie business’ (Chute, 2002), continues to be a term of contention among those who work in the Indian film industry, conjuring up unpleasant connotations of low culture and trashy escapism. Yet there is no denying that Bollywood has entered the lexicon of film language and that, at least in the west, this derogatory term points to the film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay).¹ Like ’world cinema’, Bollywood has become a catch-all term and a marketing-friendly one, but of course it fails to cover the sheer diversity and specificities offered by what is one of the world’s leading film industries. The central film-making hub in Mumbai, which still attracts much of the financial investment, trade coverage and the biggest film stars, is also referred to as the Hindi film industry. The regional cinemas in India distance themselves from the hegemony of Mumbai, as continues to be the case with the Tamil film industry based in Chennai. The use of the term ‘Indian cinema’ in the context of this book encompasses the entire spectrum of film-making and includes the regional film-making industries.

Since 2000 there has seen exponential technical and financial development in the Indian film industry. Producing on average 800 films a year (this figure takes into account regional output), a range of determinants has led to the rapid internationalisation of Indian cinema. In the mid-1990s, Indian cinema, particularly the Mumbai film industry, experienced one of its worst periods. This was due largely to a lack of investment in new technology, film stars juggling three to five projects a year, dubious underworld financing and the continuing reliance on formulaic storylines. July 2001 proved to be the turning point for the reconstitution of Indian cinema, with the government finally recognising film-making as an ‘industry’, allowing producers to raise financing from banks and stock markets. This not only put an end to an era of financial unaccountability, it also led to the emergence of corporate banners such as Pritish Nandy Communications, which showed a willingness to take a chance on new and talented film-makers. Reputable film production companies and integrated studios, such as UTV Motion Pictures,² led by the perceptive Ronnie Screwvala, and Yash Raj Films, spearheaded by Aditya Chopra (the son of Yash Chopra), regularly release a broad slate of films each year.

Non-Resident Indian is a term that has emerged recently, underlining the global prevalence of the Indian Diaspora especially in the UK and US. In its most general usage the term Non-Resident Indian (NRI) refers to Indian citizens who have migrated to another country yet still have a connection with their homeland. The NRI market in the UK is not a new phenomenon for producers and distributors as Indian films have regularly played in cinemas since the 1960s. However, with the rise of an affluent Indian Diaspora, the NRI film market has become more lucrative. Another indicative factor for Indian cinema’s recent transformation and fragmentation into niche film-making can in part be attributed to the rise of an educated Indian middle class. With the increase in cinema screens and the overdue recognition of Mumbai as a film-making ‘industry’, Hollywood saw a suitable commercial opportunity to invest in the Indian film industry. Sony Pictures Entertainment first initiated the trend for inward investment from Hollywood studios in 2007 with the lavish Bollywood musical Saawariya (Beloved). Each year, however, the domestic box office of India is mainly dominated by home-grown indigenous productions. Unlike many other nations with a viable film industry India has to-date managed to resist the hegemonic advances of Hollywood. Indian cinema has achieved such resistance by ensuring the distribution and exhibition network is not saturated with foreign imports.

The international interest generated by Hollywood’s first Hindi production Saawariya resulted in impressive box office results. Initially, the success of Saawariya seemed to encourage American film studios to invest in Bollywood productions. Walt Disney followed suit on an animated co-production with Yash Raj titled Roadside Romeo (2008), while Warner Bros. invested in a Kung fu parody Chandni Chowk to China (2009) – but both films performed disastrously at the box office. The international crossover film that had eluded the American studios did eventually come to fruition but from the unlikeliest of sources – Britain. In 2009 Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire became a global cultural phenomenon by winning eight Academy Awards including Best Picture. The film ignited a debate over why an indigenous Indian film had yet to achieve such worldwide commercial success. However, Indian films have become a regular feature in the Hollywood-dominated UK top ten, confirming the added value of the NRI market to the commercial evolution of popular Indian cinema.

