Since I know very little about India and Indian cinema, my article shall focus on the inspired mise en scène developed by this filmmaker operating masterfully in the dangerous waters of big budget musicals.

Since I know very little about India and Indian cinema, my article shall focus on the inspired mise en scène developed by this filmmaker operating masterfully in the dangerous waters of big budget musicals. The first hour of the film appears to me as aesthetically accomplished as the critically acclaimed classics of Hollywood Golden Age. This film has already received its fair share of acclaims both popular and critical. But I would like to take the time, from a Western perspective, to meticulously analyse the directorial choices and the coherent symbolism.

OPENING SEQUENCE

An Albizia tree. A dramatic ascending camera with canted low angle frames the red flowers against a cloudy sky. The camera stabilizes at an horizontal angle overlooking the foliage. The Neo-Roman plantation palace with an ostentatious Ionic colonnade surfaces in the background. This extravagant and maybe excessive opening shot already installs the tragic atmosphere. The Albizia has a fiery blossom : fire is an element that will play a major role in the film. The spring season announces the birth of love. And the fancy camerawork shows the Mukherjee household rolling on the horizon before coming to a steady stop, like a rhetorical rewind up from the catastrophic ending back to the stable beginning, announcing in cryptic fashion the trouble that will ravage this family. A bookend shot of similar red tree will close the film outside Parvati’s new home, when Devdas expires, echoing the foreboding opening shot. The first image marking the spectators’ retina is always an important moment of the film.

The courtyard of the Mukherjee palace reminds of the Neptune fountain in Versailles, the XVIIth century French royalty residence which was rented by Lakshmi Mittal for the wedding of his daughter in 2004. Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan were of course invited! The interior of the even wealthier palace of Bhuvan Chaudhry, Parvati’s husband, also resembles Louis XIV’s royal apartments. Somehow the opulent romance of this fictional musical written to take place in early XXth century, isn’t so far out from today’s lifestyle of the Indian elite class.

This is the eponymous story of Devdas [Mukherjee] yet it begins without him anywhere in sight. All sub-characters are introduced with a fluid two and a half minutes plan sequence. The camera runs throughout the house to introduce all Mukherjee family members before he arrives (more than 18 minutes later). Such gimmick builds up the anticipation of the audience who came to see their favourite stars, but in the hands of a lesser director, delaying the screen appearance of the title actor could feel forced. This said, I noticed he fails to accomplish anything with the same gimmick in the very average Saawariya (2007), seemingly directed by a totally different person… Saawariya is a conventional musical without any ambition, while Devdas truly deserved to be selected in Cannes, as an art film.

In a first flashback to childhood, Sumitra recalls how her son Devdas was sent to London, and Paro (nickname of Parvati the neighbour girl) ran after him with three rupees she owed him. This prude allegory expresses a materialistic debt in place of the sentimental treasure that shall remain publicly hidden. They were separated by adults because of this too intimate relationship.
In Bimal Roy’s 1955 version, the first chapter is entirely dedicated to the childhood friendship before skipping to the return of Devdas after ten years. We see the same narrative structure in Henry Hattaway’s Peter Ibbetson (1935), where two neighbour kids entertain a love-hate relationship across the garden fence and are separated by adults. Once they meet again, the girl is married and the grown up boy dies trying to reconquer his first love. While the Western film strives to bring back together the lovers, in their hearts and in physical contact, the Indian story rather emphasizes the ultimate and irrevocable sacrifice of the hero, averting adultery until his last breath because he accepts the price of his fault, the fatality of his fate. Both films conclude with a pessimistic, but oh so romantic, sad ending, which is a courageous, unconventional option in mainstream cinema.

B.D. Garda : ” [P.C. Barua's 1935] Devdas was the first real tragedy on the Indian screen. For a long time the contrived and innocuous tradition of the ‘happy ending” had dogged the Indian film. Conscious of the fact that life provides few, if any, happy endings, Barua did away with it. [..]  Unlike in Bimal Roy’s remake and the Tegulu version, both of which devote considerable footage to the childhood of Devdas and Parvati to establish their close relationship, Barua completely does away with it. His protagonists are grown-ups and he establishes their youthful relationship with utmost economy in a montage of four or five shots.” (1)

Bhansali also begins directly when Devdas returns, with sparse flashback images, incomplete scenes, to hint at this blossoming love. His couple of main characters act with a puerile attitude, adolescent show-off and petty bickering, even though they are supposed to be near in their twenties.  It’s unclear how old they are, but in the childhood flashbacks they look pre-teen. Devdas returns lawyer after a ten years studies, hence must be in his early twenties. Paro is probably a couple of years younger. Yet the actor Shah Rukh Khan is 36 and the actress Aishwarya Rai is 28 during the shooting of the film. That is how Bollywood expects us to believe in an “adolescent” romance… This kind of silly acting would better suit indeed the flirtatious moods of 18 years old kids than adults in their thirties. If Aishwarya can easily look younger than her age, the childishness of Shah Rukh is a bit out of place. It seems these two only become adult when separated, in marriage and in alcoholism. Bimal Roy marked a greater character evolution between the protagonists’ childhood and their adult behaviour, but his actors look even much older (the ten years span was less credible).

(Devdas the lamp-man)

FIRE

Sumitra goes on : “A lamp lit for a loved one draws the wayfarer home. For ten years, in that belief she kept that lamp alight for Devdas. Not once she left the lamp go out!”. In her dance Paro sings “My lamp, my love. [..] This lamp it is you“, her maids call the lamp by the name “Devdas” and later Devdas will say “In the flame of the lamp you lit up, it was I who burned”.

This lamp is definitely a central object that accompanies the film throughout, a virtual character who personifies Devdas, Devdas’ love and Devdas’ life at the same time or alternatively. And Paro will treat it as such : a dear friend she won’t let anybody else’s touch. The presence of this lamp brings in each scene a powerful narrative device to emphasise the untold love repressed by social conventions. Whereas Bimal Roy only expressed the continuity of Paro’s absentee love with a recurrent bird song and travelling singers.

The flame of this lamp in particular and fire in general embodies a powerful symbol of love in the film. Eternal flame and eternal love. Quiet uninterrupted simmering fire and patient loyal longing. Raging fire and passionate vengeance. Lamp blown away and death of Devdas. This lamp is a fetish object, a talisman of superstition, an evidence of Devdas’ love (or is it Paro’s love rather?) and a substitute for Devdas himself.

The following scene is essentially painted red and gold, for the colour symbolism of fire and love.

