From dak at sarai.net Thu Oct 2 03:04:46 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 21:34:46 -0000 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] OCTOBER 2003 Message-ID: <200310011915.08444.dak@sarai.net> CONTENTS - OCTOBER 2003 15th Talk - The Buried City: Noon Meem Rashed and Modern Urdu Poetry 16th Talk - Her Mother's Son: Ghatak, Kinship and History 23rd, 24th Workshop - The Urban Adventure and the New Melodrama in the 1950s Film at Sarai: Film and History 10th To Be Or Not To Be, Directed by Ernst Lubitsch 17th Komal Gandhar, Directed by Ritwik Ghatak 24th The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi 31st Farewell My Concubine (1993), Directed by Chen Kaige Sarai @ Next Five Minutes 4, Amsterdam ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Friends, This month we have a number of seminars and workshops lined up including a return to the Language Seminar Series with reflections on a modern Urdu poet. Also, do remember that the deadline for submission of proposals for the Sarai-CSDS Independent Research Fellowships is approaching. For details please log onto our website. I. TALK @ SARAI THE LANGUAGE SEMINAR Wednesday, October 15, 2003, 3:30 pm The Buried City: Noon Meem Rashid and Modern Urdu Poetry by A Sean Pue, Department of Comparative Literature & Society, Columbia University MEDIA PUBLICS AND PRACTICES SEMINAR Thursday, October 16, 2003, 3:30 pm Her Mother's Son: Ghatak, Kinship and History by Moinak Biswas, Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University II. WORKSHOP @ SARAI October 23, 2003, 3pm & October 24, 2003, 11am The Urban Adventure and the New Melodrama in the 1950s. by Moinak Biswas, Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University One of the most creative moments of the contact between cinema and a consciousness of the city in India can be located in the early years of the 1950s. The new popular that emerged around the middle of that decade was fashioned by this contact in a significant way. The new melodrama established close liaison with global modes of bourgeois melodrama. It showed marked differences with the Studio Social of the two previous decades - in thematic structures, in codes of cinematography, performance, speech and mise-en-scene, and in narrative style. The story of the citizen's career, the new content and rhetoric of love - is embedded in an urban adventure in many of these films. Moinak Biswas will look at some of these ideas, with the help of extensive clips from Hindi and Bengali cinema of the 1950s. To register for the workshop please email me at dak at sarai.net by October 17, 2003. III. FILM @ SARAI: FILM AND HISTORY SERIES Staging History Curated by Ravi S Vasudevan The transactions between cinema and theatre provide a rich terrain for inquiring into the relationship between constructions of the real and the performative. The dynamic of what happens on and off stage, in the relationship between the biographical and performative identities of individuals and groups, and in the contrary and overlapping dimensions of cinematic and theatrical space generates an intricate and layered cognitive and perceptual field. Continuing the Sarai focus on film and history, this month we will be looking at how this theatre/cinema dialectic has provided resources to investigate, indeed to stage, history. The performative becomes a protean entry point for the historical context. In Ritwik Ghatak's 'Komal Gandhar' (1961), the landscape of a riven Bengal after Partition is accessed through the dynamics of theatrical groups. Their lineage dates back to the Indian Peoples Theatre Assocation of the 1940s, and their present, mirroring that of the country, is one of bitter division. Staged here are the intellectual and political formats for which the theatre is a crucial vehicle. A careful delineation of cinematic space and theatrical space inaugurates the film, but theatricality also flows into off stage character stances. Debate itself acquires a texture, a space, and, a sense of energies depleted and drained. Where theatre here is foregrounded as politics, and with a sense of historical transience, other instances suggest the way the social and theatrical intersect in the rigours of everyday life. Hierarchies of theatrical status, problems of economic insecurity, the duress of training - underlining performance itself as a form of labour - run through 'The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum' (Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1939) and 'Farewell My Concubine' (Chen Kaige, China, 1993). In these films, despite their subject matter being stylized forms of archaic lineage, theatre is not a rarified cultural