Garcha on Excess in Hollywood/Bollywood

Classical Hollywood Cinema and Its Excesses in a Non-Western Cultural Context
By Harinder S. Garcha

“Alone or in combination, heavy doses of sex, violence, and emotion are dismissed by one faction or another as having no logic or reason for existence beyond their power to excite.”  Linda Williams, in her essay, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess," discusses various forms of excess in relation to the forms, structures, and functions of classical Hollywood narrative.  In this paper, I intend to examine the the Classical Hollywood Cinema and its excesses in a non-Western cultural context.

What is Classical?

In an influential essay entitled “Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today,”  Sergei Eisenstein discusses the connection between Hollywood film and the nineteenth-century novel.  As it turns out, this connection is not as direct as  many have assumed.  There is an important intermediate step--the theatrical adaptation of the novel.  Rick Altman, in his essay entitled “Dickens, Griffith, and Film Theory Today,”  points out that if any novel were researched, a stage adaptation of that novel would be discovered.  He goes so far as to say that “The last half of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century was so fertile in theatrical adaptations that it is not safe to bet against the existence of an adaptation of any novel, however unlikely.”  However, film critics have tended to stress the influence of novels on cinema, at the expense of theater.  The "classical" in film is assumed to have its roots in the conventions of the classical realist novel, including omniscient narration, linear presentation, character-centered causality, and psychological motivation.  The theatrical roots of the classical film have largely been ignored.

Classical Hollywood Cinema (CHC)

In “Story causality and motivation”  David Bordwell states that the construction of a Hollywood narrative revolves around the "dominant," which can be said to consist of narrative causality. Causality is introduced in CHC to give characters something to react to. In this context, coincidence is rarely used a tool to drive the narrative. The structure of CHC is exemplified in movies such as The Magnificent Seven (1960). The causal factor driving the movie manifests itself in an overarching problem, which in The Magnificent Seven is the forcible appropriation of a Mexican village’s food by a gang of bandits. The opening scene shows the bandits ride into the village. The gang-leader Calvera (Eli Wallach) engages in small-talk with one of the farmers while his men steal everything from chickens to corn. Through Calvera’s conversation with the farmer the audience comes to know that this is not the first time that the gang has plundered the village. The repeated plunderings are assumed to be the fact that motivates one of the villagers to attack Calvera. The villager is shot and killed. This scene makes the nature of the characters as well as the overarching causes explicitly clear. Calvera is selfish and although he will engage in idle conversation with the innocents (the villagers), he will not think twice before killing one of them. Calvera is the problem and the innocent villagers are his victims.

In the scene that immediately follows, the divisions between the villagers are made clear when they argue about what needs to be done about Calvera. It is through these divisions that the villagers are shown to be impotent and in need of protection. This is why the villagers have to hire the seven gunmen to be their protectors. The audience eventually sees that the seven gunmen not only protect the villagers, but also act as leaders and unify the village in one concerted effort to defeat Calvera. 

The concept of causality, however, cannot be executed without a logical motivation for the characters to react to situations. These motivations are set up through the psychologies of the characters. In the example I have given above, the central problem of the narrative is Calvera. His psychology is set up in such a way that he can never stop being a problem and that is what justifies the continued residence of the seven in the Mexican village. In the start of the film we have seen that Calvera is a selfish and heartless man. He is also arrogant and confident about his power and therefore continues to attack the village even when the Seven ask him to leave. In fact his pride is hurt when Chris tells him to “ride on."  His continued presence is what drives the narrative forward.

However, Calvera also has an odd form of respect for the seven American gunmen. He takes over the village after luring the gunmen away. When they come back he captures them but instead of killing them he confiscates their guns and has them led out of the village after which their guns are given back. If the seven had been killed instead of banished, the narrative would have ended and the existence of the movie would have become pointless. The seven have to survive and be psychologically motivated to return to the village and take on Calvera once again in order to keep the narrative flowing. This psychological motivation is directly voiced by Britt when he says “No one throws me my gun and orders me to leave.” The Seven then head back to the village to face the bandits in a final showdown. It is the psychologies of the characters that dictate their actions and keep the narrative flowing.

Another characteristic of classical Hollywood narrative that Bordwell mentions is the occurrence of two parallel lines of action. He states “The classical film has at least two lines of action, both causally linking the same group of characters. Almost invariably, one of theses lines of action involves heterosexual romantic love.”  As modern viewers of film this news comes to us as no surprise. Hollywood films are replete with boy-gets-girl story lines. However the love story also has to add to the flow of the narrative. It cannot be a line of action that exists simply for the sake of existing. In The Magnificent Seven the romantic line is manifest between Chico (Horst Buchholz) and Petra (Rosenda Monteros). From the start Chico is portrayed as an immature kid. He is not a hardened gunslinger like Chris (Yul Brynner). Here the generic properties of the Western portraying a dichotomy between the untamed wilderness and the garden also come into play. Chris represents the hardened and rough wilderness. Since he is an immature kid and is not as hardened as Chris, Chico is allowed to set up a garden through romance. Chico’s romance allows him to identify with the Petra and hence Mexicans in general. It is because of this identification that viewers are not surprised when Chico adorns a sombrero and infiltrates Calvera’s gang. Chico learns of Calvera’s plans and location and passes the information on to the other members of the seven. Therefore Chico’s romance serves the purpose of allowing the narrative to carry forward through the actions that the seven will take when they have information about the plans and whereabouts of Calvera. 

