SYLLABUS

University of San Francisco

Fall 2012

INDIAN-CINEMA

Professor Vamsee Juluri

Class meets Thursday 6.30-9.30 in CO 106

Office & hours: KA118 TR 3.30-4.30 and by appt.

Contact: juluri@usfca.edu or 422-5699

Indian cinema has become somewhat famous in the West in recent years, most notably through the use of the phrase “Bollywood.” However, the depth and breadth of the film cultures of India far exceeds the few examples we are beginning to discover over here, and the clichés about singing and dancing stars barely describes what this immense cultural phenomenon is all about.  The object of this course is not only the world’s largest film industry, but also how it functions as the single largest available cultural mirror of the world’s largest democracy.

In other words, you cannot have a class on Indian cinema, without understanding India, and more interestingly for us, as media students, you cannot ever have a class on understanding India without understanding Indian cinema. India’s movies are often times the only common point of cultural identification in a country of vast and complex diversities: India is a secular democracy, and in recent years a rising economic power, and remains a country in which there are at least five major religions, twenty plus languages with millions of speakers, and thousands of other social groups organized around caste, tribe, or ethnicity. 

The class will seek to explore how the film industries and cultures of India (note the plural, there is not only “Bollywood,” but also “Tollywood” and “Kollywood” that you will encounter in this class) reflect and shape the hopes and aspirations of a complex postcolonial nation that is becoming increasingly important to the United States and to the world.  The class will proceed in the following manner.  We will begin by discussing some problems and challenges in studying Indian cinema and India in the West and move on to a historical study of various phases in Indian cinema and in Indian popular consciousness. We begin with the mythological genre (India is one of the few countries where“mythology” is a living tradition) and cover the nation-building films of the Nehruvian era in the 1950s and 60s, the “angry young man” vigilante films of the 1970s that reflected a nation’s disappointment with its own progress, the new regionalistic and pop-nationalistic films of the 1980s, and finally, in some depth, some major themes in post-globalization movies of the 1990s onwards, such as terrorism, family, and diasporic life. 

Learning outcomes:

a)      To critically appreciate how film industries and cultures arise from particular historical contexts and in turn shape those contexts, particularly from a postcolonial perspective

b)      To acquire a working knowledge of the diverse film and non-film cultures of India, and the growing global role that Indian cinema is making for itself.

c)      To situate all of these in an appreciation of growing US-India cultural and economic relations, and how these relations can be shaped by us for goals of social justice rather than mere commercial aggrandizement.

Assignments:

1. Class Participation (20%)

2. Mid-Term (short answer, in-class) Test (20%)

3. Critical Film Review (20%)

A short (3-4 pages) sociological review of any one film screened in the class, showing your application of concepts learned in class as well as an appreciation of the contexts of power and culture in India highlighted by the film.

4. Final Paper (40%)

The final paper should show your sustained engagement with an issue or set of issues pertaining to India and Indian cinema. A list of suggested topics and questions will be provided for your guidance.

Readings:

a)      Bollywood: A guidebook to popular Hindi cinema, by T. Ganti (required)

b)      The Greatest Show on Earth: Writings on Bollywood by Jerry Pinto (required)

c)      The Mythologist: A Novel by Vamsee Juluri (required)

d)     Becoming a Global Audience by Vamsee Juluri (suggested)

e)      Online readings (available under course reserves at the library website)

f)       Other online articles and resources will also be provided through the class blog: indiancinema2012usf.blogspot.com

CLASS SCHEDULE

(Note: Indian films are long! We will do our best to sample them in class, but you should plan on further viewing online outside of class time as well.)

Week 1. Introduction (8/23/12)

Week 2. India and Indian Cinema (8/30)

How is cinema central to India? What are some of the basic terms and issues in Indian culture and cinema (including Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, and Mollywood)?

Readings: 

a)      Tejaswini Ganti, Bollywood, Chapters 1 and 2

b)      Juluri, Amma: Superstar, Open Magazine

(http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/true-life/amma-superstar)

Screening: Bollywood Calling

Week 3. Representing India: Hollywood and “Bollywood” (9/6)

Why is representation an important issue in global media studies? How has the image of India (and Indian cinema) played out in the Western imagination?

Readings:

 a) Andrew Rotter, From Comrades at Odds (reader)

b) Pico Iyer, Here on Planet Tollywood,
(http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2012/03/tollywood-201203)

c) Sen, You still eat with your hands? from First Post

(http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/you-still-eat-with-your-hands-oprahs-magical-mystery-tour-of-india-385494.html)

Screening: Slumdog Millionaire, Oprah, Moulin Rouge, Bollywood Hero (Chris Kattan)

Week 4. Mythology and the Dawn of Indian Cinema (9/13)

Why were mythologicals the most important genre in early Indian cinema? How did mythology and nationalism intersect in the Phalke era? What are the different ways in which myth plays out in the novel The Mythologist?