In 2010, 47 Hindi films were released in the UK, grossing £12.4 million and claiming a 1% share of total revenues at the UK box office.³ This may seem miniscule compared to Hollywood’s role, but a closer look at the Top 20 foreign language films released in the UK and Republic of Ireland in 2010 offers an interesting picture. Out of the 20 films, 10 are mainstream Hindi films with Shah Rukh Khan’s My Name is Khan (2010) topping the list (distributed by 20th Century Fox) with an impressive £2.6 million gross. The increasing box office prevalence of Indian films at the UK box office is a trend that has been consistent for the last ten years. While mainstream Indian films backed by major film stars are the ones likely to secure a distribution deal in the UK, the emergence of the multiplex film in India points to a new direction of niche film-making. Multiplex cinemas emerged in the late 1990s in the major cities of India, attracting notably smaller audiences per screening, but ones which are more willing to engage with edgier films. This has led to niche film-making and low budget, independent productions. A current development in terms of the Indian Multiplex film⁴ has seen the re-emergence and re-fashioning of the multi-starrer film of the 1970s. Recent films such as Johnny Gaddaar (Johnny The Traitor, 2007), Delhi Belly (2011), Sankat City (2009), Kaminey (Rascals, 2009) and Shor In The City (Noise in the City, 2011) may use multiple characters and interrelated narratives that hark back to the 1970s, but the postmodern approach taken by the directors appeals to increasingly cine-literate contemporary Indian audiences. Indian multiplex cinemas are finally helping to bridge the gap between commercial and art house film. In doing so, it has proved to be commercially lucrative for new producers but also equally exciting for audiences who are faced with the prospect of new kinds of film and film-making.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

The 14 chapters cover a range of related areas. At the beginning of each chapter I have included details about the cast and crew, together with a synopsis of the film. The synopses attempt to condense the major narrative events but, due to the lengthy running time of many of the films, I have intentionally ignored some minor details. Additionally, each chapter is accompanied by a set of endnotes that expand upon specific cultural, historical and cinematic aspects of the film.

No study of Indian cinema would be complete without the cinema of Raj Kapoor. Raj Kapoor’s key role in helping to popularise Indian cinema proves to be a worthy starting point in tracing the origins and development of popular narratives and genres. The Kapoor dynasty was paramount in the evolution of mainstream Indian cinema, and the international success of Awaara (The Vagabond) in 1951 marked the beginning of a decade that would produce some of Indian cinema’s most memorable films. Chapter 1 considers a range of areas, comprising of Raj Kapoor’s status as an auteur, ideological representations, visual styles ranging from noir to expressionism, the use of song and dance as a narrative tool, and the film’s relationship with the wider context of post-partition India under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru.

The second of three films to make an appearance from the 1950s is the neo-realist masterpiece Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land, 1953) directed by Bengali film-maker Bimal Roy. Prior to the emergence of a distinctive art cinema led by Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, the aesthetics and ideologies of neo-realism as a distinctive cinematic approach were reflected sporadically in the socialist agenda of films such as Do Bigha Zamin. While Ghatak was busy filming his first film, Nagarik (The Citizen, 1952), and Ray was still struggling with the first part of The Apu Trilogy, it was Bimal Roy, a film-maker now considered part of populist cinema, who made the earliest attempt to integrate neo-realist aesthetics into the framework of a mainstream project. Chapter 2 considers the state of Indian cinema before the emergence of neo-realism, the influence of the IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association), Bimal Roy as a film-maker, the wider context including the Bengal famine of 1943-44, Balraj Sahni’s status as one of Indian cinema’s first method actors, the links to Italian neo-realist classics such as Bicycle Thieves (1948) and, finally, the various Marxist ideologies that underpin such a despairing narrative.

The third and final 1950s film Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers, 1959), directed by Guru Dutt, rounds off Chapter 3. A hymn to the golden age of the studio system, actor/director Guru Dutt’s greatest achievement was dismissed on its initial release. One of the first Indian films to be shot in cinemascope, the melancholic story of an alcoholic film-maker (Guru Dutt) and the actress he discovers (Waheeda Rehman) makes for a poetic critique of the film-making process. Chapter 3 focuses on the director’s status as one of Indian cinema’s pre-eminent auteurs, thematic dimensions, groundbreaking technical aspects, the role of lyricist Kaifi Azmi, gender representations, and the unmistakable brand of poetic fatalism that has come to define much of Dutt’s cinema.

