Bollywood, Tollywood and Dollywood

1. Bollywood, Tollywood and Dollywood Engl 332 N. Langah

2. Pre-Independence Cinema: 1930s and 1940s Kinship, social ties, values and ideals Films on religious themes were rebellious Westernization was critiqued as an impact of colonization Western values were seen as threatening for Indian familial and social traditions

3. 1950s cinema The problems of fledging nation

4. Period beat of the 1970s: Beat of resistance aesthetics which found three different expressions in: Mumbai-based industries refereed to in the past decade or so as ‘Bollywood’ Kolkata based productions in Tollygunj as ‘Tollywood’ Dhaka-based productions called ‘Dollywood’

5. How Cinematic text is welded to the context of its productions: Social Movements and the Politics of Representation in the Cinema of the 1970s Context of 1970s Bengal/India and India/Bangladesh. In India: Resistance against the rulings of the capital globally. Economic turmoil, underemployment, poverty, illiteracy, corruption In Pakistan: total warfare in response to Sheikh MujiburRehman’s call for independence. Critics propose India’s support of 1971 war in Pakistan. Food crises, no industry, economic disorder

6. Bollywood in 1970s Social anxieties An aspiration of India in Nehru’s dream 1950s to 1980s: stories woven around the protagonist as the peripheral character (ShamiKapoor, Dharmendra, Raj Kapoor, Amitabh) Melodrama, romance, social issues, religious issues, satire, mystery/suspense/thriller.

7. Tollywood productions of the 1970s Melodrama Comedy Children’s cinema Romance Social issues Religious issues

8. Outcome of such social movements: The social movements of the 1970s provide a resistance aesthetic connecting alternative cinema practices both in Tollywood and Dollywood with the Hindi language productions from Mumbai.

9. South Asian Film Underlining the idea of nation and national culture Key sites on which the local, global and transnational intersect with each other Q: how slippery and constructed the idea of ‘national’ in South Asian cinema can be Example: 1990sonwards: Bangladeshi and West-Bengali popular film production and their transnationalization and localization

10. Bengali Film Industry: Dhaka-Calcutta Bengali speaking audience within their national or regional boundaries Audience: Bengali-speaking Bengali Muslims in postcolonial Bangladesh and Bengali Hindus in West Bengal and eastern India These two Bengali cinemas remain divided in terms of the national and religious orientations of their audience but share a common language

11. Bengali Film Industry: Dhaka-Calcutta Bengali Cinema of Calcutta : created a version of colonial modernity propagated by Bengali-Hindu middle class The first film made in Dhaka was 1955 (3 decades after Calcutta. 1965 was also the time when Indian films were banned in Pakistan and the Bangaldesh war was about to happen After the creation of Bangladesh the film production in Dhaka increased.

12. Bengali Film Industry: Dhaka-Calcutta The divide between Bengali Hindu Cinema (Calcutta) and Bengali Muslim Cinema (Dhaka) becomes stronger Calcutta and Dhaka share a love-hate relationship West-Bengali films (melodrama) were seen as model family dramas in Bangladesh in 1960s and 1990s The film industry in Dhaka positions itself as the base for a Bengali-Muslim cinema from 1960 onwards

13. Bengali Film Industry: Dhaka-Calcutta In the last decade or so, a number of Bengali Muslim films (from Bangladesh) have been remade in Calcutta film industry for Indian Hindu-Bengali audience