Readings: 

a)      Chidananda Das Gupta, Seeing and believing (reader)

b)      Juluri, The Mythologist: A Novel

c)      Interviews on www.themythologist.com

Screening: Harischandraschi Factory (Marathi), A Game of Chess (Silent)

Week 5. Mythology-2 (9/20)

What are some of the main features of Hinduism and how did they shape Indian cinema and the experience of viewing Indian cinema?  How did Gandhi interpret Hinduism?

a)      Steven Rosen, From The hidden glory of India (reader)

b)       Bhikhu Parekh, From Gandhi: A very short introduction (reader)

c)      Juluri, The Mythologist: A Novel

Screening: Tukaram (Marathi), Maya Bazaar (Telugu)

Week 6. Post Independence Cinema: Nehru and the Nation-Building Dream (9/27)

How did Indian cinema become a cultural force for nationalism in its early years? How did the films of the 1950s express the hopes and fears of a newly independent nation? Why is the Nehruvian paradigm important to understanding India?  Raj Kapoor.

Readings:

a) Sumita Chakravarty, From National identity in Indian cinema (reader)

b) R. Bakshi, Raj Kapoor (reader)

c) M. Jain, The showman in love (Pinto)

Screening: “Jagte Raho”

Week 7. The “Angry Young Man”: National disenchantment and the antihero (10/4)

How did the fading of the nationalist dream find reflection in the violent films of the 1970s? Why did mothers, brothers separated at birth, smugglers, and vengeance become the popular themes of the time? Amitabh Bachchan. TEST

Readings:

a)      Vachani, Bacchanalias (online reader)

b)      S. Dasgupta, The birth of tragedy (Pinto)

c)      A. Chopra, The fall and rise of Sholay (Pinto)

d)     Pinto, The cure of all the sorrows in the world (Pinto)

e)      Mukherjee, Marrying Hema (Pinto)

Screening: “Amar Akbar Anthony” “Sholay” “Don”

Week 8. The South Rises: Regionalism and Film Stars in Politics (10/18)

Why did the Tamil and Telugu film industries produce so many film star politicians? Who were MGR and NTR, and how did they come to rule two huge South Indian states? What is the role of fan clubs in political activism?

Readings: a) Sara Dickey, Consuming Utopia (reader)

                 b) S.V. Srinivas, Devotion and defiance in fan activity (reader)

Screenings: “Superman” (Telugu), “Indra” (Telugu)

Week 9. Separatism and Nationalism: Hindus, Muslims, Indians (10/25)

How did the films of the early 1990s reflect the political tensions of a multicultural democracy on the threshold of globalization? Why did violence come to replace Gandhian sentiments in Indian cinema?

Readings:

a)      Niranjana & Srinivas: Managing the crisis (reader)

b)      Haham, Coolie (Pinto)

c)      Mathai, A. R. Rahman (Pinto)

Screenings: “Indian” “Dil Se” “Bombay”

Week 10.  Globalization and Indian Cinema: Pop goes Bollywood (11/1)  REVIEW DUE

How did economic liberalization and the coming of MTV change Indian cinema’s mandate and look in the 1990s? Why is it called the “Riverdaling” of Bollywood?

Readings:

a)      Manu Joseph, Riverdale Sonata (reader)

b)      Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan (Pinto)

c)      Juluri, Becoming a Global Audience (Chapters 1 and 2)

d)     Dwyer, Shooting stars (reader)

Screenings: “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” “Salam Namaste”

Week 11. Globalization and Indian Cinema: Recovering the family (11/8)

How did the family re-emerge as a locus of identification under accelerated conditions of capitalist modernity in the early years of globalization? Why was HAHK one of the biggest hits of all time? Why are weddings important in Indian movies?

Reading: a) Juluri, Global weds local (reader)

               b) India Today, How India families live (reader)

Screening: “Hum Aapke Hain Koun” (HAHK)

             

Week 12. Globalization and Indian Cinema: Gandhi, Nonviolence, Terrorism (11/15)

How does the philosophy of nonviolence help us interpret the narrative of revenge and redemption in Mission: Kashmir? Does Bollywood have a better vision for peace and security than Hollywood in the post 9/11 world?

Readings: a) Juluri, “Global and medieval” but Gandhian Still? (will be provided)

Screening: “Mission: Kashmir,” “Lage Raho Munnabhai”

Week 13. Diaspora, Dialogue and the future of Indian Cinema; Presentations (11/27)

Where are the Indian-American films taking us? What are the possibilities of the first Indian “crossover” success? Is an “Indian-global” vision in the media sustainable?

FINAL PAPER DUE 12/15/2012 BY EMAIL