Crossovers and Makeovers: Contested Authenticity in New Indian Cinema Ranjit Keval Kumar University of Wollongong
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University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2011 Crossovers and makeovers: contested authenticity in new Indian cinema Ranjit Keval Kumar University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Kumar, Ranjit Keval, Crossovers and makeovers: contested authenticity in new Indian cinema, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Wollongong. Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong, 2011. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3417 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: [email protected]. Crossovers and Makeovers: Contested Authenticity in new Indian Cinema A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of this degree Ph D from UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by RANJIT KEVAL KUMAR (B.A., M.A.) ARTS FACULTY 2011 i CERTIFICATION I, Ranjit Keval Kumar, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution. Ranjit Keval Kumar 29th August 2011 ii ABSTRACT Crossovers and Makeovers: Contested Authenticity in new Indian Cinema The nation-based models for studying cinemas of the world have been muddled by international co-productions and films that do not fit into simplistic categories of autonomous national cultures. This thesis is about the Indian industry’s reassessment of itself and perceived authenticity of ‘Indian’ cinema as it changes to meet the prospect of gaining a Western audience. I will look at narrative idiosyncrasies in contemporary Indian cinema (and more specifically Bollywood cinema), the function of genre in Bollywood films, the emergence of the crossover, how it complicates the national picture. The historical occasion that gives rise to such a discussion is the release of movies such as Monsoon Wedding (Dir:Mira Nair 2001), Lagaan (Dir: Ashutosh Gowarikar 2001) and Bride and Prejudice (Dir: Gurinder Chadha 2004) this thesis shows how this mode differs from existing cinemas such as regional cinema and Bollywood cinema and assesses challenges for transnational products searching for other foreign audiences iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My parents and my sister are the most important people in my life and there is no way I could have done anything without them, leave alone a Phd thesis. Special thanks to Lucy Gilbert for being a constant supporter especially close to submission date. A big thank you to my closest friends Nicholas Southall, Jesse Whitmore, Eve Southall, Tim Ryan, Kate Biffin, Danielle Brennan, Shwetha Pillay, Stefan and Amanda Parkman who have been there with me through thick and thin. …and my supervisors Paul, Kate and Brian who have been so dedicated to this project and so supportive of me. I have been the luckiest Phd student to get the best supervisors that I could possibly get. v Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………….……………………………………iv Acknowledgments………………………………..………………………………..vi 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 1 1.1 Bollywood, Indian and Crossover film: The muddling of terms…………………………………………………………… ……... 8 1.2 Background: What is the crossover………………………………… 9 1.3 Indian films: the umbrella term……………………………………... 12 Bollywood, art films and regional films…………..…………………. 14 The Bollycat……………………………………………………………. 15 Bollywood and the Diaspora………………………………………….. 16 Art house films………………………………………………………….18 1.4 Satyajit Ray, Merchant-Ivory: transnational narrative and the cultural crossover……………….. ……………………………………………...20 1.5 The ‘authentication’ argument and the ‘national synthesis’ argument………………………………………………….…………….24 1.6 Cultural discount used as an approach to analyse inbound and outbound crossover films………………………………………………………...…... 27 1.7 Methodology and chapter sequence……………………….....……... 29 Internet discourse………………………………………….........….. 35 2(a) Literature Review…………………………………………………… ……... 39 2.1 Genre and Bollywood………………………………................ ……... 40 vi 2.2 Existing within the narrative vs. existing outside the narrative: bricolage, realism, tourism and fantasy…………………………………. ……... 42 2.3 Towards a theory of Pleasure Pauses………………………………... 55 2(b) Inside the pleasure pauses………………………………………………... 63 2.4 Pleasure pauses that ‘Advance, Break and Complement’…............. 63 Song-and-dance sequences: The functional aspects…………. …….. 65 The Interval: the case of the premature climax……………………... 70 The voyeur’s imagination in Censorship in Indian films……….…… 74 Item song: the fourth type of pleasure pause………………………... 79 Sub-plots and character background………………………………… 82 3 Bollycat: No art is born out of thin air………………………………............ 