> Therefore, there are [at least] 3 Indias in cinema: the India of > American fantasy (e.g. Indiana Jones), the India of Indian fantasy (the > song-and-dance films), and Ray's view of the "real" India. > > I'm surprised Ray isn't popular in India; I had thought he was cultural > hero there. The popularity of the song-and-dance movies, however, > certainly does reveal something about the Real India, since it's Real > Indians who support these extravaganzas. My intuition is that this > version of India holds the same place in the Indian psyche as the 6-day > Edo Dynasty flicks hold in Japanese culture and the 3-day Westerns hold > in the U.S.A. > > Please comment on this. After all, it's impossible to know if such > analogies are worth anything without the comments of someone who's > there. > > Paul E. Clinco The analogy in my opinion holds at least supeficially.'Commercial' or 'formula' films, as we wish to call them in India, share some common features in any country. Dependence on the star system, repetitive themes, advocacy of convenient social virtues, use of well established icons,equating good with the rural and bad with the urban etc. are features I have seen in commercially successful films from many countries. This very similarity of purpose however, poses a paradox.If Indian films and American films have the same ingredients for success, then why are American films shown and seen in India(or in any country for that matter) and not vice versa? This thread has not been, in my opinion, able to answer this question satisfactorily. The success of American cinema outside USA depends on a host of cultural issues. To an average Indian, the image of America is a blurred yet enticing one and formation of that image takes place through many sources. This image of a remote El Dorado is reinforced by films.American films, though many Indians donot understand English, have somewhat the same effect as the indigenous 'song and dance' fantasy in the sense that it supports the collective day dreaming about a fictitous land of infinite permissiveness and affluence. This would lead us to believe that success might be tied to how well a film confines itself to the boundaries already defined by other cultural inputs and how well it unquestioningly pampers the beliefs generated by these inputs. If safety razors can sell in India just because they are 'imported from the USA', so can films! So 'Rain Man' would have to struggle to get a foothold and 'Sudden Impact' will run to full houses. Similarly in the US, when Ray's 'Ballad of the Road' is shown, people (reportedly) walk out because they cannot stand the image of people eating with their hands, wheras Mira Nair's 'KamaSutra' meets with unprecedented success. Sumit P.S. In a sense in which 'popularity' is universally defined, Ray is not popular in India.He made his films in Bengali, one of the 25 major and 200 odd minor languages of India.His films were subtitled in French,German and English but never to any other Indian language.So his reach was limited to the upper middle class that feels comfortable with English. His status as a cultural icon stems from his getting the Oscar for lifetime achievement (if you remember, he got it from his deathbed).To a country struggling with colonial hangovers, what can be more valuable than such a recognition, altough a bit late (and as cynics point out, a bit out of sympathy), from a land of 'milk and honey'? =========================================================================== SUMIT BASU Research Student (Ph.d.) 'J'Block,Apartment-3, Department of Mechanical Engineering Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore- 560 012. Bangalore-560 012. Ph: 91-80-3092429 Ph: 91-80-3092598 ============================================================================ #---------------------------------------------------# | I am. That's all. Had words been ever mine? | | As I look beyond, from one horizon to next, | | To have life, not words, suffuse my every pore, | | I have wetted my sightless eyes with the night. | #---------------------------------------------------# ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]