In Chapter 4 the focus will shift to Indian art cinema with the Marxist work of Bengali director and iconoclast Ritwik Ghatak. The impressive Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960) is his best-known film. Dealing directly with the trauma of partition and its effects on a Bengali family, Ghatak’s cinema is bold, uncompromising and occupies a unique position in Indian cinema. Although his work is still somewhat overshadowed by that of Satyajit Ray, another masterful Bengali film-maker, and though many of his films are still sadly unavailable on DVD in the UK, Megha Dhaka Tara is now recognised as one of the key works of Indian art cinema. Chapter 4 discusses numerous aspects, including Ghatak’s position as a film-maker, the wider historical context such as the partition of Bengal, the relationship between melodrama and feminist concerns, the film’s categorisation as an example of 1960s counter cinema and the thematic importance of the family to the film’s narrative.

Maintaining the emphasis on Indian art cinema, Chapter 5 surveys the career and legacy of Indian cinema’s greatest film-maker, Satyajit Ray. If Raj Kapoor can be credited with popularising Indian cinema around the globe, then Satyajit Ray can certainly lay claim to bringing a measure of artistic credibility and sincerity to Indian cinema. Choosing a favourite Ray film was a tricky proposition given the consistency he maintained as a film-maker over four decades. He may have built his reputation on the Apu trilogy, winning major awards at film festivals, but his lifelong fascination with Bengali novelist Rabindranath Tagore provided the source material for some of his finest and most complex works. Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964) forms the focus for Chapter 5, which covers the Bengal renaissance, Satyajit Ray’s status as an auteur, gender representations in the films of Ray, camera and narrative style, the relationships between the three central characters, political undercurrents, and the film’s portrayal of married life in the Bengali middle class.

The courtesan film has been popular with audiences for a long time but today it is rare to see a mainstream Indian film choosing to use the figure of the courtesan to address the concerns of women in society. An extension of the Muslim Social, the courtesan film reached its creative epoch in the 1970s, exhausting genre possibilities with the erotic spectacle Pakeezah (Pure of Heart, 1972). A complicated production, film-maker Kamal Amrohi took fourteen years to complete Pakeezah. Unfortunately for Indian cinema’s tragedy queen Meena Kumari, who starred in the film, alcoholism cut short her life, and she never got to see what many consider to be her most accomplished work. Chapter 6 analyses Pakeezah from a range of critical perspectives, including the conventions, origins and history of the courtesan film, the production history and struggle to finish the film, representations of the courtesan related to sexuality and eroticism, an analysis of the song and dance sequences and their relationship to ideology, and the demise of the courtesan film in the contemporary era.

Chapter 7 returns to the often overlooked area of Indian art cinema with Shyam Benegal’s seminal Ankur (The Seedling, 1972). The emergence of state-sponsored filmmaking in the late 1960s with Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969) laid the foundations for a new cinematic discourse, giving way to the next phase in the development of Indian art cinema, dubbed by many as ‘parallel cinema’. The work of film-maker Shyam Benegal forms a major part of the parallel cinema movement, and the rural trilogy of films characterising his early work not only sympathised with the oppressed underclass but also established an influential political precedent for many of the young film-makers emerging from the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India. Not much academic work exists on parallel cinema, and many of the films that encompass the movement are currently unavailable on DVD. Due to the nature of the book it is not possible to offer a comprehensive overview of parallel cinema, but at the same time it would be hard not to include a landmark film such as Ankur as a key text to approaching the movement. In this chapter the areas under discussion will include the origins and context of New Indian cinema, definitions of parallel cinema and its importance to the development of art cinema, Shyam Benegal’s authorial status, key ideological strands and the film’s role in helping to politicise cinema in India.

Unlike Hollywood, which has seen the rise of high concept cinema overshadow the power a film star once possessed at the box office, Indian cinema, especially mainstream Hindi films, continues to underline the significance of film stars and views them as paramount to the development and marketing of most feature films. The angry young man persona of Indian cinema’s biggest film star, Amitabh Bachchan, forged in an era of widespread political disillusionment, found its greatest expression in the 1975 super-hit Deewaar (The Wall). Chapter 8 moves away from Indian art cinema to the attractions of the mainstream film Deewaar, engaging with a range of key areas, such as the wider political context of the 1975 Indian Emergency, the angry young man as a sociopolitical symbol, representations encompassing matriarchy, religion and poverty, Amitabh Bachchan’s star image and the lasting legacy of Deewaar for today’s cinema.

