This post continues the ongoing “From Nottingham and Beyond” series, with contributions from faculty and alumni of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. This week’s contributor, Kiranmayi Indraganti, completed her PhD in the department in 2011.

This post proposes, briefly, a work-in-progress framework for understanding filmmaking education in India, its impact on filmmaking sensibilities and its assimilation and negation strategies in positioning itself as a force playing to an implicit global sensibility. Filmmaking education is historically located in “film schools,” where the attempt has been to provide focused inputs in directing, cinematography, and so forth, and more recently, areas encompassing digital media. India now has about ten film schools and fifteen to twenty other institutes/departments offering courses in film and video production.[1] Film graduates, with a degree in a specific specialization from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and other similar institutes, have long made careers in the vibrant, multilingual film industries across India. The boom of satellite television, DVD markets and Internet forums[2] has given rise to growing awareness of filmmaking processes, and a continued interest in filmmaking education. This has facilitated the emergence of private film schools in several cities.

Historically, the formal entry of film-school education in India in the 1960s spurred a rethinking of the prevalent modes of cinematic storytelling. Early film-school students learned about cinema and its history in broader terms than simply in relation to the cinema(s) of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Students were introduced to national cinemas from Europe and Asia among others, and to film movements and “auteurs” from around the world. This education became a dynamic forum for indie-film thinking and served as the fountainhead of alternative cinema.[3] The locus of this legacy and energy—the FTII, Pune—established itself as the premier film institute not only for the way it influenced the evolution of cinema but also for making possible various positionings of cinema within India. In other words, this education has become a force for students to think not only of how alternative they can get with their practice but also how significant they can be as practitioners within the prevalent filmmaking system. The contribution is vital to the way India’s diversity is articulated and fostered while providing a forum for dissent. This legacy has continued for long, but the notion of film school education in the last couple of decades has changed, with emphasis shifting to techno-centricity and economic, political and cultural gain on campuses. Film education has entered a new world (a much different one from that of the 1960s) that is “media saturated, technologically dependent and globally connected.”[4] In this world, the Internet absorbs cultural forms such as television, popular music, film and advertising, and creates cyber-spaces and emergent forms of culture and pedagogy, where people—young and old, men and women—receive a covertly mediated education in values, behavior and knowledge.[5] In the context of India’s media-saturated world, on one hand, there is greater visibility to the vocalizing of politics of traditional educational spaces, and on the other, the popular cinema throws challenges as a money-grossing machine, as a “significant other” to Hollywood in the global arena, modulated by a satellite-driven aesthetic. So, reviewing the role of film-school education, the relevance of its curriculum and creation of a filmmaking culture to which film graduates can migrate, can be a starting point to deepen the potential of this education and critically engage with creative self-expression and the circulation of dominant values (which will be my larger project).

In India, there is a dichotomy between film teaching and filmmaking. As is wont, curriculum at a film institute is characterized by a primary concern to prepare students to execute “narrativity” for camera: this includes understanding elements of time and space in realizing dramatic units or shots that connect well to present an actuality or a dramatic story. The curriculum is a means to take students closer to an “effective visual medium” and “good cinema” while responding to various levels of (their) self-expression. For film teachers, this requires a balance act: between what one sees/shows and what one teaches. We see films of a certain kind being made in India—making money and traveling or not traveling across India for whatever storytelling conventions they follow. On the other hand, we teach a certain set of principles to be integrated into practice. Curiously, the components we teach—whether a continuity exercise or chase sequence—privilege a realist aesthetic, aligned with a tightly constrained temporal and spatial canvas that stands in opposition to the larger context in which the reception of film narratives happens, with its allusions to epic tales and fables.[6]

Filmmaking teachers in India, like their colleagues elsewhere, rely on what works within the grammar of cinema here rather than the very mode of cinema, which predominantly celebrates pre-modern modes of entertainment, with episodic tales and self-consciously framed, operatic dramas.[7] Put simply, what we teach at film schools and what we see on screen as Indian cinema don’t always align. While this has been evident historically, and has perhaps helped parallel cinema to flourish, the film-school space, in the now-changed world, can afford to outgrow its own limitations and compartmentalizations. Despite the push-pull effect of different filmmaking sensibilities, the film-school graduates are (by default) also active contributors to the expansive positioning of Indian popular cinema on the global scene as directors, technicians and actors, owing to their co-opting strategy to work both on song-and-dance routines and on arthouse cinema.

