MOOC on HINDI CINEMA

MODULE-24
MELODRAMATIC IMAGINATION IN INDIAN CINEMA

ACADEMIC SCRIPT
Indian mainstream cinema is famous – or infamous – for
its melodramatic mode. The generic divisions had been
distinct – either gangster, thriller, horror or noir – in the
last two decades but the distinct melodramatic mode
which was functional right after the advent of sound had
been durable and still persists.
This mode is featured by heightened melodramatic plots,
Manichean extremes of purely good and unadulterated
evil characters, a lack of individuation. Indian
mainstream cinema didn’t have developed generic
categories, instead a heterogenous narration which is
episodic in nature wandered between different genres,
e.g. a family melodrama might turn into a musical and
comedy, then easily turn into thrillers or revenge dramas.
A notable feature of this mode was its resistance to
realism. This was so pronounced that the
alternative/parallel cinema in India was kickstarted by
Satyajit Ray – through his debut film PatherPanchali in
1955 – as an opposition to this strong presence of
melodrama in Indian mainstream cinema. Ray found the
melodramatic tendencies not only as a strong obstacle to
develop a modernist cinema in India, but also thought it
to be a result of faulty ways of filmmaking in India. After
him (with notable exceptions) Art Cinema in India
generally meant a more realistic one than the
mainstream films.
But before going into the specific features of Indian
melodrama, let us try to understand what melodrama is.
What is Melodrama?
‘Melodrama’ has long been used as a derogatory term,
especially in the form of the adjective ‘melodramatic’ - it
meant - earlier in common parlance - cheap sensational
drama which were too loud, manipulative of sentiments
and emotions, excessive in nature, especially during
dramatically important moments. The plots would be
formulaic, simplistic with characters signifying
pronounced goodness or badness; these plots would
often feature implausible or less realistic coincidences,
turn of fortunes and twists, but seldom to disturb the
status quo. Melodramatic plots which are sentimental and
which triggers intense pathos often features women in
lead characters and are addressed to women, thus often
described as ‘tearjerkers’ or ‘women’s weepies’ in
Hollywood.
The term ‘melodrama’ originally meant drama with music
(melos). In present times, it is often confused between a
sort of style which might be evident in many categories
of films, plays, literature or a definitive genre of films,
plays, literature etc. It would theoretically pragmatic if
instead of describing melodrama as a genre or style, we
describe melodrama as a mode of address. In other
words, ‘melodrama’ is a way of addressing, presenting a
narrative. Let us first identify the features.
Melodramas would be primarily identified with a plot
which is supposed to elicit strong emotions via intensely
dramatic situations and turns of plot. Therefore, a film
like PatherPanchali, though similarly triggering intense
emotions, should not be considered as a melodrama
because it is not based on convoluted dramatic plots, but
observations of events of death and separation as it
would have happened in real life.
Characters in melodramas would often signify extremes –
pure good or pure evil – without shades of grey or
realistic well-roundedness. In the Manichean world of
melodrama, goodness is often associated with hardships
and suffering, the hero or the heroine would often be
victims glorified with goodness of heart or intentions.
Conflicts would be less psychological than dramatic,
where the protagonist had to make ethical choices which
is determined by factors which are beyond individuals.
Often these factors are social, but generally the social
would be displaced or condensed to the familial sphere or
the sphere of a small community. Thus, different
historical or social drives would be represented by
different characters.
The reliance of melodrama on plots featuring
coincidences and dramatic twists or reversals would often
place characters in challenging situations. It might be the
death of a father-figure in the family, sudden bankruptcy
or stripping off of social honour, the rich suddenly
becoming impoverished or the poor hero suddenly
discovered to be a rich man’s lost son etc.
But the strongest features of melodrama might be
evident in stylistic and formal flourishes. Dramatic scenes
in novels might be written in pompous language, in films
and theatre they might be presented in a loud, heavily
stylized way. In cinema, acting might suddenly becoming
stylized, theatrical and hyperbolic’ lighting, camera
movement, editing and music might be used in a
startling, expressive way, as if the drama is not satisfied
by showing a scene, but highlights the dramatic density
of the scene by the overt expressiveness of the design of
the scene. It might seem that the scene might have more
to say than its narrative content. We therefore
understand the etymology of the term – in earlier drama
important scenes were emphasized with music – there
‘melos’ has a place in melodrama. And in cinema, the
function of music is taken over by other aspects of the
mise-en-scene too. Such ‘melodramatic scenes’ always
seem to point at a ‘absent’ repository of meaning, always
indicating that the signification and significance lie in
more than what is apparent, but never articulates it in
legible terms.
To sum it up, melodrama is a mode of excess; it
expresses through excesses of design and hints at an
excess of meaning. The melodramatic world becomes a
highly metaphorical world, a highly coded world, a world
burdened with signification where an invisible but
powerful narrative intelligence is always at work.