(The fire of her heart literally shines through her chest)

Silsila Ye Chaahat Ka : APPARITION OF AISHWARYA RAI

The first screen apparition of Parvati is also delayed. Aishwarya Rai will show a close up of her face after almost eleven minutes. Usually, in big productions, the screen appearance order is dictated by the “bankability” of the cast. Greatest actors are served first. But here, a reverse order is being used, to frustrate the audience. Even the scene when they are meant to first show up, the whole mise en scène withholds as long as possible through clever blocking, hence surprises the audience as late as possible.

The scene begins with a bird view of Parvati holding her lamp in a rainy night, appearing in a lightning exaggerated by a resounding thunder. Her face is invisible and only the fire of the lamp is apparent. Sanjay Leela Bhansali manages to keep on hiding her face during the next minute and a half, even though she will always be present on screen. The whole time, Aishwarya Rai is downgraded to a mere lamp holder, a simple spot boy. We can easily tell Parvati only exists for this lamp. It is more important than her. It’s the only thing we get to see.

Sumitra : “Are you crying? Let not tears of joy douse off this lamp before Devdas comes home”
Paro : “No power on Earth can put out this lamp”

Her mother just announced the return of her estranged lover and she cries instead of bouncing around with joy like everyone else. Sumitra is in a medium close-up with Parvati’s devout hands holding the lamp in the left corner. This perspective filmed from outside on the terrace gives the impression that a column of rain drops aligned with the lamp falls onto it. This dripping rain also stands for the tears concealed offscreen. The dialogue begs for a similar countershot of Parvati’s face, but Bhansali cuts instead to a close up of Parvati’s hands walking away as she speaks her reply, with her mouth offscreen. Now she turns to place the lamp directly under the drops to test the inextinguishable fire of her love. Her servants blow it, vent it out… in vain. Cue music, first sang by a choir narrating the back story, like a Greek chorus in the antic tragedy of the Western civilisation.

The close-up on the lamp could only let us see her hands and her bust. A dance move makes her touch the lamp with her feet, knee and elbow. Thus, as the camera continues to follow the lamp in close up, we get to discover her body bits by bits. Then she crosses the floor in a wide shot, but unfortunately she’s facing the wrong way, and we only see her long black hair. The only way telling her apart from the other dancers is the lamp that never leaves her hand and her taller height.

There are a couple of beautifully composed plans with shifting scales, starting with a wide-shot scale of the backup dancers, and rack focus change to the foreground where the lamp jumps in, magnifying the shot scale to a medium close-up. This gives depth and layers to the screen accommodating several groups of dancers interlacing each other. A rich film grammar without cuts.

Again an aerial shot. Note the expressionist translucent shadows, distorted, cast on the floor by the coloured stain-glass. She runs outside right when a lightning flashes in the night. Finally the countershot we’ve been waiting for : her face in close up lit by heavenly light when her lyrics start. The audience also gets to first look at her face bathed in celestial glow, like Devdas will in the moonlight. The lamp still manages to take the foreground corner of the shot, in soft focus, as she stares intensely at it. She protects it from the wind with a loving hand. In gracile motions, her hand plays with the fire, circling around the flame, touching it, surrounding the heat source, striving to grasp this intangible element.

Now the rest of the choreography can be shot with her face on. The song lyrics reaffirm all the heavy symbolism : fire is love. The lamp is identified at once with her love. As this lamp is burning, her heart is burning as well. She calls for the return of her loved one. Another flashback to childhood shows, during the course of the song, the little Paro, lonely, wiping her tears next to the lamp (this brief insert is unfortunately shot in a corny way I must say).

The choreography re-enacts some kind of psychodrama explaining the dreaded parting, with the lamp standing in for Devdas. The lamp is stolen from her hand by the maids as she watches it helplessly. She runs after it and is stopped by other maids, who warp her inside a prison of see-through veils. The lamp is stranded in the garden where rain pours, but keeps on burning defiantly. The rain coincides with the tears in her heart after the parting with Devdas, thus marking a strong association between weather and mood, primordial elements (water, fire) and feelings (sadness, love). Although bringing rain to evoke sadness is an old cliché in mainstream cinema.

The choir chants that she is “crazy and naive“, which qualifies her absurd connection with this lamp. We’ll notice the cleavage later on between her objects of love, whether she’ll choose Devdas or the lamp. The dance ends with Parvati presenting her lamp to a majestic statue of Durga, entirely white.

DURGA

Durga is the Hindu warrior goddess Sumitra frequently invokes in her exclamations. She also happens to be one of the fearful form of Mahadevi, the great Goddess, second consort of Shiva. In fact, Parvati is named after another manifestation of Mahadevi. In the famous “Dola Re Dola” song, Parvati and Chandramukhi will celebrate Durga Puja together. There is indeed a firm tie between Paro and Durga, between this story and the love story of Sati and Shiva. Parvati is the reincarnation of Sati who immolated herself after her marriage with Shiva against her father’s will. Parvati craves to reunite with Shiva. She embodies self-sufficiency, patience and fierce compassion, which characterizes perfectly the role of our Paro in this film. Paro is the untouched virgin, the selfless mother without her own children, the losing rival of a ménage à trois, the lonely lover living with her lamp resigned to her misfortune.

( Paro prisoner, Devdas menacing, and in the centre of the frame, a dead fly in his clenched fist)

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON : APPARITION OF SHAH RUKH KHAN

Now it’s Devdas’ turn to delay his screen appearance. Kaushalya wants to organise the homecoming celebration of her son to the last detail, she wants to be the first to lay her eyes on Devdas, but will be disappointed in her perfectionist endeavour. She asks everyone to close their eyes when Devdas buggy has arrived. A servant, Dharamdas, carries Devdas’ huge luggage on his shoulder, thus blocking the view. Bhansali shows a lateral shot of the two. Dharamdas tells how her son has changed in ten years, his genuine excitement competes with Kaushalya’s frustrated anticipation, she tries to peek behind him until she learns he went to Paro’s house first… When Dharamdas finally unblocks the view, there is no more to be seen. This clever mise en scène delays the time when her pride shatters. But the act isn’t over, Devdas’ arrival will take place in 5 steps.

