Courses > 2009 Fall

Electives

CINE 215 - Indian Cinema

GSOC 213 | SAST 213
601 | MW 4:30-7:30pm

Every day, over twelve million people go to the movies in India. Seated on planks of wood and on the floor, in air-conditioned movie palaces and open fields, the world's most avid cinema-goer watches the hundreds of films that roll out of the world's most prolific film industry. Our class will examine the pleasures of this cinema that has frequently been dismissed for being saccharine, melodramatic, and escapist. We will be watching and discussing a cluster of Hindi films made in Bombay (or Bollywood, as it is often called).  We will pay particular attention to the manner in which these films embody public fantasies-- those of gender and masculinity, religion and nation, sexuality and the state, family and friends--in an effort to examine how Bombay's blockbusters have dealt with India's preoccupation with its emerging modernity and its increasing global economic prowess.