Volume-04 ISSN: 2455-3085 (Online) Issue-01 RESEARCH REVIEW International Journal of Multidisciplinary January -2019 www.rrjournals.com [UGC Listed Journal] Melodrama and Bollywood War Films Shashank Sameer Research Scholar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT Article History My paper makes use of melodrama and its theoretical framework as a broader aesthetic Published Online: 20 January 2019 category to the study of Bollywood war films . In this paper I use 3 films namely Chetan Anand’s Hindustan Ki Kasam and J.P. Dutta’s Border and Farhaan Akhtar’s Lakshya1 to Keywords argue that use of melodramatic theory allows war films to create an emotional impact so Melodrama, War, Film. that trauma is articulated and meanings is better explored in the Filmic text. In this paper, I will show how the Bollywood war film often relies on melodrama to create the emotional effects and how melodramatic mode is applied in the. In my paper the ideological implications of war films can be better understood more clearly from the melodramatic framework. In this paper , I would like to argue that war films are produced when there is a crisis like situation and there is resolution through these films. For my paper I mainly focus on some of the war Films post 1960s that became common in subsequent years as a result of significant shift in the way Indian nation was imagined militarily and politically post 1962.2 1 Hindustan Ki Kasam (English: The Oath of Hindustan) is a 1973 war movie based on Operation Cactus Lilly in the Indo-pak war of 1971 directed by Chetan Anand , Border is a 1997 , Indian War film based on the Battle of Longewala during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, produced and directed by J. P. Dutta (top 10 films on Indo- Pak conflict ,times of india , 30 march 2011) , Lakshya (English: Aim) is a 2004 Indian war-drama, directed by Farhan Akhtar 2 By this I mean to say that In 1962, India was a humiliated and defeated nation in Sino- India conflict while In 1971 India was a victorious nation and was not a mere winner in the war, but was the midwife in the birth of a new nation (The reference here is to the formation of an independent Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) in 1971). RRIJM 2015, All Rights Reserved 2313 | P a g e Volume-04, Issue-01, January-2019 RESEARCH REVIEW International Journal of Multidisciplinary Methodology marked by the narrative of shame that India has to face after For my paper, I will use melodrama and its theoretical being defeated by China. I argue that these war films were framework such as Peter Brooks’ seminal study The made because there was a crisis like situation and the nation Melodramatic Imagination (1976), which argues that and its interest was significantly challenged by the aggressor melodrama is not just a theatrical genre but a quintessentially nation state like China and Pakistan. In the 1960s there was an modern aesthetic mode and according to Brooks ,the purpose attack on cartographic sovereignty of Indian Nation by China. of the melodramatic mode is to chart out emotional excess, Result was Sino-Indian conflict in which India lost badly. improbable plotting, moral reductiveness, and a reliance on Therefore it was crisis of war that created the necessity of a exaggerated gestures and over determined bodily signs in a war films. SoIt could be safe to argue that necessity to making work of literature or film.3 war films only arises because there is a crisis like situation I will also make references to Linda Williams works who called war7. But Bollywood never had to make a proper war film argues that melodrama operates across a wide range of till the making of Haqeeqat. This was mainly because up until aesthetic forms and identifies the defining feature of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, India had not been directly involved melodrama as recognition of the virtue of a victim-hero. She in a war. In a proper sense, Not all war films can be seen as argues that melodrama “invites us to feel sympathy for the war films. While we may use the term "war cinema" broadly. It virtues of beset victims” and is primarily “concerned with the could be problematic if we categorize every films which retrieval and staging ofinnocence.”4 Here in this light Bollywood highlights India Pakistan tension as back drop to be counted war films can really fill in the gaps of melodramatic mode under war genre. Therefore for my paper I have particularly because war films does really forces us to thinks about the chosen 3 films namely Hindustan Ki Kasam, Border and precarious situation of virtuous soldier who is fighting to save Lakshya. These 3 films are mainly based around the Conflict the honor of the nation. Nationalistic fervour are present in the related to India Pakistan relations. melodramatic plot of war films. They