Finally Bordwell points to four different sorts of motivations in a narrative of which two remain to be discussed, generic and artistic. Any sort of action or occurrence in a film that is specific to its genre is said to be generically motivated. In The Magnificent Seven the showdown between Britt and another man at the beginning of the movie is specific to the Western genre.  Artistic motivation is when an occurrence in a film calls attention to itself and the system in which it operates. In The Magnificent Seven, the fantastic horse stunts with men being dragged by running horses would be an example of artistic motivation. The stunts make us aware of the fact that the film operates by a set of rules and regulations because of which a stuntman can safely be dragged around by a horse. 

The Excesses

Coincidence in the narrative is often cited as excessive and an occurrence that diverges from the established tracks of CHC. In his article Bordwell states that “Boy and girl may meet by accident, but they cannot rely upon chance to keep their acquaintance alive. The later in the film a coincidence occurs, the weaker it is; and it is very unlikely that the story will be resolved by coincidence.”  The use of coincidence is very strong in the narrative of The Guru (2002). The overarching plot and the love subplot are both caused by coincidence, as opposed to the causal motivation that drives the narrative of The Magnificent Seven. Ramu comes to the United States to be a dance teacher but realizes that the friends he was depending on for support in the US are broke and some of them are even illegal immigrants. He therefore works in the only place that will give him a job, the porn industry. This is where he is coincidentally cast opposite Sharonna (Heather Graham) who gives him lessons on how to be a good porn star. Ramu later falls in love with Sharonna. This love is the romantic subplot of the film. In another coincidence, while Ramu is working as a waiter at a high-society soiree, the Guru who was supposed to give a lecture gets drunk and passes out. Ramu’s friends urge him to take the Guru’s place. When the guests ask “The Guru” for his teachings, Ramu repeats the lessons that Sharonna had given him. Ramu’s role as a sex guru is established as the main premise of the film and because this premise is based on coincidence, The Guru’s narrative structure cannot be described as classical.

Discounting the premise of coincidence by the classical narrative hinges upon the idea of the “dominant.”  Although sometimes vaguely defined, in Altman’s view the dominant can be thought of as the ongoing processes of causality and motivation that operate in a film “…making temporal and spatial systems vehicles for it.”   In The Magnificent Seven the dominant is narrative causality and is displayed in the form of the characters of the movie and the spaces of the village and the desert whereby the dominant can be manifested.  The use of coincidence in The Guru, in a way discounts the existence of a dominant. The filmmaker relies on the use of coincidence for the formation of not only the love subplot (recall Borwell’s statement regarding the propriety of a chance encounter between a boy and a girl), but the main plot as well. Due to this use of coincidence, the viewer is not informed of any conventions or drive that may be unique to either the genre (arguably sex comedy) that The Guru sits in or the plot of the movie itself.

Another way that a movie may diverge from the notions of classical narrative is by employing the techniques of “The Cinema of Attractions.” In his paper of the same name, Tom Gunning describes how early films of the Lumiere Brothers, as well as the films of Melies focused on astounding spectators. Whereas Melies focused on a narrative in films such as A Trip to the Moon (1902), the Lumiere brothers focused on capturing everyday occurrences with their camera and then presenting these occurrences in larger-than-life form. This is a type of presentation that is discounted by critics as non-classical since a spectator watches the film not for the story and the narrative, but for the spectacle and jarring sensations. Melies in fact went so far as to say that the plots of the films he made existed solely as vehicles through which he could present the spectacles and shocks that are characteristic of his films.

In her paper entitled “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, And Excess,” Linda Williams points out that movies that aspire to awe audiences often do so through the use of spectacle in relation to sex, violence and emotion.” The Guru engages in creating spectacle by using sex and emotion. In the pivotal scene where Ramu is a waiter at a high-class party, when he dons the Guru’s robes in order to please the waiting audience of Bourgeois Manhattanites, he is expected to provide them with some sort of deep wisdom which he does not posses. Instead he resorts to the popular theme of sex. He repeated Sharonna’s advice to him about the act and as a grand finale he breaks out into song and dance to which the patrons react by joining in and engaging in a childish display of ecstasy.

In another scene that seals The Guru’s fate as a non-classical film, Sharonna coincidentally walks by the very auditorium where Ramu is engaged in enlightening the souls of hundreds of disciples. She hears his words and recognizes them as her own. In a fit of rage and with feelings of humiliation she storms out of the auditorium only to be chased by Ramu. The scene erupts into an argument after which Sharonna leaves crying. The naked displays of simplified emotion and the recurrence of coincidence are, according to Altman, characteristics of melodrama. The Guru encompasses the qualities of a sex comedy and melodrama while employing spectacle to keep the audience involved in the story. Therefore the film is excessive of established rules and forms of CHC.