Consequently, the larger question is: can a case be made about film education in India as something distinct and evolving to accommodate the legacy of dissent and also intervene in the global success story of its cinema? This question makes a variety of investigations possible. For example, a) new storytelling strategies can be linked to learning strategies at film schools; and b) filmmaking can be studied more in relation to shaping sensibilities than in relation to the industry without ignoring the industry practice. In the Internet-driven world, film schools would benefit from becoming forums that can engage critically and actively with ideologies and competencies in order to optimize their value and challenge new stereotypes.

Notes

[1] Many Indian metropolises have various institutes offering either “VisCom” (Visual Communication) or a variety of media or communications courses. Film schools per se are fewer in number, with Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune; and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India (SRFTI), Kolkata; topping the list. There are private schools such as Whistling Woods, Mumbai; L V Prasad Film and TV Academy, Chennai; Ramoji Academy of Film and Television, Hyderabad; besides well-established autonomous institutes such as Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi; and National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad; catering to aspiring visual storytellers.

[2] The Indian media and entertainment industry (which includes films, television, satellite, music, print, radio, advertising, gaming and animation) is estimated at 1,026 billion rupees. See “#shootingforthestars: FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2015” (https://www.kpmg.com/IN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/FICCI-KPMG_2015.pdf), p. 2.

[3] Noted filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s personal journey of joining FTII and spearheading a movement towards a certain cinematic aesthetics is just one of the many examples.

[4] Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share, “Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Reconstruction of Education,” Media Literacy: A Reader, eds. Donaldo Macedo and Shirley R. Steinberg (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), p 3.

[5] Ibid. p. 4.

[6] Philip Lutgendorf, “Is There an Indian Way of Filmmaking?,” International Journal of Hindu Studies 10.3 (December 2006), p. 249.

[7] Ibid. p. 250.

This post continues the ongoing “From Nottingham and Beyond” series, with contributions from faculty and alumni of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. This week’s contributor, Nandana Bose, completed her PhD in the department in 2009.

Shah Rukh Khan as G. One in Ra.One (2011)

Hindi cinema in the new millennium has invested considerable labor in reimagining, appropriating and indigenizing new-millennial trends, discourses and globally circulating genres such as the sci-fi/superhero genre (as well as supernatural, horror and fantasy genres). Hollywood’s decisive millennial turn towards fantasy genres, driven by the global popularity and commercial success of superhero franchises such as The Avengers (2012, 2015), Thor (2011, 2013), Iron Man (2008, 2010, 2013), Captain America (2011, 2014), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, 2014), and Batman (2005, 2008, 2012), has been aggressively embraced by Bollywood. The surprising popularity of comic-book–based superhero TV dramas among niche Indian audiences has “led channels such as Star World Premiere HD to air shows such as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [2013–], The Walking Dead [2010–], and Marvel’s Agent Carter [2015–] within hours of their international telecast.”[1] In postmillennial India, digital and virtual media convergences of the Internet and the video-gaming industry, and the rapid growth and bi-directional media content outsourcing by American and Indian digital graphics and visual-effects companies have significantly impacted the generic output of the Bombay film industry. The explosion and penetration of digital media cultures have inevitably influenced the types of genres Bollywood produces. The postmillennial superhero genre is constitutively informed by digital media cultures. The digital media world informs the superhero genre in two ways. First, it is enabled by satellite/cable and Internet accessibility for postmillennial Indians who are largely urban, educated, aspirational youths, aware of global genres and the latest media trends. Second, digital media technologies such as computers, cell phones and touch-screen interfaces are textually inscribed as content as in the case of superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s 2011 sci-fi/superhero blockbuster, Ra.One, inspired by the video-game format and aesthetics.

