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Description: |
This course explores the treatment of various types of love – for the beloved, the family, the community, the motherland or the divine – in Indian cinema, the largest film industry in the world. We examine Indian cinema's early phase in the colonial milieu, its flourishing in popular and art films since the 1950s, and contributions of diaspora Indians. We will watch films by prominent directors of the postcolonial era who articulated India’s national identity as well as the socio-religious and political aspirations of its common people integrating indigenous sacred symbolism. We will consider how several films reflect a religious sensitivity in portraying the motherland almost as a divine entity worthy of worship. Paying particular attention to the distinctive grammar of song, dance and intense drama, we will analyze the ways in which the film-makers reworked long-prevailing South Asian conventions of narration and performance in a medium imported from Europe. |