Features of Indian Melodrama
While theorists of melodrama have argued how
melodrama functions as a mode of address in Hollywood
films within the realist paradigm and have questioned the
realism-melodrama binary, in Indian cinema – as we
have discussed in the beginning –there is really a strong
resistance to many features of realism while it
incorporated many of its devices. Thus, continuity
editing, rules of cinematic spatiality and narration,
flashbacks via character cues etc. has been incorporated
into Indian melodrama liberally, while being resistant to
certain other attributes of realism.
Let us discuss few of these features. One of the striking
features of Indian cinema is its use of music, particularly
song and dance.
While due to the advent of sound most nations of the
world saw the almost irreversible domination of
Hollywood in the national markets, in India the result was
exactly opposite. Sound enabled Indian cinema to
dominate over Hollywood and other foreign films. This
happened primarily because theatre and other folk-forms
in India were predominantly musical in nature, and such
forms were easily adapted into films. One of the first
talkies in India, Alam Ara (1931) had 7 songs, Shirin
Farhad, released in the same year had 18 songs, the next
year saw Indra Sabha which had 69 songs. Indian cinema
very quickly devised he method of playback singing,
where actors lip-synchronized to songs recorded by
professional singers to avoid the cumbersome process of
shooting songs and accompanied music in sync-sound.
The playback singing method liberated the shooting
process from recording sound and paved way to a
creative mise-en-scene design, editing and choreography
which western music videos took up decades later.
Songs functioned in multiple ways. It turned the film into
a variety show, where the narrative had breaks of songs
entertaining the music-loving audience. Songs were
primarily used to depict romantic scenes, comic
interludes, social commentaries and religious and artistic
expressions. Within a decade or so after the advent of
sound, songs were used in complex and sophisticated
ways, often aiding characterizations (therefore, different
characters will have different genres of songs associated)
and getting incorporated into the process of narration
(instead of taking breaks from them). Dances were used
even when characters are not dancers by vocation; by
the 1980s dancing became a requisite skill for lead actors
and a benchmark for stardom.
As we said earlier, etymologically melodrama means
‘music + drama’, therefore one can say that Indian
mainstream melodramas imparted a new dimension to
the term, somehow akin to – though being different in
many ways – from the western opera.
But how do the use of song and dance characterize the
Indian melodramatic mode? Primarily by giving it a
strong non-realist inflexion (if not anti-realist). Thus, the
suspension of disbelief (or the maintenance of the fourth
wall, lending a term from the theatre) which realism
presupposes is definitely not an agenda for the Indian
audience. For example, when Dev Anand sings in the
voice of Kishore Kumar, the audience do not believe that
it is Dev Anand singing can consciously appreciate both
the stars. Or, when Madhuri Dixit is dancing – both she
and the screen she is occupying (and the film form) is
aware of the presence of the audience and address it.
This ‘frontality’ (i.e. the conscious addressing, being
aware of the audience) is something the melodramatic
mode of Hollywood can never address except in musicals
and slapstick comedies.
Similarly, the dialog in Indian melodramas have a distinct
quality. Dialogs in Indian cinema had a defined quality
which can be described as ‘literary’ or ‘rhetorical’.
‘Literary’ here might not necessarily mean something
associated with prestigious literature (though the
category called ‘Muslim Socials’ did maintain a mark of
sophistication consciously), it means that dialogs in
Indian cinema has a quality which exudes the quality of
‘being written’, rather than being naturalistic. Therefore,
scenes of dramatic intensity or repartees are often
featured by certain rhetorical flourishes which are to be
instantly appreciated. Therefore, Indian film screening
are often witnessed to ‘applauses’ appreciating ‘well
written’ dialogs. Often, the dialogs have a distinct
‘rhetorical’ quality, that is, use of metaphors, similes and
other conscious usage of parts of speech and imageries
became abundant, giving it a distinct non-naturalistic –
often described by the term ‘filmy’ – trait. The ‘delivery’
of such dialogs by actors – Indian actors are often judged
by their ability to perform verbally – are therefore
marked with a double edge: the character speaking to
another character on-screen is simultaneous with the
consciousness that the actor is also addressing the
audience. In other words, Indian cinema is also ‘frontal’
aurally.
Indian melodrama, therefore, has perfected a cinematic
narration which is less a depiction of a diegetic world, but
more of a social presentation where narrative, spectacle,
iconography, verbal performance is blended into a whole.
But unlike the western melodramatic imagination – if we
follow Peter Brooke’s theory – Indian melodrama do not
necessarily present a ‘resacralized’ world in a post-sacred
modernity. Therefore, in films like Deewar (1975) we see
the sacred amulet worn by the hero falling off just
moments before he is shot; in other words, divine logic –
if not interventions – might function even in a film which
is about the Bombay underworld of the 1970s. This has
been often explained as a collateral of an imposed and
incomplete modernity where there had been no bourgeois
revolution like that of French Revolution. It is to be noted
that after globalization and an increasingly corporatized
film industry, as the Bollywood form of entertainment is
fashioned primarily to address the NRIs and the middle-
class, such eruptions of the sacred has also decreased in
Indian cinema.