After this first deceived appearance, he will introduce himself to Sumitra (who will be the first main character to lay her eyes on him), without appearing on screen. Paro hides upstairs upon hearing his voice. So Bhansali uses a parallel montage of Sumitra welcoming on one side, and Paro running on the other side, to replace the missing countershots of Devdas. The third step is the encounter with Paro, who refuses to show her face to him. Here Bhansali uses a big buzzing fly to distract Paro when Devdas enters. In French “avoir le bourdon” [literally having a bumblebee] means being blue. In fact, the whole set is all black and purple. This fly is a materialisation of the awkward tension, the doubts and anxiety, but it’s also the metaphorical intruder spying on them, the unwelcome third party disturbing the privacy of this moment. She defends herself against the harassment of this annoying insect by waving a sheet around her, which is briefly reminiscent of Annabelle Moore’s Kinetoscope serpentine dances. Again we see a lot of shots of the back of her head, aerial views and layers of veils to put the audience in Devdas’ frame of mind with the anticipation to see her face. We see his hands first pushing open her door, revealing her dancing inside the flying sheet, her back to the camera. Countershot of his face in medium close-up, discovered by the sweeping motion of her sheet flying away. Now the audience can see him in plain view. He wears a hat, a bow-tie and a long coat, carries a cane : chic Western three-pieces suit, while everyone else wears traditional Indian clothes. She sticks her face against the bed. When he speaks, her feet recoil slightly, betraying her emotion. Body language before dialogue. His first impression of her, after ten years, is a faceless body sensually playing with veils, like a dancer (a talent running in the blood of her mother’s family, which is the cause of her social demise), then her body abandoned on the bed, in a sari hiding all but her naked feet at the forefront of the bed. Quite a sensual introduction.  The buzzing wings of the inopportune fly will regularly interrupt the flow of their conversation. They are together at last, but this foreign presence signify the socially unacceptable character of this encounter. A gentleman in the bedroom of a single daughter. This fly could be the haunting shadow of Devdas’ offended mother irritability, the disapproving wrath of his father, or more generally the taboo of social conventions and caste barriers : all the obstacles arising amidst a simple romance.

Devdas fails to assure her of his mutual longing. He will only be allowed to look at her under the moonlight, as a punishment for neglecting her all these years. “Not even the Moon is as vain”, he says. She retorts : “…but the Moon is scarred”. The battle of egos is on! He leaves after catching the fly with a swift hand, delivering a heart-wrenching line : “Paro, I hate the thought of someone else touching you.”

His face his dramatically barred by the shadows of the louvered shutters. He not only delivers her from the nuisance of this insect, but he alludes as well, metaphorically, to his deadly jealousy caused by other men approaching her. Close-up on a gleeful sigh on her face. This possessive innuendo comforts her desire of manly protection, by the man she loves. However, this macho attitude reminds immediately of the subdued condition of wives, prisoners of a male’s exclusive and unforgiving desire. This attitude will soon take more violent proportions for Paro.  Later in the film, Devdas will catch a buzzing fly again next to Chandramukhi. The second insect attributes the same symbols of social gossips and clash of egos to the disturbance it causes, but it’s especially a reminder of the earlier scene with Paro, as he tells off Chandramukhi with his arrogant, drunken mouth… while his broken heart is however slowly falling for her.

The fourth step is when Devdas is greeted by his family, except his mother who is sulking because the neighbour stole her thunder. He dropped hat and coat, and his bow-tie is now loose, which would suggest he undressed in Paro’s room… This makes for an amusing scene where Devdas tries to defuse the tension. He says Paro refused to see him, which sort of redeems his fault a posteriori. But since his mother remains stubborn, he pretends to go away, hides like a kid and surprises her as she rushes after him apologetically. Which was the fifth step. Instead of the joyful perfected celebration she envisioned, she is in tears and the butt of a joke. Quite a reversal of fortune caused by her possessive pride.

The mise en scène of this whole sequence was remarkably meaningful. It’s a shame that the dialogues (like the lyrics in the songs) are overstating what we can see and feel from the images already.

So in order of appearance, people who first saw Devdas were : Dharamdas, Sumitra, the Mukherjee family, Kaushalya and Badima. His father was conveniently called out, and excused himself from the welcoming party. Like at every key moment of Devdas’ life. Flashback to childhood when young Devdas is whipped by his father. The love missing from his father will be a major factor in the destruction of his personality, the loss of his “mojo”; a castrating indifference.

(A self-censored kiss)

MOONLIGHT : THE PSEUDO-KISS SCENE

This is the first time Devdas gets to see the beautiful Paro after ten years away from her. Imagine how he pined! And we did too, because it took more than 24 minutes of film for us to see Shah Rukh’s reaction at the sight of Aishwarya. Unfortunately this scene is extremely cheesy, ruined by non-Indian music, forceful violins, choir vocalise, fake Moon, moving shadows, unnecessary camera slides and excessive editing… filmed like a glossy perfume commercial. But if it’s not rendered intelligently on screen (an exception in this remarkably directed film so far), it is nonetheless a powerful scene, on paper, in the scenario : no spoken words, no explanatory lyrics either. It’s a scene we perfectly understand in silence.

The Moon, the lamp, Paro and Devdas, all gathered for this pseudo-kissing scene. The Moon is the symbol of their vanity, the lamp is the symbol of their love.

Conveniently she’s asleep, so he doesn’t have to confront the resentment and repartee of her witty pride, which prevented them from reunion earlier. She might be sleeping because he was late to the meeting, or because she’s afraid of his first impression. Either way it’s better for both of them. She’s defenceless and he could kiss her, but he doesn’t. Lovers never kiss in Indian cinema! As he blows away a lock of hair across her face (one pseudo-air-kiss) to better contemplate her face, she shifts her position while sleeping and her hand falls over the lamp. A trial-by-fire. To prevent her from getting burnt, he lands her hand immediately on the back of his own hand which covers the flame. As long as he can endure the pain, he may continue to look at her in her sleep, peaceful and innocent, like a stolen moment, a voyeuristic peep, liberated from her judgemental gaze. The cheap soundtrack features a ticking sound to mark the time he will withstand the heat. Meanwhile, the back-lit effect of a hidden candle reminds me of the great paintings by Georges de La Tour (2).

In her song, the lamp was her burning love, symbolically. Now, this flame is effectively burning his skin. The fire symbol turns from abstract metaphor to concrete pain. Yet they are one and the same. Her love is his pain, and vice versa. Because their romance is doomed and they will never be together. This is the paradox contained in this scene : this very lamp she maintained alive all these years while he was away, now is the fire that hurts his hand. He gets burnt by his own love, by her loyal love. The object of adoration is the one that becomes a weapon between them. And it translates exactly what happens when their egos clash.

