CWL 207

Role of song and dance sequences in sexuality

A way around the written rule, shows love and affection Not a show of prudery b/c can be very vulgar, it is a way of keeping Indian culture and not assimilating to western way of life

Three kinds of Realism in Indian Cinema

Avant-garde - did not accept bourgeois values Modernized - tried to extend bourgeois value into Indian society Documentary - struggle for freedom from gov perspective

Censorship

Britain was threatened by all indigenous enterprises, including Indian cinema Passed acts to control films

Evans Report

British were anxious about Indian Cinema, so British Gov of India assigned W Evans to evaluate Indian film industry. Said industry needed to be free of Madan influence and monopolized by Indian gov

Empire Cinema

Cinema by and for the citizens of Britain and its colonies

S K Patil report on commercial cinema

Commercial cinema had a large impact on corrupting audience taste because of the amount of money it recieved

Phalke

Considered the creator of Indian cinema after supposedly the first full-length feature film in India Started his own film company and had short-lived but large success, could not keep up with social changes Thought of himself very highly as creating an industry out of nothing Made movies based on Indian mythology

Three ways films have negotiated the prohibition

Fade out of actually showing the kiss Portraying with song and dance Female rejection of the ksis

Cinematograph Act

First legislative measure to control film production in India

Guru and India Poised - absence of prohibition and culture of enjoyment

Guru: hero of the movie, yet liberal character branching away from traditional Indian ideas by doing business, promoted individualism and westernization. Intimate scenes were seen as enjoyable not shameful India Poised: man wore western clothes and industrial background, promoted growth and change in India

Advent of Talkies in Indian Cinema

Once viewers could hear the actors speaking/singing in many languages, the possibility of Empire cinema faded and foreign films in India were much less common

How do dostana and dosti create a new form of melodrama in 1970s

Originally meaning friendship in stronger way than western friendship, dosti now has homosexual connotation and departed from traditional concept to western one involving gay jokes

G D Khosla Committee on Prohibition scenes of kissing

Prohibition was based on an unwritten rule that kissing was not allowed, but the actual bans had no reference to kissing, only things like excessively passionate love scenes

Cinematograph Committee Report (1928)

Three Indian and three British on committee, formed to discuss film censorship Lots of research, published report the following year Nothing really came of the recommendations of the committee

Feudal Family Romance

Upstanding male citizen has faces trials that test courage, resolution is usually marrying and inheriting Speaks to the premodern values of women as a prize and upstanding male citizen as hero, powers of the nation-state are restored