Preface Chapter 1 Hindi Films: Theoretical Debates and Textual Studies Chapter 2 Audiences and Hindi Films: Contemporary Studies
Notes Preface 1 The words ‘discourse’ and ‘discourses’ as used in this book refer not to units of speech or writing, however small or large, but rather to structured and sedi- mented ways of defining and understanding the world. Chapter 1 Hindi films: theoretical debates and textual studies 1 Famous film critic and theorist from Calcutta, author of Talking About Films (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1981) and The Painted Face: Studies in India’s Popular Cinema (New Delhi: Roli Books, 1991), Dasgupta has been a consistent propo- nent of the idea that mass films and spectators of these films are mired in a pre- modern frame of mind which is leading India, via an irrational attachment to certain (politico-religious) ideologies and myths, towards imminent political collapse. 2 Nandy (1998: 2–5) delineates a notion of commercial Hindi cinema as a means of expression for the frustrations, views and idioms of ‘slum’ life, a vehicle for the fears, desires and angst of those members of the population dispossessed by the state or lingering on the margins of cities. 3 For an interesting discussion of ‘escapism’ and soap opera see Modleski’s argu- ment in ‘The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas’ (1982). 4 For instance, see Theodore Adorno’s (1991) argument that the ‘mass’ produc- tion and distribution of cultural artefacts, rather than democratising culture, are leading to a standardised and totalitarian mentality that is being imposed upon the masses. 5 Some of the films Chori Chori Chupke Chupke ‘copies’ or borrows’ from are Pretty Woman (USA, Garry Marshall 1990) Doosri Dulhan (A Second Bride, Lekh Tandon 1983) and Bewafa se Wafa (From Infidelity to Fidelity, Sawan Kumar 1992).
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