He’s too proud to tell her how much he loves her, a coward like all men are when it comes to expressing feelings, but this act she is unaware of, since she’s asleep, is a proof for the audience to acknowledge. He’s willing to sacrifice himself for her, even if his words might say otherwise. The same dilemma will come back when he’ll write her his last letter.
When she pulls back her arm away from the fire, he fails to put out the flame of this inextinguishable lamp, and lays on her lips the stain of soot that was on his finger (second pseudo-kiss). A proper kiss is forbidden by the Indian censorship board, but this highly erotic scene is as good as a real kiss, bypassing the social taboo.

The smile on her face (still asleep) at the touch of his finger is the tangible proof of a kiss, that either disappeared in an elliptical edit or was represented here by this metaphor. It is more than a wishful erotic dream. The black dot on her lip is like the materialisation of the proverbial fire of love. Incidentally, Devdas makes this burn mark by connecting the lamp to her lip with his finger. Her lips are now burning of his passionate embrace (though unseen onscreen). The analogy linking Devdas, the lamp, Paro and love has gone full circle, and lifts any doubt. She wakes up in a jump and notices soot on her lip. He’s already gone though. He definitely stole a kiss, but the smile on her face silently approves. Ultimately she’s content that he did see her when her arrogant guard was down.

The same trial-by-fire shot reappears further when Parvati’s mother in-law grounds her. In a metaphorical statement she intends to “put out the fire before it burns the house”. Unfortunately the lamp she intends to put out to illustrate her point is Devdas’ lamp, and Parvati cannot allow anyone to touch it. She covers it with her hand. In a mirrored situation, Parvati burns her own hand over this flame to save it, just like Devdas did for her here.

(Two half-faces seeking fusion to form a whole)

A LESSON IN CALCULUS

The next morning, they meet again. Vanity is back in control. Verbal communication requires once again the protection of their shield of pride. They play little games of love-hate attraction, teasing each other. Once she plays-pretend indifference and he’s begging for attention. Other times he uses his enviable experience in London to boast about how less interesting she could be to him. She teaches him a lesson in calculus to show how much she missed him. A touching and funny scene relying mainly on beautifully written dialogue and talented timing. The mathematical theme started when Paro counted the days and hours since he left, the number of letters she wrote during the bedroom scene with the fly. The petty Kaushalya will count the guavas stolen by Paro. And later Devdas will reverse the situation and prove his maths skills when she finds him at the Kolkota brothel. Like the three rupees debt of the opening sequence, characters need concrete material enumerations to quantify the respective size of their love, a sentiment difficult to declare, let alone to measure.

Follows a parallel montage of the parents of the two families, each couple in their own bedroom, having a night discussion about the prospect of their children’s marriage. The inter-cutting make the two private conversations look like they reply to each other. Here is a rare apparition of Paro’s father, who is curiously absent of her wedding ceremony and most of the film. This is the key scene articulating and cementing the social gap, the caste incompatibility between the two long-time neighbours. It suggests the difference in wealth through the comparison of furniture and clothing as well as in the comedic dialogue. What’s interesting here is that the caste barrier is stigmatised by the love marriage of a landlord, Paro’s father, with an actress, thus willingly disgracing his reputation. It is the first testimony in the film where love triumphs over the tradition of arranged marriages. But one generation later, the interdiction remains for Devdas and Paro. Ironically, acting and dancing, which are the proud business of Bollywood, is looked down upon by the Brahman (also knight of the British empire) who even go as far as to compare it to prostitution because their family tradition is to sell brides. A subtle reminder that female roles in early Indian cinema used to be played by prostitutes, because it was inconceivable for a honest woman to consider an acting career. (3) Theatre troupes status have always been considered a social downfall, just like in the Old Europe. And early cinema actors met the same fate. It’s only been five decades or so since the success of movie stars matches their social recognition. Thus the film uses the star power of Bollywood and the acquired sympathy of the audience to dispute the unjust caste system that both castigated cinema actors and inter-caste love. Bhansali’s Devdas is defiantly anti-caste, in spite of the artificiality of the genre that has little to do with contemporary social reality.

Tabish Khair (4) makes an interesting comparison of the theatricality in Bimal Roy’s and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s versions. In the latter film, the class difference is hardly noticeable since the splendour of richly decorated interiors and fountains denotes luxurious families above the necessity of lower classes. In fact, Parvati’s father pertains to the class of landlords. The story only disputes the defamation of this landlord, and doesn’t go as far as to approve love with a girl who has no landlord blood in her veins. Bimal Roy goes for a more neorealist feel, while Bhansali goes all out for the eccentricity of theatrical mythology, eye-candy sets, and sumptuous costumes. According to me, the fairytale extravagance and artificiality better correspond to the epic nature of this bigger-than-life sacrifice. Cinema shall feature the mythical dimension of this love story, akin to the self-sacrifice of Sati and Shiva, within a disproportionate context far from everyday lives.

To justify going herself to fetch the soil from a courtesan’s doorstep, for Durga Puja, Parvati formulates a brilliant plead : “Don’t humans live there? Is there no air? No sun in those quarters? Do rains refuse to visit them? Nature doesn’t discriminate. Should we?”

And Chandramukhi slaps Kalibabu, accusing aristocrats of fathering illegitimate daughters in brothels, and maybe sleeping with them too.

The introduction of Chandramukhi in this love triangle takes the anti-caste statement to a higher degree. No longer a competition of reputation between two landlords, the social gap cannot span any wider between an aristocrat and a prostitute. Chandramukhi will openly criticize the hypocrisy of aristocrats who abuse of brothels favors at night while denigrating courtesans in public places.

There is no such public confrontation in Bimal Roy’s version. Vyjayanthimala’s Chandramukhi sneaks in at Devdas’ property under a false identity, pretending to pay the rent to her landlord, in order to know his whereabouts. She never gets to shake the moral order or claim better respect for her profession in 1955. Thus Bhansali’s film is more socially progressive regarding women conditions and social hierarchies. The angelic portrayal of happy courtesans is greatly fantasised in this fable though.