Addressing the issue of poverty has been a continuous feature of Indian cinema. Mira Nair’s award-winning directorial debut Salaam Bombay! (1988), depicting the lives of Bombay’s impoverished street children, is one of the most moving Indian films of the 1980s. It was also one of the few Indian films to find an international, largely art-house, audience while launching the career of Diaspora film-maker Mira Nair, who resides in America. Chapter 9, aptly titled ‘Reality of the Dispossessed’, deals with Indian Diaspora cinema, Mira Nair as a female director, the production history of the shoot, the iconography of the urban slum in Indian cinema, representations of family, poverty and power in the city of Bombay and the film’s criticisms of the state.

Taking a leap of exactly ten years, Chapter 10 uses director Mani Ratnam’s 1998 film Dil Se (From the Heart) to engage critically with changing representations of terrorism in contemporary Indian cinema. Mani Ratnam is recognised by many critics and the Indian film industry as one of its finest and most commercially successful film-makers. Dil Se was Ratnam’s first Hindi film and the third part in a loose trilogy of films dealing with the relationship between nationalism, terrorism and urban violence. Chapter 10 will also discuss regional film-making in India, particularly Tamil cinema, Mani Ratnam’s concerns as an auteur, the music of Dil Se and composer A. R. Rahman and, perhaps most importantly, the impact the film had at the UK box office with the NRI audience.

Over the last ten years Indian cinema has seen an explosion in urban-based crime films. A haunting and gripping study of the Mumbai underworld, Satya (1998) was the catalyst for the Mumbair noir film genre. Satya has influenced many recent films in terms of both style and tone, including most pertinently Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. A cult film abroad, Satya was an unexpected commercial success at the box office. Chapter 11 approaches Satya from a range of perspectives, including the rise of Ram Gopal Varma as a genre provocateur and producer, the production contexts, genre and the relationship with the American gangster film, the gangster as tragic hero and finally the significance the film holds as heralding a new vanguard of talented writers, directors and actors.

In 2001 film-maker Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan (Land Tax), an epic essay on cricket, the British Empire and the collective will of a group of village farmers, joined the ranks of an elite group of Indian films to be nominated for an Academy Award. Lagaan quickly acquired the label of a contemporary classic and revived the career of film star Aamir Khan. Chapter 12 offers a detailed and critically engaged study of the film, covering areas such as the audience response to the film, representations of the British Raj, colonialism and imperialism, song and dance as narrative storytelling, the ideological value of religion and the sports film as a vehicle for exploring national concerns.

The penultimate chapter returns to Indian art cinema with the revolutionary politics of Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (A Thousand Dreams Like These, 2003). Dismissed by audiences on its release, it has grown to become one of the best-reviewed Indian films of its time. Set against the backdrop of the radical Naxalite movement in 1970s India, Mishra’s evocative film is a rare example of contemporary political cinema influenced by the work of Shyam Benegal and Mrinal Sen. The chapter discusses a range of areas including the origins and evolution of political cinema with a particular focus on Bengali director Mrinal Sen, the positioning of the film within broader Naxalite cinema, an analysis of director Sudhir Mishra’s career and key ideologies contested amongst the central characters.

Director Deepa Mehta’s elements trilogy – Fire (1996), Earth (1998) and Water (2005) – forms the basis of critical engagement for the final chapter. Both Fire and Earth are discussed in some detail while the focus of the chapter remains with the final film Water, which in my opinion is Mehta’s greatest achievement to date. Water is arguably also one of the most controversial films to have been made by an Indian film-maker since it addresses the religiously sensitive issue of Hindu widows. Due to the bulk of financing originating from Canada, Water is labelled as a Canadian film, thus complicating Mehta’s position as an Indian film-maker. Residing in Canada, Mehta, like Nair, is part of the Indian Diaspora. The chapter approaches the trilogy from an ideological perspective, exploring the politics of sexuality in Fire and the politics of nationalism in Earth. Water is looked at in terms of its controversial production history, its depiction of Hindu widows and the interaction of ideology and politics.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Bombay officially became Mumbai in 1995. When the right-wing Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena won elections in the state of Maharashtra, they argued that historically the city port had been named after the Hindu Goddess Mumbadevi. Devotion to the Goddess Mumbadevi stretches back to the 15th century. The change of names was an attempt on part of the Shiv Sena party in Maharashtra to reconstruct the identity of the city so it would reflect more of an overt Marathi identity.