What does the superhero genre mean to contemporary Hindi cinema? What might the millennial reiterations of this emergent genre tell us about Bollywood’s industrial and spectatorial compulsions? I suggest that the emergent superhero genre of recent Hindi cinema is an incoherent textual and extra-textual simulacrum of Hollywood superhero films. The Hindi superhero genre is a highly self-conscious, referential importation of an essentially American genre that hitherto has been only superficially indigenized and localized by inserting Indian character names, (occasional) Indian locations, and the staple song-and-dance sequences. The Krrish superhero/sci-fi franchise, comprising Koi…Mil Gaya (2003), Krrish (2006), and Krrish 3 (2013), is considered Indian cinema’s first such film series. The franchise explicitly references the Rambo series (1982, 1985, 1988, 2008) in the naming of its constituent films. The blatantly imitative logic of the franchise/genre is reflected in a telling comment by its producer, Rakesh Roshan, father of star Hrithik Roshan, who plays the titular superhero: “People who have seen the film [Krrish] are of the opinion that this film is not like Hollywood, it IS Hollywood.” The physiognomy, hypermasculinity, costuming and performative style of Bollywood superheroes (Krrish and G.One), and archenemies and sidekicks (Kaal and Kaya in Krrish 3, and the eponymous Ra.One) become unintentionally parodic reiterations and appropriations of the American superhero genre, exemplifying “the imitative logic of development which situates Bombay cinema somewhere between a not-quite and a not-yet Hollywood.”[2] Perhaps this may explain the mixed reviews and reactions to Ra.One on its initial release, despite its huge budget, the star power of Khan and surrounding media hype.

Hrithik Roshan in Krrish 3 (2013)

Postmillennial Bollywood superhero films are citations, extensive quotations of the dominant idiom of Hollywood superhero films, gesturing towards “the creation of ‘something new with the help of references.”[3] The citational nature of Bollywood’s superhero genre reveals transnational influences in terms of the superhero star body and hypermasculinity; and the creative talent, visualization and industrial labor involved in costuming and special effects. Since his debut in 2000, the superstar/hero Hrithik Roshan has sculpted a “pumped-up” physique through intensive sessions at the gym, adopting western bodybuilding practices such as DTP or Dramatic Transformation Principle. Inspired by Hollywood’s legendary macho men, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme, he transformed himself from a lanky “boy next door” to an icon of hypermasculinity befitting superhero roles. As the eponymous Krrish, Bollywood’s first fully realized Superman-style hero, Roshan displays a muscular yet lithe body in action sequences and performs gravity-defying, daredevil stunts without body doubles. An August 2012 Men’s Health cover feature provides a meticulous account of Roshan’s gruelling exercise and dietary regimen in preparation for his superhero role in Krrish 3 under the guidance of famed American trainer Chris Gethin, who was hired for an astronomical sum.

Kaya’s costume in Krrish 3

Imitative of the caped crusader and modeled on Hollywood superhero costumes and accoutrements (face mask, underwear and so forth), Krrish dons a skin-tight, superhero outfit that accentuates his physique and emphasizes the hero’s idealized hypermasculinity. Following in the tradition of overly sexualized Hollywood superwomen in skin-tight costumes, and inspired by Batman, one of Krrish’s archenemies in Krrish 3, a mutant named Kaya, is clad in such a svelte, clingy outfit, made of rubber and latex, that the star playing the role, Kangana Ranuat, complained that she felt naked in it. Meanwhile, the much-publicized blue-latex costume worn by Khan as protagonist G.One in Ra.One, reportedly costing a million dollars, was designed by Robert Kurtzman and Tim Flattery, and created by a team of specialists in Los Angeles.