(Binoculars symbols of a camera viewpoint (my doctored split-screen collage)

Bairi Piya : THE BRIDAL BRACELET

The comedic prelude to this scene is some kind of a commentary on filmmaking. Paro and Devdas spy on each other with binoculars from their respective terrace. This is the position of a Peeping Tom, to contemplate the beloved one without having to confront another rhetorical battle of wit and ego that usually ends up in a cold atmosphere. But it is also the position of the film director behind the viewfinder of his camera. Thankfully Bhansali doesn’t overlay here the cheap black mask that is commonly used to simulate the binocular first-person view effect. Devdas asks his Badima to find into the binoculars the bride who will receive the bracelet gift. Once she spots Paro at the other end of the binoculars, looking back at her with her own spectacles, in a literal self-conscious shot-countershot, Devdas is gone. She finds out in her binoculars that he has run to the neighbour’s house to meet Paro. In a typical process of audience identification (or psychoanalytic transference for the auteur), Shah Rukh Khan slips into the image that sees the binocular, to be part of this distant world, to chase the object of desire spotted in the cross-hair of the camera shot. Devdas achieves what is the primal desire of every spectator : to rush inside the screen and meet the protagonists. We can certainly think about this allusion when watching this scene. It will end with a shot of Kaushalya and Kumud spying with the same binoculars on Devdas and Paro candidly fooling around next door.

Paro doesn’t know this gift is Badima’s family jewel reserved for the bride of her grandson. Although expensive presents definitely bear this connotation. Thus the scene plays out on two simultaneous levels. On one side, Paro thinks it’s just a present from the prodigal son, and she will pull and push to make him pine. On the other side, Devdas makes a definite declaration by ceding this treasure to his future bride, albeit without letting her know. It’s a meaningful gesture to him, without the formal character of an official proposal. The audience, like his Badima, is privy of his intentions, while Paro is still naive about it. That’s why the scene will not unfold without troubles. Paro and Devdas pretend to tell fortune, reading each other’s palm. Mockingly they invent something that will turn out to be the sad reality… The lyrics of the song spell out what they mime in silence : Paro shall marry a rich old man and Devdas shall never marry. What seemed like a joke at the time, is in fact the prophetic guess of their impossible love story. Which is an ironic built-in “ending spoiler” only a fourth way through in the film. The audience, though, is already familiar with the well-known story of this umpteenth remake.

The bracelet game-play also bears a delightful connotation of sexual initiation. Putting on the bracelet on Paro’s arm becomes a ritual of symbolic penetration (just like a wedding ring) and a funny silent choreography, where Devdas is clumsy and hesitant until Paro explains how to put on the bracelet. He tries to put it on, she dodges. She holds out her hand and he doesn’t want anymore. This trivial scene to ornament a girl’s wrist sensually drags out in a puzzling challenge. Look how playfully excited they are about delaying its successful conclusion.
This is how a foreplay scene can be directed on screen, through metaphors, without shocking the censors with nudity. And the innocent audience finds the unconscious libidinal satisfaction without the public shame of transgressing a hot taboo. In the aforementioned prelude, we see Paro’s parents heading out on a buggy; which means Devdas plays around with his girlfriend in an empty house, while the parents are away. However this couple behaves very politely. A platonic flirt with respectful dignity : we see them sitting side by side on a table or on a swing (in slow motion : the corniest shot in the film!). But the film evacuates any oversight, any moral authority, there is no obstacle for them to get closer than what is seen on screen. And we can only imagine how far they might be tempted to go when the camera is not looking.

The bracelet is later transmitted to Chandramukhi to confirm Parvati’s approval of her amour. When Devdas notices it at the courtesan’s arm, he instantly understands the shift of Paro’s love and her own sacrifice. She keeps the bracelet after her marriage to prove her faithfulness to him, but let go of this symbolic marital handcuff when Devdas goes with another woman.

The bracelet attached around the forearm may be seen as a symbol of enslavement (like the wedding ring is to the finger), the submission of the woman to her husband. She wants to be the chosen one, the only partner of his life, thus welcomes this status of sentimental slave. The coveted bridal bracelet is unique, only one woman can wear it at a given time. So it is a symbol of exclusive election. Whoever has the bracelet, owns the man. This metaphor is again found in Chandramukhi’s anklet bells : a chain of enslavement that Kalibabu wants to tie around her ankle to signify his conquest over her resistance.

The bracelet jigsaw is echoed again at the end of Parvati’s wedding ceremony. Devdas forgot how to open the bracelet and they burst in laughter through their tears. The wrist jewels usually come in pairs for the bridal dowry.  Parvati refuses the second twin bracelet, which will end up on Chandramukhi’s arm. Two female rivals sharing the dual bracelet destined to the one and only chosen bride, is highly significant in this story. Devdas’s heart balances between two semi-brides, and never get a real bride for himself. In Bimal Roy’s film, the two women only cross path once, without exchanging a word, without acknowledging each other. Women of incompatible social castes won’t mingle publicly…

(Erotic penetration of the thorn)

Morey Piya : KRISHNA AND RADHA IN THE DANCE OF LOVE

I love this scene for its condensation of meanings in multiple simultaneous layers. Bhansali edits it in a parallel montage showing Sumitra in the Mukherjee ballroom on one side, singing and dancing, and on the other side, Devdas and Paro in the Chakraborty gardens by the river at night. In effect, Devdas and Paro re-enact the lyrics of the song in real time, without uttering a word. On one hand, theatre : a solo performer on an artificial stage in front of a live audience. On the other hand, (silent) cinema : two actors on their own, living out a fictitious episode on a reconstituted studio set under the blue-tinted Krieg lights. As an aside, the same song is here both diegetic (as a “live” performance for Sumitra) and non-diegetic (as an extraneous soundtrack for Devdas and Paro), which further accentuates this rhetorical comparison between theatre and cinema, two poles structuring the aesthetic tendencies in mainstream cinema.

Sumitra’s part is pretty straight forward. She honours Krishna and Radha, iconic figures of Hinduism that embody the ideal love story. Once again is established the mythical association between our fictitious mortal protagonists and their Gods counterparts. Though in the author’s mind Devdas and Paro personify Shiva and Durga/Parvati, in Sumitra’s mind they personify Krishna and Radha. Significantly, another protagonist (Chandramukhi) will later on thread the same storyline of Krishna and Radha’s encounter. The two mothers have developed here a petty rivalry over marriage priorities. Sumitra is lured into performing a spectacle for Kaushalya’s guests. Through a cunning misunderstanding, she’s led to believe her daughter shall soon be married, and dances her heart out, which she had quit since her husband’s disgrace. Social etiquette requires the (socially inferior) bride family to await for the proposal of the (socially superior) groom’s one. But Sumitra cannot wait and will face public humiliation.