One of such specific symptom of modernity in the Hindi
film form (which is also evident in films of other regional
languages) has been described by Madhava Prasad as
‘feudal family romance’, i.e. a form of family melodrama
where the feudal patriarchal framework acts as a moral
superego. This is another aspect which has relatively
loosened or has been weakened in recent years. Because
the Indian polity never saw a complete dominance of the
bourgeois – rather saw the bourgeois in negotiation with
other power sectors and interest groups, resulting in
piecemeal reforms and modernizations – a ‘realist form of
narration’ which presupposes a modern citizen-subject
was also not dominant. As a collateral, though the ‘desire
for a modern’ was articulated, it was censored, kept
under check, supervised by a feudal moral framework in
Indian mainstream films. This resulted in interesting
symptoms like not depicting certain intimacies between
couples, a closure of romance via the approval of the
greater joint family etc.
Three exemplary Indian Melodramatic films
We can now briefly discuss three films which would show
how the Indian melodramatic imagination works.
The film we have mentioned previously, Deewar, one of
the classic films of the 1970s which introduced the icon of
‘angry young man’ via the stardom of Amitabh Bachchan,
might be one such film. One should not say that the film
‘depicts’ the turmoil Indian urbanity was in during those
years like a realist film, but definitely the film articulates
it in a melodramatic way. The plot is rather simple. An
idealistic trade-union leader had to betray his cause and
comrades when he is blackmailed by a corrupt mill-
owner. Shamed and abused, the father of two young
boys, leaves his family. The mother, facing the onslaught
of the fellow workers, had to leave for Bombay to start
afresh. Ravi, the elder son turns into an excellent student
and a police officer, but Vijay, the younger brother,
traumatized by the childhood incident vacillates into the
world of crime, becoming a powerful mafia don. The story
climaxes in the brothers getting pitted to each other and
the death of Vijay.
The entire narrative is presented in a flashback of the
surviving mother and lawkeeper son when the latter is
felicitated for his courage and sacrifice. Thus, it almost
becomes a secret history which the establishment is
unaware of and the viewers are privy too. It is evident
that through the story of the mother and his two sons,
the film is re-presenting the myth of Karna-Arjun-Kunti
from Mahabharata, but with an intelligent twist: the
‘illegitimate son’ of the original myth is turned into a ‘son
whose love for his mother is illegitimated’ because Vijay
has turned into a criminal.
But the film – as in a good melodrama – appeals to the
viewer by presenting the angst and pathos of Vijay, who
cannot forget the shame and abuse the family went
through, thus seeking moral valence for a kind of dissent.
Thus, one can say that Deewar finds an affective
‘objective correlative’ to the nation-wide dissent which
was fermenting throughout the country, displacing the
political into the familial and the social. The trope
becomes more effective because the mill-owner who
blackmails Ravi and Vijay’s father never reappears in the
film, robbing Vijay of a closure of revenge.
The use of melodrama as a social commentary is never
rare in Indian cinema and one of the classic film is
Pyaasa (1957) starring and directed by the legendary
Guru Dutt. Here also the protagonist was named Vijay,
but in this film, he is a gentle poet. The film tells the
story of a misunderstood and struggling poet who finds it
difficult to publish his work and get recognition. While his
erstwhile girlfriend is now married to a publishing tycoon,
his work is appreciated by a prostitute who has
accidentally chanced upon his writings. In a turn of
event, Vijay is mistakenly presumed dead and his poems
gain a ‘posthumous’ fame. Vijay – who was in a mental
asylum – returns to the city to find it corrupt and
materialistic. When his greedy brothers – to exploit
Vijay’s new-found fame – take sides with a rival
publisher to announce him to be ‘not dead’, Vijay denies
to be the poet. Abused and rejected again, he leaves the
urban society with Gulabo, the prostitute.
At the center of the plot lies two event of deaths: the
death of Vijay’s mother and the death of the beggar to
whom Vijay gave his coat. While the latter is a perfect
example of melodramatic coincidence and turn of fates,
the earlier has no effect on the plot but has a profound
role in the following order of affect. While earlier Vijay’s
poems are typical instances of romantic Urdu poetry and
love poems, building up an aesthetic melancholia, after
the mother’s death and the following turn of almost
absurd events, Vijay’s poetry builds up a critique of the
post-Independence society, working on the previous
melancholia. Vijay’s poems are never political in the way
we expect, but are implicitly politicized as he compares
the nation to a brothel and in the famous climax, calls for
burning this greedy world. The slow building of an artist’s
subjectivity who transforms from an aesthete to a
disillusioned, bitter commentator on society.