85 3.1 Inspired or pilfered…………………………………………………… 88 3.2 Mis-appropriation……………………………………………………. 93 3.3 The Gap: Production house driven, director-driven Bollycats……. 97 3.4 The director-driven copy…………………………………………….. 102 3.5 When Harry met Sally met Hum Tum: A case study………...…….....107 Commonalities and differences between Hum Tum and When Harry met Sally...................................................................................... 109 Censorship, cultural discount and the ‘open sexuality debate’...…... 112 Song-and-dance, sub-plots and other pleasure pauses……………. 116 3.6 Conclusion: Hybridity and the Bollycat…………………………….. 119 vii 4 “Yet the appetite exists”: diasporic films, critical vocabularies and the creation of the crossover market ………………….…………………………………... 122 4.1 Conflicts with perception of identity: The Bollywood NRI film…… 124 4.2 Living together vs. living apart: Integration vs. disassociation……. 131 4.3 The term crossover and its usage……………………………………. 135 4.4 The Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon parameter…………………… 141 4.5 Hybridised narrative: Bollywood/Hollywood, Monsoon Wedding, Bride and Prejudice and their hybridised narrative……………………….. 147 4.6 Hybridised narrative in Monsoon Wedding, a diasporic crossover film, and in Black, a Bollywood film………………………………………. 149 5 Crossing Over: The different types of crossover (and non-crossover) films 5.1 The typology………………………………………………………….. 153 The methodology………………………………………………………. 158 5.2 Problem cases: Authentically Indian but not crossover films……... 159 5.3 The indigenous crossover Film: Almost crossover but not quite…. 165 5.4 Case study of Lagaan…………………………………………………. 170 5.5 The Diasporic crossover films……………………………………….. 175 The provocative crossover film………………….…………………….. 175 The ‘Hollywood/Bollywood’ crossover film…………………………...179 5.6 Case study of the Hollywood/Bollywood crossover film Bride and Prejudice………………………………………………………………. 182 Song and dance sequences…………………………………………... 184 ‘Item song’……………………………………………………….……... 187 viii Censorship…………………………………………………………… 189 Sub-plot………………………………………………………………. 189 6 Conclusion: The Touristic Gaze Movies…………………...……………….. 191 6.1 Touristic gaze in Slumdog Millionaire………………………………. 191 6.2 The plot of Slumdog Millionaire………………………………………192 6.3 Why does Slumdog not ‘crossover’ to India: “poverty porn” vs modern India……………………………………………..……………...............193 6.4 Critical responses……………………………………………............... 201 6.5 Outsider VS Insider: Why Boyle, Why not Ratnam?........................ 202 6.6 Slumdog: The re-emerging Hollycat………………………………… 205 6.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………...……... 210 Bibliography………………..……………….……………………………………..216 Filmography.............................................................................................................228 ix 1.0 Introduction: The nation-based models for studying cinemas of the world have been muddled by international co-productions and films that do not fit into simplistic categories of autonomous national cultures. This thesis is about the Indian industry’s reassessment of itself and management of the perceived authenticity of ‘Indian’ cinema as it changes to meet the prospect of gaining a Western audience. I will look at narrative idiosyncrasies in contemporary Indian cinema (and more specifically Bollywood cinema) and the function of genre in Bollywood films. This will provide a basis on which to chart the emergence of a new ‘crossover’ genre and show how it complicates the national picture. This thesis is aimed at broad disciplinary readership, to explain underlying Indian narrative models that help structure the crossover. The aim of this project is not only to show the emergence of a new genre mode within Indian cinema but also to show how this mode differs from existing cinemas such as regional cinema and Bollywood cinema. The historical occasion that gives rise to such a discussion is the release of movies such as Monsoon Wedding (Dir:Mira Nair 2001), Lagaan (Tax Dir: Ashutosh Gowarikar 2001) and Bride and Prejudice (Dir: Gurinder Chadha 2004) that signal the rise of a new format and a further blurring of the types of Indian cinema. It has now become much harder to classify what nationality a film belongs to because of the increasing appearance of global hybrid narratives. In India, films achieving overseas success now often blend the narrative of indigenous Indian films with Hollywood and other non-local film narratives, as well as relying on the participation of technicians and actors from diverse countries. This phenomenon is not an India-centric one but is occurring in cinemas around the globe. The crossover film 1 attempts to experiment with the form and narrative