2.   Founded in 1996, UTV Motion Pictures is a relatively new production house and currently one of the most successful in India. An international operation, UTV is involved in the production and distribution of films in both India and Hollywood. The slate of films they release each year tends to be marked by high production values and auteur-led cinema. Notable films include Swades (Homeland, 2004), Rang De Basanti (Paint it Yellow, 2006), Life in a Metro (2007), Jodhaa Akbar (2008), Delhi 6 (2009), Peepli Live (2010) and Udaan (Flight, 2010). UTV Motion Pictures has been particularly influential over the last ten years in raising the standards of marketing in the industry. In 2008, UTV became one of the first Indian film production companies to invest in a Hollywood production: The Happening. The founder/chairman/producer Ronnie Screwvala is regarded as an Indian equivalent of film producer Harvey Weinstein.

3.   Each year the UK Film Council (now abolished) published a comprehensive breakdown of the UK film market including detailed statistics on box office, audience tastes and attendance figures.

4.   India’s first multiplex cinema opened in Delhi in 1997, leading to an explosion of cinema screens across the major urban areas. The ticket prices for multiplex cinemas tend to be much higher when compared to traditional single screen cinemas. Multiplex cinemas account for at least 900 screens, with PVR Cinemas (Priya Village Roadshow) dominating the landscape. It is not surprising that the growth in niche film-making has coincided with the emergence of multiplex cinemas. The Indian multiplex film may not be widely used as a term, but a body of films have been produced over the last few years sharing some of the same characteristics in terms of both style and content. Recent films include Dev D (2009), Luck By Chance (2009), Kaminey (2009), Road Movie (2009) and Love, Sex Aur Dhoka (2010). One of the main champions of the multiplex film has been the director, writer and producer Anurag Kashyap.

CHAPTER ONE: POPULAR NARRATIVES

AWAARA (THE VAGABOND, 1951, DIR. RAJ KAPOOR)

Produced by Raj Kapoor for R. K. Films Ltd & All India Film Corporation

Written by K. A. Abbas (screenplay & dialogue), Story by V. P. Sathe & K. A. Abbas

Cinematography by Radhu Karmakar

Film Editing by G. G. Mayekar

Art Direction by M. R. Achrekar

Set Decoration by K. Damodar

Choreography by Krishna Kumar, Surya Kumar & Madame Simkir (dream sequence)

Sound Editing by Allaudin Khan Qureshi

Original Music by Shanker-Jaikishan

Lyrics by Shailendra & Hasrat Jaipuri

Playback Singers – Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh & Mohammad Rafi

Runtime: 193 min

Main Cast:

SYNOPSIS

Judge Raghunath (Privithraj Kapor) and Leela (Leela Chitnis) are happily married. A local bandit Jagga (K. N. Singh) kidnaps Leela in revenge for being sent to jail by Judge Raghunath. While Leela is in captivity Jagga discovers that she is pregnant. However, Raghunath is not privy to such information. Upon Leela’s return, Raghunath is delighted to hear the news of the pregnancy but secretly begins to suspect the child might not be his. Overcome with paranoia, Raghunath ejects a pregnant Leela from the house. Ostracised and impoverished, Leela struggles to put her son through school. When Leela falls ill, Raj feels helpless until Jagga intervenes to take Raj under his wing. Jagga knows Raj is Raghunath’s son and sets about to teach the Judge a lesson. Raj is caught stealing bread and sent to jail. Upon his release Raj the petty criminal is now grown up and leaves prison with an aim to reform. He meets Rita, and they quickly discover they were once childhood friends. A romance develops between Raj and Rita. We discover that Rita lives with Judge Raghunath and looks after him. To win Rita’s respect, Raj attempts to reject the life of crime and get a normal job but he finds it difficult with people like Raghunath judging him. In defending the honour of his mother Raj kills Jagga. On her deathbed Leela finally reveals to Raj that his father is Judge Raghunath. A furious Raj tries to murder Raghunath but fails and is put on trial. In court Rita defends Raj and Raghunath finally accepts the legitimacy of his son. Although Raj rejects his father’s premature reconciliation, Rita promises to wait for Raj once he is released from prison.