Bhansali injects autobiographical elements from a personal nightmare he had of his own mother’s humiliation. Indeed, scenes of public shame and revengeful paybacks are recurrent throughout the film; this one being the central catalyst. Devdas is humiliated by his father numerous times, by Parvati, and by his mother. Parvati is humiliated by Devdas’ father and her mother when she visits Devdas’ bedroom at night, and again when her friendship with a courtesan and Devdas is exposed in her new home. Chandramukhi is humiliated three times, twice by Devdas, once by Kalibabu. Kalibabu is humiliated twice by Chandramukhi and once by Parvati. That’s what happens to protagonists with over-sized egos, who pride themselves on keeping the highest reputation by crushing everyone else’s dignity… They are caught red-handed and embarrassed by harmless lies, but lose face because they don’t get a chance to explain themselves.

The part with Devdas and Paro is gorgeous, despite the exaggerated colour scheme and the forced sculptural poses. Now Devdas finally wears traditional Indian clothing. So should he, since this innocent pastoral scenery where the children meet by the water while their mothers talk serious business is directed with a mise en scène curiously depicting everything occurring in Sumitra’s song. On the screen we see Devdas and Paro posturing more ceremoniously than usual. On the soundtrack we listen to the actions of Krishna and Radha. Our senses naturally merge the two in one. The film plays here on the polysemy of the scene, that could either be an allegory enacted by the same actors, someone’s dream inspired by the song, or a dreamlike sequence with coincidental resemblance.
Devdas is Krishna forcefully seducing the prude Radha! Parvati, carrying water jars, is Radha struggling to resist to Krishna’s passionate embrace! I’m curious to know why this encounter between Krishna and Radha sounds so violent in the lyrics. First the young girl is embarrassed to be approached by a man, which is the basic social reserve dictated by moral and decency. But Krishna progresses closer while Radha continues to protest. They are obviously in love, but it is disturbing to see this courtship portrays male domination and constraint in response to a victimised female subdued against her will. Devdas holds her thigh, rips apart her jewels, twists her wrist, locks her arm in her back, carries her around…

Radha (sang by Parvati’s singing dub, Shreya Ghoshal): “Oh no, not my wrist / Oh how shameful / Leave me I beg of you / No, don’t force me / spare me Dear love / No… I’ll curse you for this / Madman! Go away / Don’t torment me / Oh dearest love / Oh but I’m afraid / Love me”

This last word confesses her willing surrender as they ultimately enlace in each other’s arms. Nonetheless, it doesn’t set a particularly good examples for men to compare a young couple in love to such brutal seduction. As if to say that a woman’s “no” means “please carry on, cause I’m too shy to say yes”. Aishwarya Rai’s face doesn’t show signs of distress during the scene, she’s rather quietly surprised and captivated. It’s easy to notice that she enjoys what Devdas does despite her playful resistance, and that she wants to succumb. In this perspective the lyrics become quite ironic. Still, it fails to picture an exemplary role model for the audience to aspire to, and only reinforce a rude machismo mentality leading to domestic violence and rapes…

There is another key element articulating the scene, which is however never mentioned by the song. All this push-and-pull seduction takes place while Parvati steps on a thorn that Devdas will extract. This is a genial idea of mise en scene that adds yet another dimension to this multi-layered narrative. If the bridal bracelet scene was a hint at sexual foreplay, the tableau enacted here by our couple, half-gods, half-humans, figures all the symbols of a cryptic defloration.

After they splash each other with water a few times, she walks away, stops suddenly and balances on one foot with godlike postures. Devdas smiles. Her hands are full with two cumbersome water jars and a hand-held petrol lamp, thus practically immobilised by circumstances, at the mercy of the man pursuing her. Like when she was asleep under the moonlight, Devdas needs her to be incapacitated, prisoner, to allow him to make a move closer. Only when her guard is down, helpless, could someone confront her terrifying beauty. Like I said, the bracelet was a metaphorical symbol of penetration. Here, the thorn is a concrete symbol of flesh penetration. And I would go as far as to compare the bleeding wound inflicted by this thorn to the broken hymen of a virginal intercourse. This is how clever Hollywood directors inserted sexual innuendo during the Hays code era (5), and it’s not surprising to see it used in the Indian industry so morally codified by public decency. A symbol is not as offensive as explicit sex, especially if it’s a cryptic symbol.

B.D. Garga : “Surely it is the height of hypocrisy in a country  like ours, where nearly half of the population goes scantily  clad, where erotic sculptures and literature abounds and where  majority  religious groups  fervently believe in extraordinary primitive rites, that the mere sight of a plunging neckline in a movie or an adult discussion on sex in a play should make the censors go crimson in the face. The sexual athleticism of “mithuna’ couples on the walls of Khajuraho is sacred, but properly profane when transported to canvas by an inspired artist.” (6)

Again  the measured facial expressions of Aishwarya Rai don’t show pain and urgency, but surprise and ecstasy, stressed by expressionistic close-ups in lightning flashes. Devdas stops her from pulling the thorn herself and will take nearly four minutes before to take it out himself. He leaves her hanging deliberately with a thorn planted in her flesh, all the while, taking advantage of her unsteady one-foot equilibrium, will rob her jewels one by one. An anklet, a waist chain, a necklace… erotically figurative of a metaphorical undressing. Then he lifts her in his arms and lay her down on a low branch. While he puts down the petrol lamp on the other side of the branch he has to lean over her, and literally lays down on her abandoned body. The proximity of their bodies, however covered, and their mouths gets extremely ambiguous after all this mysterious foreplay. Only then does he extracts the thorn and kisses her bloody wound. In the countershot : her unequivocal euphoric sigh. This is when the lyrics go “love me“!

(The scar scene : Bimal Roy’s 1955 Devdas (left); Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 Devdas (right)

THE SCAR

On Parvati’s wedding day, he signs her forehead with a scar (symbol of domestic violence) and calls it a mark of his love. She accepts it proudly as a lasting testimony of his attachment since she now leaves for a husband she doesn’t love. We could say Devdas is under her skin, her secret sweetheart. This scarification is like a permanent tattoo of his initials, but only them know what the mark stands for. It still has the violent undertone of housewife submission.

She sings “The wound you left on me only adds to my beauty. My wound I will preserve as your mark that anoints my forehead”.
In Bimal Roy’s 1955 version Parvati says to herself: “This scar is my joy and wealth. My sole shelter.”

