The Melodramatic Public Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema
What does it mean to say Indian movies are melodramatic? How do film audiences engage with socio-political issues? What role has cinema played in the emergence of new economic forms, consumer cultures and digital technologies in a globalizing India? Ravi
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The Melodramatic Public Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema
RAVI VASUDEVAN
THE MELODRAMATIC PUBLIC
Copyright © Ravi Vasudevan, 2011. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-24764-2 All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by Permanent Black, Ranikhet, India. First published in the United States in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-59042-1 ISBN 978-0-230-11812-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-11812-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vasudevan, Ravi. The melodramatic public : film form and spectatorship in Indian cinema / Ravi Vasudevan. p. cm. 1. Motion pictures—India. 2. Melodrama in motion pictures. 3. Motion pictures—Social aspects—India. I. Title. PN1993.5.I4V375 2011 791.430954—dc22
2010039768
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Guru Typograph Technology, Dwarka, New Delhi 110075. First PALGRAVE MACMILLAN edition: March 2011
for Amma and in memory of Achan
Contents Acknowledgements
xiii
Introduction 1 Indian Cinema Today . . . . . . and Yesterday 2 The Thematics of Melodrama 3 The Shifting Agenda of Film Studies in India
1 1 4 8 10
1 The Melodramatic Public II: DEBATES IN MELODRAMA STUDIES 1 The Archaeology of Melodrama in Euro-American Theatre and Cinema 2 Melodrama as Generalized Mode of Cinematic Narration 3 Melodrama vs Classical Narrative Cinema 4 The Post-Colonial Question: Melodrama vs Realism 5 Deconstructing the Universal and the National
16 17
II: 6 7 8 9 10
THINKING ABOUT MELODRAMA IN INDIAN CINEMA Pre-Cinema Histories Film Form: The Heterogeneous Popular Format Melodramatic Interventions ‘Horizontal’ and ‘Vertical’ Articulations Revisiting Melodrama in Hollywood
17 20 26 28 31 34 34 38 42 46 56
PART I MELODRAMATIC AND OTHER PUBLICS
Introduction Narrative Forms and Modes of Address in Indian Cinema
65
67 67
viii
Contents
2 Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: Realist Art Cinema Criticism and Popular Film Form 1 Critical Discourses in the 1950s 2 Popular Narrative Form Visual Figures Appropriations and Transformations of ‘Modern’ Codes The Street and the Dissolution of Social Identity Iconic Transactions 3 Redefining the Popular: Melodrama and Realism 4 The Popular Cultural Politics of the Social Film
·· ·· ··
3 The Cultural Politics of Address in a ‘Transitional’ Cinema 1 Indian Popular Cinema Genres and Discourses of Transformation 2 Dominant Currents in Contemporary Criticism 3 The Politics of Indian
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