1. RAJ KAPOOR IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The Kapoor family is unique in the history of cinema, Indian or international. In the first decade of the new millennium, the fourth generation of Kapoors continues to be on the cinema marquees. (Jain, 2005: 14)

In late 2007 Saawariya (Beloved),¹ the first Indian film to be fully financed by a Hollywood studio (Sony Pictures), opened in cinemas opposite the Shahrukh Khan vehicle Om Shanti Om. Accusations of nepotism predictably greeted the release of Saawariya as it featured in the lead roles two newcomers from illustrious cinematic dynasties: Ranbir Kapoor² (son of Rishi Kapoor) and Sonam Kapoor³ (daughter of Anil Kapoor). Based on a short story by Dostoevsky (‘White Nights’) and orchestrated by director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Saawariya, like a lot of Indian cinema today, owes an oversized debt to the legacy of the Kapoor dynasty. Bhansali’s homage is an affectionate one, visualising the larger than life persona of Ranbir Kapoor’s Raj around a litany of intertextual references recalling most memorably the films of his grandfather Raj Kapoor. The on-screen persona of the lovable vagabond whom Raj Kapoor immortalised in such classic films as Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (Mr. 420, 1955)⁴ finds a personal connection in the opening of Saawariya which sees a youthful Raj arriving in the city as the innocent stranger.

A great deal has been written of the much-publicised relationship between Raj Kapoor and his muse, Nargis. Best remembered for her role in Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957)⁵, Nargis starred in a total of sixteen films with Raj Kapoor. Raised in a middle class Muslim family, Nargis, like Raj Kapoor, was a child star, appearing in her first film at the age of six. Before she came to work exclusively for Raj Kapoor, beginning with Aag (Fire) in 1948, Nargis was already a star in her own right having acted in a number of mainstream films. Nargis maintained a low public profile and was one of the first Indian film stars to use her fame to propagate the cause of charitable organisations. She exuded a combination of traditional feminine qualities alongside a secular, progressive vision of Indian society that director Mehboob Khan exalted in Mother India.

On its release, Awaara achieved widespread critical and commercial acclaim, breaking through into the international markets and demonstrating just why Raj Kapoor had endeavoured to create his own film studio and production banner. Awaara became hugely popular in Russia, and Raj Kapoor’s persona of the lovable vagabond struck a chord with audiences who revelled in the film’s sympathetic depiction of an individual consumed and destroyed by the capitalist city. The Marxist tendencies of influential scriptwriter K. A. Abbas might have had something to do with the warm ideological embrace that greeted the film when it opened in the Soviet Union. Elevated to the status of superstars, both Raj Kapoor and Nargis enjoyed a euphoric reception when they visited Russia in 1956. In Madhu Jain’s fascinating book on the Kapoor dynasty, she states that it was the trip to Russia which finally made Nargis realise that it was her director Raj Kapoor who was the real star in their relationship. It was the beginning of the end to their much publicised director-actress collaboration. A year later Mother India reinvented Nargis, transforming her into one of the most powerful stars in the industry. The famous Raj Kapoor-Nargis love affair was finally brought to a close when Nargis surprised those around her by marrying actor Sunil Dutt.⁶ Her last appearance for Raj Kapoor would amount to a fleeting cameo in the 1956 film Jagte Raho (Stay Alert).

In Saawariya, actor/director Raj Kapoor’s cinematic muse Nargis finds authorial expression in the character of Sakina, played by Sonam Kapoor. The continuing attraction of Raj Kapoor’s films underlines the dominant hold he exacts over contemporary Indian cinema. In a key scene towards the end of Saawariya, Raj and Sakina flirt with one another around a fountain while it begins to snow. As Raj catches Sakina before she tumbles from the fountain, he gazes romantically into her eyes. As he does so the iconic bowler hat and umbrella framed against the glow given out by the neon sign from the RK bar references both Shree 420 and most strikingly the famous RK logo that was taken from the embrace between Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Barsaat (Rain, 1949). In this celebratory pause, the past and present generations