are intentionally inserted into narrative to create the impression of instant longing for the War Film as family narrative mother nation. Indian war films works around the idea of family being the I derive my methodology of my paper from arguments epicentre of the narrative. Filmmakers like Chetan Anand , J.P. made by Linda Williams theory of Melodrama. Her theory is Dutta and Farhan Akhtar all trace out the family being the based on five key features of the melodrama as a genre: first, a influencer of drive of characters. In these films, family becomes space of innocence; second, a victim-hero and the recognition the site of intersection where not only war heroes are produced of his/her virtue; third, realism adapted to the emotional and also Martyr are eulogised and given rebirth. War films purposes of melodrama fourth, a dialectic of pathos and action family as a site has the resemblance of both private and the and fifth, characters who embody primary psychic roles public because everything private is shaped by the public ,I.e organized around Manichean conflicts between good and evil.5 war makes private the victim of the war. A film like Hindustan Ki For my paper I will examine three Bollywood war film in terms Kasam begins at the family home whose members are of the five key features of melodrama identified by Linda generally interacting and bonding over things as a normal Williams plus the idea of the redeemed and redemptive death family does . The idea of family homes is used by Chetan as proposed by Agnieszka Soltysik . 6 In other words, Anand to show that everything looks normal till the time there melodrama helps to bring out the emotional effects, and as I is a danger of war . In other words it is the family home where will show, the ideological implications of war films are more soldiers wantto return not the battle field. Unlike the Border, clearly established for the viewer. Hindustan Ki Kasam begins in a family set up. begin already at the military training campor battlefield and the actual home of Introduction the characters is rarely shown at all. Bollywood Hindi Cinema that caters to a large audience There are several scenes in these films where love and across different circuits has not perfected the genre of war cause of the nation often comes in the way of the family and films. War films were few as India as a nation did not have to the protagonist readily accepts the nation as his first and face a war like situation till 1962. One of the first film which can foremost priority. One good example is seen in J.P.Dutta’s be located in war genre is Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat . It was Border in which cook Havildar Bhagheeram (played by made in 1964 just after the Indo-China war. Haqeeqat was Kulbhushan Kharbanda) calls his regiment like a “family”. For him the idea of adopted family is manifested in the regiment he 3 Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac , Henry James , is serving. Family vs. nation contradiction is also seen in the Melodrama , and the Mode of Excess (New York: Columbia University scene in which Subedar Mathura Das (Sudesh Berry) who Press, 1985), p.4 wishes to return to his ailing wife is granted leave but his joy is 4 Linda Williams. “Melodrama Revised.” In Reconfiguring America Film short-lived because he is ridiculed by his Company commander Genres: Theory and History, ed. Nick Browne. Berkeley: University of and his companions because he choose to be with his cancer- California Press, 1998, page 42. stricken wife and children at the time of crisis. His joy at the 5 Linda Williams, "Melodrama Revised," in Nick Browne, ed., Refiguring American Film Genres (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 6 Agnieszka Soltysik in her paper titled , “Melodrama And the Combat 7 In a seminal study, On War (1832), Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian Film” makes use of Idea of redeemed and redemptive death. It is an military general and theoretician, defines war as “an act of force to additional feature that can be brought into analysis of the war films . compel our enemy to do our will” and as “an extension of policy by she further argues that death of the most virtuous character, usually other means”. A state thus hope to attain by war what it cannot attain the victim-hero becomes a site for investigation and intersects with its through diplomacy.(page 13, Representations of War specific problem of representing violent death as entertainment in Films and novels, Richard Masons, Jaroslaw, Suchoples) RRIJM 2015, All Rights Reserved 2314 | Page Volume-04, Issue-01, January-2019 RESEARCH REVIEW International Journal of Multidisciplinary prospect of returning home is shown to be childish as well as Recognition of the Virtue of a Victim-Hero cowardly just because he wants to attend his ailing wife.