Besides the transnational labor, talent and visualization involved in costuming, Hollywood special-effects teams have collaborated with Indian graphics companies (such as Prasad EFX) to upgrade the quality of visual effects in the Krrish franchise. Aided by Hollywood’s Marc Kolbe and Craig Mumma, who had both previously worked on such films as Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998) and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) as well as the prequel to Krrish, the E.T. (1982)–inspired Koi…Mil Gaya, Krrish set new standards in Indian film CGI. According to Mumma, “Krrish is indicative of Indian cinema’s ascent to the global arena. It will be a trendsetter because it is among the first few films to leverage global expertise and technology to make the film larger than life.” Thus, the local/global imaginative, creative and technological collaborations that engender the Bollywood postmillennial superhero film reveal “an international division of cultural labor that supports the invigoration of new markets and commodity forms.”[4] Transmedia extensions of Krrish as comic book (Krrish: Menace of the Monkey Men), video games (Krrish: The Game and Krrish 3), and animated television series (Kid Krrish aired on Cartoon Network India, and J Bole Toh Jadoo on Nickelodeon) predictably emulate the Hollywood model of transmedia reiterations of the superhero. The Bollywood superhero genre’s extra-textual mimicry of the pre-release marketing, merchandising, branding and transmedia franchising of Hollywood superhero blockbusters also deserves closer scrutiny.

Notes

[1] Sharmila Ganesan, “Spandex on the Small Screen,” Sunday Times of India, July 5, 2015, p. 13.

[2] Nitin Govil, Reorienting Hollywood: A Century of Film Culture Between Los Angeles and Bombay (New York: NYU Press, 2015), p. 45.

[3] Ibid., p. 69.

[4] Ibid., p. 72.

This post continues the ongoing “From Nottingham and Beyond” series, with contributions from faculty and alumni of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. This week’s contributor, Sripana Ray, completed her PhD in the department in 2014.

As part of my current job, I recently did an ethnographic study, looking at how young, urban, middle-class Indians—the target audience group for the entertainment portal The Telegraph is about to launch—engage with online spaces. The two key conclusions that we drew from the several interviews we conducted in cities such as Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore were that India’s young, urban media consumers only look for instant information and that they use that information to realize their aspirations for a better lifestyle. As several of the respondents stated, that information—whether on politics, sports or films—is chiefly consumed on laptops, tablets and smartphones. There is no denying that with the proliferation of media technologies, this is the age of instant gratification–instant download, instant messaging, an Instagrammed world that needs to be made instagood.

The producers of contemporary Hindi commercial cinema have accommodated this generation’s immediate needs by reaching out through various online channels, especially social networks. Online discourses, particularly the ones conducted by film stars, give consumers of Hindi films a sense of belonging to the carefully constructed “real world” of these stars, feeding and fostering consumers’ aspirations.

Promotions of Hindi films routinely occur on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms. Strangely enough, in the promotion exercise, there is a sense of fragmented gratification. The process has several stages, starting with the unveiling of the first look, usually a poster, followed by the release of the soundtrack and trailers. For some films, as was the case with Piku (Shootjit Sircar, 2015), a trailer is produced for the trailer—both of which were released on social media first. Thus, the Hindi commercial film becomes, to modify Tom Gunning’s term slightly, a cinema of staggered attractions.  (To view the clip below, click on the link to YouTube that appears after hitting the play button.)

The prefigurative route of assigning meaning to films, diverting from a strictly textual approach, has been a subject of growing interest among scholars. Martin Barker, in his article “News, Reviews, Clues, Interviews and Other Ancillary Materials,” notes that prefigurative materials or secondary texts, which include posters, trailers, reviews and interviews, “shape in advance the conditions under which interpretations of films are formed”[1]. These materials can give the audience a preview of what they would see and thus generate “expectations of pleasures,” or they might help form opinions about a particular film. These expectations and opinions, in turn, contribute to the construction of meaning of cinematic texts. The teaser of Piku, which shows the protagonists bantering about the quality of the upcoming trailer, gives viewers a hint about the characters’ personalities and the relationship they share, which is the premise of the film.

