Time Schedule:
Sudhir Mahadevan
C LIT 315
Seattle Campus
Examines the cinema of a particular national, ethnic or cultural group, with films typically shown in the original language with subtitles. Topics reflect themes and trends in the national cinema being studied. .
Class description
This brief summer course will offer an introduction to several traditions of Indian film-making that have been overshadowed, critically and commercially, by India's behemoth commercial film industries. The films and filmmakers we will consider depart self-consciously from commercial cinema and its format of action spectacle, heightened emotions, and song and dance sequences.
Our focus will be on seven films: Pather Panchali (Song of the Road, Satyajit Ray, 1955), Meghe Dhaka Tara (The cloud-capped star, Ritwik Ghatak, 1960), Bhuvan Shome (Mr. Shome, Mrinal Sen, 1969), Ankur (The Seedling, Shyam Benegal, 1974), Chashme Buddoor (Shield against the Evil Eye, Sai Paranjpe, 1981), Ram ke Naam (In the name of god, Anand Patwardhan, 1992), and Raghu Romeo (Rajat Kapur, 2003).
These films traverse diverse genres and styles. Some are influenced by literary and cinematic conceptions of realism. Others, by Third Cinema initiatives that were in evidence in Latin America and elsewhere in the 1960s and 1970s or the French New Wave and the cinema vérité. Still other filmmakers pushed melodrama - also to be found in India’s commercial cinema - to express specific historical tragedies through combination with other folk and community forms of narration (the epic; street and musical theater). More recent documentary, independent, and "middle-cinema" (presented as neither "art" nor "commercial" in inclination, and often comedic) examples round out our brief survey.
Student learning goals
Through a study of a specific set of films made in India, students will get an introduction to the nature, scope and history of India's film industry from independence (1947) to the present
Students will compare, identify and discuss stylistic and formal differences between India's commercial films and its "art", "parallel", and documentary cinema traditions
They will learn how "parallel" cinema came into being in India, how filmmakers invoked these categories to mark their films as different from commercial films, and how these categories were further entrenched by prominent film and government institutions.
They will trace the fate of "parallel" cinema after the arrival of cable and satellite television in the 1990s and identify the reasons for the demise of parallel filmmaking, and the nature of independent filmmaking in India today.
They will learn how India's art filmmakers were influenced by cinematic trends and styles from other locations and countries.
They will explore the relation between film and ideologies of class, religion, politics and gender in modern India.
General method of instruction
Lectures and group discussions, accompanied by slideshows, and clips from additional films
Recommended preparation
Readings available through a course pack
Class assignments and grading
Quizzes, short response papers and one essay
Performance in quizzes, timely submission of short response papers and a longer essay
