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Demure Heroines Expressing Sexual Desire. Hints of Traditional Motifs in Popular Hindi Cinema
No full textIn the last two decades the depiction of amorous feelings has often taken extremely traditional forms in popular Hindi cinema.
Reference here is essentially to those particularly successful films that come more or less within the broad category of classical family dramas: love stories that come up against all sorts of opposition, characterised by celebration of the traditional Hindu values and the sacrality of the institution of the Indian joint-family.
A particularly interesting aspect emerging here lies in the way in which the sexual desire of the heroine – typically a chaste and virtuous maiden – finds representation. On the strength of studied re-elaboration of traditional themes and motifs, these films achieve high levels of stylistic inventiveness and poetic refinement, albeit often limited to certain individual sequences.
The apparent purpose of this aesthetic sophistication is to endow amorous feelings – always leading inexorably in the direction of marriage – with an aura of purity and authenticity. Indeed, it is a matter of sentiments so noble and intense as to win over the consent and blessing of the families by the end of the film.
My paper proposes to identify and analyse the conscious use of these traditional motifs in some of the most representative films in this area
Popular Hindi Cinema: Narrative Structures and Points of Continuity with the Tradition
No full textIn the course of its long history, Indian cinema, and in particular popular Hindi cinema, has seen an extraordinary evolution while retaining, from the thematic and structural point of view, certain specific characteristics and thereby successfully resisting the cultural imperialism of Hollywood. Continuity with the Indian cultural tradition can be seen in manifold aspects, and it is in fact by analysing these connections that we can highlight and interpret the main characteristics of this singular cinematic world.
Popular Hindi cinema is often accused of offering a patchy sort of narration with total lack of realism, repetitive plots and critical fire is, above all, levelled at the typical song and dance sequences constantly cropping up and interrupting the narrative flow. These are, however, fundamental characteristics peculiar to popular Hindi cinema, and should be analysed in the light of that tradition.
From its very beginnings, Indian cinema has drawn inspiration from the styles, aesthetics and semiotics of a great variety of cultural forms that have followed one upon another in India over the centuries, forming a vast cultural heritage. In this respect, it also proves interesting to look back to the roots of the Indian cultural tradition, beyond the stage of mediation and transposition in written form, seeking out the elements of continuity between the narrative structures of popular Hindi cinema and those typical of oral narration
Conventional Landscapes: Identity and Romance in Contemporary Hindi Popular Cinema
No full textLandscapes obviously play a very important role in cinematic representation. In Hindi popular cinema the choice of a landscape - as background, or as part of the scene itself - is meant to convey some definite conventional meanings. As in classical drama and literature, for example, also in cinema paradisiacal natural settings are the traditional locations of romantic love. Contemporary Bollywood films seem to have extended and refined the selection of landscapes to depict new themes and more complex feelings. This paper proposes to identify the conscious use of some of these landscapes, in connection with the themes of romance and cultural identity in a more globalized scenario
L'India alla 70esima Mostra del Cinema di Venezia
No full textL'India alla 70esima Mostra del cinema di Venezi
L'India mi ha dato le storie... il Canada la libertà di raccontarle. Intervista a Deepa Mehta
No full textIntervista alla regista indo-canadese Deepa Meht
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