A central factor in the promotion of a Hindi commercial film is the star. In India, a film is labelled a blockbuster even “before the camera rolls,”[2] according to Andrew Willis. This means that the expectation of success determines the blockbuster status of a film. The elements that inspire such expectation include the director, the producer and the music composer, but most importantly the actors. The use of stars as a vehicle for promotion has evolved with time, primarily because of the public exposure stars get on television and online. The traditional methods of marketing a film, which included publishing and broadcasting sketchy information and gossip about film stars, have given way to a proper and more personal dialogue between actors and their audiences, abetted by the stars themselves. Through their Facebook and Twitter profiles, they talk about the films in which they star and give details about their personal relationships. In this sense, stars’ role in film prefiguration and promotion has now become much more direct. It is as if the stars have stepped out of the big screens to form an alternate narrative through an online discourse with fans that offers a glimpse of their “real” lives—the “reality” that these stars choose to reveal. It is a virtual transmission of projected reality.

Another strand of the promotional machinery becoming increasingly evident is the enmeshing of film stars’ virtual and real lives. Stars change their Twitter handles to the names of their characters in films–for example in Bombay Velvet (Anurag Kashyap, 2015) and Dil Dhadakne Do (Zoya Akhtar, 2015).

Anushka Sharma tweets about Bombay Velvet and displays her film character’s name prominently.

The Bombay Velvet trailer was released on Twitter, as was the soundtrack. As displayed in the image above, the film’s lead actress, Anushka Sharma, put the name of her character, Rosie Noronha, above her Twitter handle. The lead actor, Ranbir Kapoor, does not have a Twitter account. But his father, Rishi Kapoor (also an actor though not part of Bombay Velvet), ensured Ranbir Kapoor’s presence on the social network by continuously tweeting about him.

Actor Rishi Kapoor tweets about his film-star son.

For viewers, the public preview of stars’ private lives stimulates what Barker calls “expectations of pleasures.” However, the process of generating these pleasures is almost exclusively geared towards English-speaking audiences in urban India, especially with the Internet’s rising importance in this process. While the Internet can increase direct, close contact with the audiences, the interaction is meant for a particular section of the audience. Blogs, social networking and online gaming are all designed for urban audiences with Internet access and a requisite knowledge of English, since the web discourse is conducted solely in English.

The increasing use of English in discourses surrounding Hindi commercial cinema appeals to its consumers’ global aspirations. English proficiency constitutes symbolic capital that aids in the exhibition of urban, middle-class status and in gaining access to it. The cultural currency of education in, or at least knowledge of, the English language has emerged as a primary tool shaping middle-class identities and aspirations. It is also one that the Hindi commercial film industry increasingly uses as an essential mode of signification as it actively tries to draw the urban middle classes.

According to Janet Staiger, “the reception of the film by the spectator is determined by the object, not the spectator.”[3] But how does the object function at a particular time and for particular people? Staiger argues that a specific object, in this case a film, cannot be consumed in the same way by a group of viewers since “individuals have multiple (albeit socially constructed) identities.” But these self-identities are shaped by certain historical and social agencies such as nationality, class and gender that homogenize certain facets of identity, which in turn creates a collective consciousness. In developing India, the way secondary texts affect processes of viewing and the collective consciousness of Hindi commercial-cinema audiences is being recast through a continuous modernization exercise.

[1] Martin Barker, “News, Reviews, Clues, Interviews and Other Ancillary Materials — A Critique and Research Proposal,” Scope, February 2004 (http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=feb2004&id=246).

[2] Andrew Willis, “Notes on the Hindi Blockbuster, 1975 to the Present,” in Movie Blockbusters, ed. Julian Stringer (New York: Routledge, 2003), 257.

[3] Janet Staiger, Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 51.

These stories act as contemporary parables for India’s destabilized economic, political and cultural integrity. While Hindi cinema has always explored the couple-in-crisis, the couple’s re-unification at the conclusion of each film was an allegorical enactment of national solidarity, ensuring the viability of both the state and extended social community.While the tragic impetus in previous tales of “doomed romance” was primarily the impossibility of conjugal fulfillment due to class or other circumstantial barriers, the pathos in the current cycle of films is the seduction of zealous communal prejudices that renders existence, either individual or conjugal, wholly impossible.  Even as the couple is granted space for romantic consummation, it is the characters’ allegiance to entrenched kin networks and fidelity to the ideals of self-sacrifice that results in total personal and social annihilation.  In Ishaqzaade, a film charting the romance of a Hindu boy and Muslim girl against the backdrop of a pernicious religious feud, the attainment of individual romantic desire is hampered by mutual suspicion and duplicity, while the couple’s relationship is distinctly combative rather than sentimental. This is best exemplified by the film’s ending, when both characters embrace and shoot one another in the side as their warring families close in on them.