Understanding Excess in a Different Cultural Context

My previous analysis of The Guru relies solely on the Western definitions of classical cinema. The movie itself revolves around the life of a male protagonist who is not American and hence targets audiences in two different cultural spheres, the Western and the Sub-continental. Therefore it is important to examine the excesses of the film from a different cultural perspective.

The occurrence of coincidence in cinema that has been labeled as excessive in Western culture is justified in an Indian context. In the tradition of the most influential Hindu scripture, The Ramayana (1986), Sholay (1975), one of Amitabh and Dharmenrda’s most successful films also employs the device of coincidence. The two protagonists are crooks on the run from the law when they are caught by a policeman, Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar). The train that the three are traveling in is attacked by bandits. Jai (Amitabh) and Veeru (Dharmendra) end up saving the policeman’s life and the policeman lets them go. Later in the film the policeman coincidentally hires these same crooks to defend a village against repeated attack by a gang of bandits. The coincidences in The Ramayana and Sholay have parallels in that in The Ramayana, Lord Ram also coincidentally runs into Sugriva, the dethroned monkey king. Lord Ram helps Sugriva regain his kingdom and later in the epic, Sugriva helps Lord Ram rescue his wife Sita from the evil demon Ravana. In both narratives the protagonist/s and the third character Sugriva/Thakur Baldev Singh form a bond after a coincidental meeting and later help solve each other’s problem. Sugriv needs his kingdom back and Thakur Baldev needs to save a train from bandits.

In relation to Tom Gunning’s article on “Cinema of Attractions,” within the Bollywood genre, attractions are not only present but central to cinema. The usual Bollywood film is three hours long and has an average of six song and dance sequences as in Sholay and the last part of The Guru. This spectacle of music dance and loud music directly descends from popular Hindu religious practice. For example on the occasion of Maha Shivratri (The night Lord Shiva married Parvati, one on India’s innumerable religious spectacles) the celebrations that take place across India involve a day of dancing, eating, drinking and making merry. The religious ceremonies and prayers are characterized by the loud banging of drums, ringing of bells and raucous dancing. Bollywood, influenced by this tradition of revelry and merriment, incorporates dancing and singing as an expression of happiness and joy. In the popular Bollywood film Lagaan (2001), this influence is directly noticed when the village holds a prayer for its players to win the cricket match. The prayer starts with low levels of singing and builds up until it reaches spectacular overtones and the message of strength is driven home. In another scene Gauri (Gracy Singh) and Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) have a battle of song in which they sing of the love between Lord Krishna and Radha. The influences and overtones of religion are constantly present and in this context the spectacles/attractions of song and dance sequences are justified.

The spectacles of over-simplified emotion prevalent in The Guru also lend themselves to cultural justification. In the scene where Sharonna walks out of the auditorium after seeing Ramu on stage, she is overcome by emotion and this leads to a showdown between her and Ramu in a very melodramatic scene. Altman points out that CHC disavows melodrama as classical due to its excesses. In the Indian context, however, the melodrama is justified because it is highly used in religious texts such as The Ramayana. Once Lord Ram defeats Ravana in epic battle with the help of the monkey army, he does not immediately take Sita back as his wife. He instead questions her purity due to the fact that she had been living in the home of another man. In true melodramatic fashion Sita is made to undergo the test of fire where she is enveloped by a blazing inferno. She comes out unscathed and this proves her purity to Lord Rama. This tradition of melodrama carries over into Bollywood.

Classical Hollywood traces its origins from nineteenth century literature to theatre and finally to films. The excesses of Hollywood arise due to Hollywood’s disavowal of the influence of theatrical productions of novels on cinema. The excesses however, when taken a put into a different culture make sense because that culture has traditions that cannot be disavowed and which are responsible for what Western culture terms as excess.

Conclusion

My discussion has traced the formation of CHC and how it is influenced by nineteenth century novels. The notion of classical cinema came to encompass a form of narrative that is characteristic of the novel. When cinema oversteps the norms of the classical, this excess is deemed to be at a lower level or inferior to the classical. However, in my opinion this is a narrow view of the structure of narrative since the propagators of classical narrative do not look beyond their own cultural contexts for explanations of excesses. In films such as The Guru that are made in specific cross-cultural contexts (a Bollywood film in India would never be able to include pornography in its narrative), an examination of mixing these cultural sensibilities needs to be examined. In an age of increasing globalization, theories of the cinema will no longer remain static and will have to be changed to take into account international influences in Hollywood. The understanding of excess in cultural context has been reached after those excesses have been analyzed according to the film sensibilities of a different country. Now the sensibilities of that different country need to be imported not just in film (as in The Guru), but in film criticism as well.

Bibliography

Altman, Rick. “Dickens, Griffith, and Film Theory Today.” South Atlantic Quarterly, 88.2, 1989. 321-359.

Bordwell, David. “Story Causality and Motivation.” The Classical Hollywood Cinema.  New York: Columbia, 1985. 12-23.

Eisenstein, Sergei. “Dickens, Griffith, and Film Today.” Film Theory and Criticism. Ed. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York, NY: Oxford, 2004. 436-444.

Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Film Theory and Criticism. Ed. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York, NY: Oxford, 2004. 727-741.