From Hollywood to Bollywood and Halfway Back Again

The Lines are Officially Blurred December 10, 2009

So after I’ve completed my paper.. thirteen pages that continually refer to and defend Lagaan as a Bollywood film through and through.. after watching the film multiple times to gather all the information I wanted to use to support my classification of Lagaan as a thouroughly BOLLYWOOD film…after hours and hours of creatively approaching Lagaan as an example of a BOLLYWOOD film… and after I have put all the finishing touches on the paper… envelope sealed..I go to YouTube to watch the trailer for Lagaan. I LOVE Lagaan and I love watching trailers… sometimes they just do such a good job of pulling the greatness of the film into two minutes..

and THIS is what I find. Could this BE MORE AMERICAN? …. what can ya do….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZrNZuvBxp8

HOPE EVERYONE’S PAPERS ARE GOING WELL!

Happy holidays!

Critical Resources December 3, 2009

Based on your paper topics, here are some books you might be interested in:

• Transnational Cinema, The Film Reader, Eds. Elizabeth Ezra and Terry Rowden
• Film and Nationalism, Ed. Alan Williams
• An Accented Cinema : Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Hamid Naficy
• Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place, Hamid Naficy
• East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film, Eds. Leon Hunt and Leung Wing-Fai
• Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema, Eds. Meaghan Morris, Siu Leung Li, and Stephen Chan Ching-Kiu
• Remade in Hollywood: The Global Chinese Presence in Transnational Cinemas, Kenneth Chan
• Bollywood: Sociology Goes to the Movies, Rajinder Dudrah
• Bollyworld : Popular Indian Cinema Through A Transnational Lens, Eds. Raminder Kaur and Ajay Sinha
• Global Bollywood, Eds. Anandam Kavoori and Aswin Punathambekar
• Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance, Eds. Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti
• Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema, Lalitha Gopalan
• The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social History, Jyotika Virdi 

Slumdog December 3, 2009

How should we characterize Slumdog Millionaire? It’s an American film, made by a British filmmaker (Danny Boyle), co-directed by an Indian director (Loveleen Tandan), with British-Indian (Dev Patel) and Indian (Freida Pinto) actors as well as non-actors, set entirely in India. What made this film a worldwide critical and commercial success? What do we even call this hybrid production? What is its relationship with Hollywood? With Bollywood?