Learning on ScreenBollywood: Gods, Glamour and Gossip
Bollywood: Gods, Glamour and Gossip by Kush Varia. (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, January 2013), 126 Pages. ISBN: 978-1906660154 (paperback), £14
About the reviewer: Dr Iain Robert Smith is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Roehampton, London. He is author of the forthcoming monograph The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Remakes of American Film and Television (Edinburgh University Press, 2014) and editor of a book-length special issue of the open-access journal Scope entitled Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation (2009). He has published peer-reviewed articles in a range of international journals including Velvet Light Trap and Portal, and he is currently a co-investigator on the AHRC funded research network Media Across Borders. Since 2012 he has been co-chair of the SCMS Transnational Cinemas Scholarly Interest Group.
The year 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Indian film, D. Phalke’s RAJA HARISHCHANDRA (1913). In the intervening century, the industry has developed to become one of the largest centres of film production in the world. It is only in recent years, however, that Indian cinema has started to build a significant audience among non-diasporic audiences in the West. Explicitly aimed at these new viewers of Bollywood, this book offers a survey of popular Hindi cinema that will prove very useful to students and scholars who are looking for an accessible introduction to the topic.
Part of the Short Cuts series from Wallflower/CUP, the real strength of this book is that it covers a wide range of topics – from the use of song numbers through to the relationship with Hindu epics such as the Ramayana – in short, readable sections that helpfully gesture towards further scholarship on those areas. For people who are already familiar with research on Bollywood cinema, the book treads familiar ground, but for those who are new to the topic, Kush Varia provides a broad overview that collects together a number of invaluable insights from established scholars such as Rosie Thomas, Rachel Dwyer and Ravi Vasudevan. Indeed, it is pleasing to see discussion here of the complex politics of Indian popular cinema given the ways in which Bollywood is so often dismissed as kitsch or camp.
Centrally, the book aims to move beyond the appreciation of Bollywood as kitsch to demonstrate the ways in which Indian cinema functions in terms of genre, narrative and theme. Starting with a brief history of Bollywood, the book then offers a series of primers on the key narrative tropes, character types and settings that are characteristic of Indian cinema. These are usefully illustrated with case studies that are recommended for viewers, from canonical examples such as SHREE 420 (1955) and SHOLAY (1975) through to less well-known films such as the mythological snake film NAGIN (1976). The choice of case studies is excellent and would work well for those seeking recommendations for where to start in exploring the vast history of Indian cinema. Of course, with so many films having been produced in Mumbai, it would be impossible to cover everything and there are some significant omissions such as the lack of material on films produced throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Nevertheless, Varia’s overview does cover much of the emerging canon of Indian cinema and helps orient the reader for further research into specific periods and genres.
With the rising global interest in stars like Shakrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai, there is a clear need for academic work that frames the recent ‘global Bollywood’ trend within the longer history of filmmaking in India. Indeed, there have been a number of books published in recent years that have attempted to provide a similar guide for new viewers. These include K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake’s From Aan to Lagaan and Beyond: A Guide to the Study of Indian Cinema, Garret Fay’s Studying Bollywood and Tejaswini Ganti’s Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema. Kush Varia’s book makes an excellent addition to this developing body of work. While not as extensive as Ganti’s book, nor as focused on pedagogy as the Gokulsing/Dissanayake textbook, Kush Varia’s text is shorter and punchier, working best for those who want a brief taster before deciding to delve deeper.
Ultimately, therefore, this book provides a passionate and engaging introduction to popular Hindi cinema that will work best for those who are new to the topic. Furthermore, the book does much to rehabilitate the image of an industry that is so often dismissed as an embarrassing guilty pleasure. Showing that there is much more to Indian cinema than lavish song and dance sequences, Bollywood: Gods, Glamour and Gossip demonstrates the diverse ways in which popular cinema can represent a negotiation between the forces of tradition and modernity.
Dr Iain Robert Smith
