Understanding Indian Movies: Culture, Cognition, and Cinematic Imagination

Chapter Two: The Film and the World: Global Themes, Local Movies

c h a p t e r t w o The Film and the World Global Themes, Local Movies Nishānt and Sholay Needless to say, films not only present us with characters and events.They present us with larger, intellectual issues, most often political or ethical issues. I use the word theme to refer to the development of such issues in the course of a work. The themes of a film are what give it social force, and mark it as having a purpose beyond aesthetic pleasure. In every tradition of literary theory—European, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian—there is at least some treatment of the ethical and political purposes of literature. In most, perhaps all, literary traditions, some people distrust the hedonistic qualities of entertainment and find literature justified by its moral message or political effect. Thus the first universal in this area is simply the presence of themes. Just as some aspects of European or American films make sense only in relation to thematic aims, so too some aspects of Indian movies are comprehensible only in relation to such aims. As the preceding chapter already makes clear, mainstream Hindi musicals, such as Ardhangini and Baaz, are not aimless entertainment. Despite clichés that oppose entertainment to seriousness of purpose, Hindi musicals—along with Tamil art films, and other genres of Indian cinema—are regularly pervaded by thematic commentary. Global Themes, Local Movies 73 Getting the Point: Stories and Their Morals Theme is an area in which cultural and historical background are likely to be crucial for our understanding of particular works. As a result, we tend to think of themes as deeply culturally particular. Yet, to a remarkable degree, the same themes recur across different cultures. Here too cultural differences are little more than a matter of specification, conjunction, and emphasis. This is unsurprising once one realizes that themes are bound up with plots, and plots, as we saw in the preceding chapter, are commonly specifications of universal narrative prototypes—again, the prototypes of romantic, heroic, and sacrificial tragi-comedy. Romantic narratives consider the limitations of social authority with respect to individual choice. The main narrative sequences of heroic tragicomedy treat loyalty to one’s society and its rightful leaders, as well as solidarity with one’s compatriots and courage in the defense of that society , those leaders, and those compatriots. The sacrificial plot develops the theme of self-sacrifice for the good of the community. In keeping with this, Ardhangini takes up the romantic opposition to social authority, particularized as caste hierarchy. Baaz celebrates bravery, eschews disloyalty, and urges national unity behind an independent (i.e., non-collaborationist, anti-colonial) national leadership. The Terrorist is more complex in that it criticizes the usual themes of the sacrificial plot. However, those are the very themes it raises—the importance of self-denial and the necessity of individual sacrifice for the survival of the group. It then reconsiders those themes from the perspective of the romantic plot. A further set of themes derives from an aspect of the heroic plot not treated in the preceding chapter. Specifically, there is a somewhat surprising epilogue to a number of heroic stories. In this epilogue, the victorious ruler or soldier does not rejoice in the national triumph. Rather, he or she feels remorse for the suffering he or she has inflicted. Thematically, the epilogue treats an ethical conflict—the conflict between an ethics of compassion and an ethics of defense.1 The ethics of compassion involves aiding those who suffer, and certainly avoiding any infliction of suffering. The ethics of defense involves forcefully opposing anyone who would attack members of one’s own group—family, nation, religion. The difficulty, of course, is that there are many cases in which one cannot simultaneously adhere to both forms of ethics. These to some extent contradictory ethical understanding indian movies 74 imperatives are codified in most explicit ethical systems. Their conflict is a recurrent thematic concern in literature across cultures. Needless to say, the conflict between ethical imperatives is not purely intellectual. It is bound upwith emotion, particularlyempathyand remorse, on one side, and anger and fear on the other. The emotional intensity of this conflict is increased to the degree that the humanity and the suffering of the enemy are made salient. In keeping with this, the epilogue of suffering is commonly triggered by the killing of some innocent...