This mark will give Paro a new facial mask, one scarred like the Moon, in order to meet her new life, after this traumatic coming of age incident. From a proud, longing, flawless teenager… she turns into an adult mother overnight, her childhood truelove fully internalised. When her wedding procession takes off, she leaves behind her family, her house and Devdas. But the iconic fire lamp goes with her. Devdas the man (in London) and Devdas the ideal love (the lamp) were separated during his studious banishment. Briefly united for the childhood friendship to blossom in mature love. And once again, the man and the lamp split ways, because of Parvati’s pride this time. She refuses to elope with him,  because he abandoned her first, because he denied her love, because she’s promised to another man and intends to respect the marriage contract of her family. She keeps nonetheless the image of an eternal love with her, and leaves to his deserved misfortune the man who disappointed her (and slashed her forehead). Even if the inertia of social protocol and her family honour on the line could never allow the lovers to fusion as one… it is always their pride that force them in last resort to stay apart, out of resignation and dignity. The mythical sacrifice of true romantic (tragic) lovers.

I don’t know how meaningful it truly is in Indian culture, but, to me, to double the red sign on her forehead is not coincidental. It might not be that shocking culturally, but this ferocious make up is visually striking to say the least. Next to the official bindi dot applied on the occasion of her arranged marriage, Devdas adds his own mark, another red stain, more permanent, carved into her flesh, to defy this unwanted ceremony and claim ownership as if marking livestock with a red-hot branding iron. Only slaves and prostitutes were branded in the flesh in this manner. That’s why this scene is so socially violent and retrograde, in spite of the profound romanticism attributed to this narrative element. The lamp fire was a metaphor metamorphosed into physical pain. Likewise, the temporary social mark of the bindi is taken to an extreme and incarnated physically in her skin. The bindi is a protection for the official husband, commanded by social etiquette. The scar is a protection for her unofficial lover. Though the mythological trait of this fable grants magic powers to this wound. Towards the ending, a scene shows a close connection between the two secret lovers. Just as Devdas spits blood from his diseased liver, the mark on her forehead re-opens and bleeds alongside (like miraculous stigmata in Christian religion). The protagonists clearly enter the legend, and behave like the gods they stand for, with similar supernatural powers.

Scarification is typical Romantic heroism when we read this in a mythic tale, because it is only symbolic and carries a tragic power. But in a mundane story seen on film, the flesh wound is more tangible and concrete, less symbolic, less transcendent. It evokes domestic violence and female subjection. When Parvati is punished by her husband, she is forbidden to leave the property. This decision only highlights what has been the fate of women in older times, prisoners of their husbands, confined as housewives, hidden from the public, attached to the house they belong to, as commanded by the Purdah tradition.

TABOO OF INCEST

The drama unfolding in this film features the classic themes of Indian cinema : the impossible love across caste barriers (like a Capulet/Montague type of Shakespearean social obstacle), the tradition of arranged marriage opposed to spontaneous love, the heroic sacrifice in the name of love, the mythic virginity, the problem of alcoholism, and the conflict with parental authority. But the core theme is the vanity of beautiful people getting in the way of love, since their pride will be their downfall. This true love is doomed because of the schemes conceived by both families. The two lovers will end their lives alone and unhappy, as if arranged marriages and arrogance cast a malediction on these privileged families originally blessed with wealth, beauty, intelligence and happiness.

Devdas is the eponymous character of a beautiful and tragic love story. This is the plight of a doomed romantic lover. The story of a man neglected by his father, denied of a manly identification, and surrounded by the female figures of his life who he’s unable to love and satisfy because of the childhood castration (the father who ignores his presence, who frustrated his impulse to acquire virility). His life is divided between four women : his grand mother, his mother, his childhood sweetheart, Parvati and the courtesan Chandramukhi. The other supporting characters are almost invisible.

Devdas and Parvati are presented like childhood friends, the ideal couple born in families next to each other, raised as virtual siblings… a kind of incestuous love on the symbolic level, evidenced by the impossibility for lovers to consume this love carnally at any point in the film. A typical brotherly love. Devdas is described as a trouble maker who is separated from Parvati before preadolescence, for ten years (which incidentally is the duration of puberty) for a fault that is not entirely explicit. Devdas’ father is strongly opposed to this relation and prevents their union by all means. In Bimal Roy’s version, Kolkota was far enough, the big city where to raise a boy into a man, away from the rural domain where the girl awaits. In the 2002 version, the place of isolation becomes London, the capital of the former colonial empire. Devdas comes back as a British-mannered lawyer, with a bigger ego than ever.

The motif of the incestuous couple occurs again in the Chaudhry family of Parvati’s arranged marriage. She’s as old as her husbands’ children, so in fact she is an image of his own daughter, if not a blood related daughter. Bhuvan Chaudhry marries with a symbolic daughter. Meanwhile the son of the house desires Parvati who is his legal mother, but as old as his sister, another impossible oedipal union. Bhuvan Chaudhry relieves her from wedlock bedroom duty because he’s devoted to his deceased wife. Only this act of pure love preserves this house of incestuous sins, and at the same time preserves Paro’s “secret”. The audience, nor the husband will know whether Parvati was a virgin bride when he married her, since he vows never to touch her. Her reputation is safe either way.
Such archetypal dramatic structure is hidden under the surface by symbols and a reformulation of the familial genealogy, but the relation between characters whether they have acknowledged filiation or not remains equivalent. The plot itself tells one obvious story, decent and noble. The symbolic subtext says another story, where the taboos that cannot be expressed openly are concealed. Therefore the film develops two levels of narration, one is glorifying and romantic (sacrificial love) the other is darker and mythical (potential incest).

PROSTITUTION AND PURE LOVE

The coming of age of young Devdas depends on his confrontation with the patriarchal figure of authority. An oedipal battle that will set ablaze the family home. Mischievous pupils usually don’t cause such epic tragedies with stolen guavas and class skipping. Parvati’s mother is introduced with disdain as a dancer, their kind sell their daughters. But the thinly veiled innuendo of prostitution and the jealousy of the women next door could hint to certain unholy couples. When Paro’s mother proposes to Devdas mother, she is sent off and suggested to send her daughter over to sleep with Devdas like a prostitute. Devdas’ father scorns Parvati when she visits Devdas at night: “Why don’t you open a brothel with your mother ?”
A woman holds the role of a real prostitute in the second part, Chandramukhi, temptress and conciliatory. Parvati finds in her the woman who can consume love with her soul mate, she will be the sex partner while Paro remains the saint virgin with pure platonic love (in a subconscious, unacknowledged wish). This finale arrangement for a ménage à trois is quite disturbing, and defies any conception of jealous, possessive, exclusive, eternal love. In Casablanca (1942), in a reverse situation, two men ultimately agree on who gets the girl and decide of her fate against her will, in a bittersweet, barely believable self-sacrificial ending. Basically, the willing renouncement of true love transcends desire and attain a higher level of spiritual commitment without affective, carnal compensation. The mythical vow of love supersedes the achievement of physical love.