The narrative of Ram-Leela offers a similar trajectory. The protagonists, Ram Rajari and Leela Sanera, first encounter one another in a gun standoff, and while a torrid affair follows, the couple’s misbegotten elopement is never consummated. On their wedding night Ram is deceitfully lured away by friends from his clan, while Leela is forcibly re-captured by her own (the two dynasties have been at odds for nearly 500 years) and they subsequently become divided by feudal entanglements. The couple occupies minimal screen space in the latter half of the film as we witness the formerly desperate lovers stoically perform their communal obligations in a testament to self-sacrifice.   Leela nurtures her injured mother, the ruthless matriarch of the Sanera clan, after an assassination attempt for which she mistakenly accuses Ram. Assuming leadership of their respective tribes, both take on political responsibilities that escalate an already hostile conflict to the brink of full-scale genocide. Like Ishaqzaade, the lovers ultimately shoot one another just as a community truce is declared.

By choosing to subsume their identities within a feudal system and honor existing relational commitments, each set of protagonists in both films courts their own destruction – while leaving an emotional lacuna in its wake. We sense that if these characters had fully recognized their compulsion towards individual destiny, at least the catharsis (if not the outcome) would have been different. The viewer is forced to confront the irony of failed individualism that is the genuine tragedy in both texts. These nihilistic narratives, however, have an almost uncanny prescience in the context of India’s riotous political scene.  Not only is the idea of nation eviscerated in each text – romantic conjugation is obstructed, communalist sensibilities impede civic harmony, and the premise of citizenship, actualized by the individual, is shunted aside – but the state is completely disempowered in the face of exploitative dynastic politics.

The parallels in each story to real-world developments are telling. The outburst of communal violence in Muzzafarnagar (a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh), during an elections campaign last September, in which the calculated political use of religious propaganda sparked the deaths of both Muslims and Hindus, echoes the 2002 Gujarat riots where over 1,000 people belonging to both communities were killed.  Ishaqzaade blatantly evokes the not-so-distant crisis of the 2002 riots by spotlighting the ancestral feudal mentalities and entrenched political interests which continue to inhibit long-term Hindu-Muslim unity – with minimal state intervention. In the opening frames of Ram-Leela, a stunned police officer comments on the fictional town’s outlaw culture, but is quickly eliminated from the scenario, dodging bullets in an effort to escape the town and spare his own life.  In addition, at a time when Indian public media is highly critical of the nepotism, social manipulation and clan-like structure of coalition politics, Ram-Leela presents an oblique parody of venal party agendas. For instance, the Rajari clan is associated with BJP-inspired imagery drawn from its Hindu nationalist legacy and affiliation with quasi-militant organizations that glorify conservative Hindu values, including public religious iconography and worship, particularly of Lord Ram. On the other hand, the Saneras are plagued by opportunistic bids for power not unlike the former ruling Congress party today (it is also interesting that the Sanera’s chieftain is an intelligent and fiercely powerful woman, an allusion to the Congress tradition of strong female leaders from Indira to Sonia Gandhi). In the film, both tribes are equally responsible for the violent skirmishes and political out-maneuvering that occurs at the expense of public welfare.

The two films discussed above reflect a weakening Indian state, and its tenuous national identity, as much as they are a disclaimer on the unsustainability of old-world communal politics that continues to haunt India’s civic culture.  These competing forces strike at the chord of economic and social livelihood, while increasingly clashing with the values of a rapidly gentrifying, cosmopolitan, and young middle class – the target audience for films like Ishaqzaade and Ram-Leela.