The two women aren’t rivals but consenting accomplices. The virgin and the prostitute aren’t random archetypes there. Jean Eustache called one of his film “La Maman et la Putain” [The Mother and the Whore] (1973) because this is the split personality that faces every (married) woman : the role of the pure, frigid mother who raises the babies, and the “slut” who enjoys sexual pleasures with her partner. The irreconcilable antagonism between maternal love (celebrated by society) and carnal love (social taboo). Sometimes two different women incarnate the opposed roles, to emphasizes the choice of the man for one or the other, and the success of one or the other to conquer the attention of the man at various stages of the story. We find this subtle duplicity in Buñuel’s Cet Obscur Objet du Désir [This Obscure Object of Desire] (1977) where two actresses play the two personalities of the same woman. Sometimes a single woman alternates between one archetype and the other, showing women as two-faced characters, with a borderline personality. Like Tom Stall’s wife in Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (2005) or the alter ego Beyoncé/Sacha Fierce (2008).

THEATRICALITY

If every Masala musical coming from India were that well directed, narratively thoughtful, aesthetically refined, the worldwide stature of Bollywood would match its ranking in production quantity. Even then, it would be an artistic success for one type of genre movies. Quite a limitation.

“The Bollywood machinery loudly proclaims ownership of its exclusive filmic property or design – that of the masala, and justifies the existence of all its inanities by using an assumed ‘poor and hungry’ audience who they have to provide weekly escape routes from their lives. Do they even have an idea about their audiences as such?” (7)

The conceited realm of musicals doesn’t usually appeal to my conception of cinema. Yet what Sanjay Leela Banhsali does in Devdas is exceptional. Bollywood musicals are even more artificial than Hollywood musicals in that the entire soundtrack is always dubbed (like in Cinecitta, Italian famous studios) by the actors themselves whereas the songs are interpreted by generic extraneous playback voices (Kavita Krishnamurthy for instance). This is a gimmick the audience is required to accept and forget not to be distracted by this cruel divorce of the characters’ corporeal existence with their proper speech : the asynchronous rhythm, more or less perceptible, of lips motion and vocal diction.
The eight songs in Devdas 2002 (of which six are choreographed numbers) amount for 42 minutes out of three hours, which is almost a quarter of the total run time. It definitely occupies a major part of screen time, which is one reason why Indian movies are always longer. If we omit the musical parts, we are left with 2h23 for the narration to unfold. According to film critic C. Dasgupta, an average Indian goes to the cinema not so much for the story of the film as the songs and dances in it. (8)  And this mentality needs to change in popular culture for the language of cinema to prosper on the sub-continent, like it has everywhere else in the world.

Despite all this and the kitsch colours, the extravagant sets, Devdas, version 2002, creates an admirable tragedy of mythical proportions, with interesting ideas in the mise en scène, and a clever integration of the song numbers. The first and last songs are the only ones where the protagonists suddenly start dancing out of the blue, from a previously realistic dialogue, and everyone around spontaneously join in a perfectly rehearsed synchronised ensemble choreography. The others are particularly well integrated in the story when a massive spectacle is plausible. And they are generally beautifully directed, with interesting compositions and camerawork. The last one, “Chalak Chalak“, would be the exception. This drunken dance with Devdas, Chandramukhi, Chunnilal is shot like a typical masala routine : with a frontal line of male dancers on one side, and a frontal line of female dancers on the other side. Little directing depth outside this repetitive schema. That’s why Masala movies are more of a Broadway stage show, than a true homage to the more complex mise en scène offered by cinema.

I admit that after this magnificent first hour, the film becomes more conventional and safe in term of narrative drive and mise en scène, but never falls in mediocre Masala musical territory. At the exception of the few of questionable details I mentioned in the article, here and there, Bhansali pulls out a remarkable work with this musical of a new kind, one for the Pantheon of great musicals.

The limitations of the genre (clichés, stereotypical one-dimensional characters, fake sets, grandiloquent dialogues, historical absurdities, social artificiality, deceiving “mirror” of the real Indian population, superficial politics) that Bhansali embraces (and magnify for the success of the genre) instead of transcending or transgressing, keep this film in the lower top tier of Indian Cinema. I prefer it over Bimal Roy’s version, even if their respective genre cannot be compared. What makes Bhansali’s version a great film is I believe its rich original literary inspiration (novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, 1917) providing a solid and powerful storyline basis, its outstanding cinematography (maybe partly due to D.P. Binod Pradhan) and the high quality of its music (Ismail Darbar & Monty Sharma) and choreography (Birju Maharaj, Vaibhavi Merchant, Pappu-Mallu, Abu Jani?) that is unmatched in the few other Indian musical hits I’ve watched, and of course, above all the remarkable mise en scène.

What Satyajit Ray achieved however (like in Jalsaghar, 1958, for a social-realist example of upper-class disgrace and musical passion) in term of mise en scène and cultural insights for the Indian society was always something else : the true great Indian Cinema that the newer generations should be inspired by to renew and revolutionize today’s cinema.

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Notes:

1. B.D. Garga, “Devdas (1935) : A Prince Revisisted”, 1980, in The Art of Cinema, An Insider’s Journey through Fifty Years of Film History, 2005.
2. Georges de La Tour, French paintor, XVIIth century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_de_La_Tour
3. B.D. Garga, “Sex in Indian Cinema”, 1987, in The Art of Cinema, An Insider’s Journey through Fifty Years of Film History, 2005.
4. Tabish Khair, “The ironies of Bollywood”, in 16:9, #31, April 2009. http://www.16-9.dk/2009-04/pdf/16-9_april2009_side11_inenglish.pdf
5. Hays Code, or Motion Picture Production Code, set the censorship guidelines in Hollywood between 1930 to 1968.
6. B.D. Garga, “Thoughts on censorship”, 1968, in The Art of Cinema, An Insider’s Journey through Fifty Years of Film History, 2005.
7. Anuj Malhotra, “Who do they make films for?”, Indian Auteur, #4, June 2009. http://www.indianauteur.com/13_june_WHO%20DO%20THEY%20MAKE%20FILMS%20FOR.php
8. B.D. Garga, “Soundtrack in the Indian Film”, 1966, in The Art of Cinema, An Insider’s Journey through Fifty Years of Film History, 2005.

Tags: Aishwaray Rai, Bimal Roy, Devdas, Harrytuttle, Madhuri Dixit, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Sharukh Khan

Posted By Harrytuttle | Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | Filed under Cover Story