form but is actively integrated to the social. Mizoguchi's remarkable film looks to the Meiji period for his story about a kabuki performer who breaks free from institutional patronage to fulfil his romantic ties to a subaltern woman. Deploying his famed long take and depth of field shooting style, Mizoguchi draws out the punishing grind of marginalized theatre in outlying regions, and draws out the pathos of how this social terrain is finally sublimated into the reassertions of social hierarchy. The protagonist finally achieves recognition, and is reintegrated into the upper levels of the Kabuki profession. But this is at a cost: his moment of triumph is caught in a swathe of theatrical banners atop boats which float down the river, while his self-sacrificing mistress lies quietly dying in a nearby tenament. Japanese society as a system of ritual spectacle surges up at the climax, suppressing the anonymous stuggles of the myriad small people who compose it. Mizoguchi's association with left wing `tendency cinema' of the 1920s, and again in post war Japan, may frame this as a gesture against the alienating ornamental politics of the aggressive Japanese militarism of these years. In Chen Kaige's 'Farewell My Concubine', two young actors undergo brutal training in the Peking opera, and the division between actor and character breaks down in the persona of Dieyi, who incarnates the role of the concubine of the title. Sublimation into a character defined by suffering and romantic unfulfilment appears to also offer the actor the possibilities of escape from the traumas inscribed in his body as an actor; failed romance is reiterated in his doomed attraction for his fellow actor. The film weaves these travails, and its emphasis on theatre and performance into the wider political context. A succession of oppressive forms, from the warlord regimes of the twenties, through to the cultural revolution of the 60s, determine the existensial circumstances, and significance, of the performers' complicated being. While critics have argued that 'Farewell My Concubine' is marred by a homophobic view on its central character, there may be the intimations here of something more complicated: where immersion in performance provides both a narrative structure and character positioning that comments on and diverges from the interwoven histories of politics and sexuality. A lighter note is struck in a comedic contrast to our previous focus on the work of Leni Reifenstahl. In the German emigre, Ernst Lubitsch, Hollywood imported a fabricator of the light fantastic. For Lubitsch, there is always the frisson of romantic escapade and scurrilous possibility in unseen activities behind closed doors, in surreptitious glances and offhand remarks. He deploys his arsenal to delightful effect in 'To Be or Not To Be', his film about a Polish theatrical troupe in the days following the Nazi invasion of Poland. Like Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator', Lubitsch's film excited moral suspicion as to whether such a grave phenomenon could be treated as comedy, even if to subject fascism to ridicule. However, there is no doubt that Lubitsch contrives an inventive confection here. Actors masquerade as Nazi subalterns, officers, and finally, and inevitably, take on the persona of the Fuhrer himself. The unlikely hero of this whirligig comedy is the rather pompous, self-regarding director of the Polish theatre, firmly of the belief that he essays a wonderful Hamlet. Others hold a different opinion: 'he is doing to Shakespeare what Hitler is doing to the Poles!!' October 10, 2003, 4:30 pm To Be Or Not To Be (1942), 99 minutes Directed by Ernst Lubitsch Ernst Lubitsch's 'To Be or Not to Be' is a black comedy about a Polish theater company - led by Joseph and Maria Tura (Jack Benny and Carole Lombard) - that turns to espionage after being shut down by the invading Nazis. The film begins in Poland, 1939, where Joseph Tura (Jack Benny), a tremendously vain Polish actor, and his wife, Maria (Carole Lombard), are starring in an anti-Nazi stage play that subsequently is censored and replaced with a production of 'Hamlet'. Maria has taken a fancy to a young Polish fighter pilot, Sobinski (Robert Stack), who is called to duty when Germany invades Poland. In England, he and his fellow pilots in the Polish squadron of the RAF bid farewell to their much-loved mentor, Prof. Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), who confides to them that he is on a secret mission to Warsaw. Sobinski, however, begins to suspect that Siletsky is a spy and flies to Warsaw to stop him from keeping an appointment with Nazi colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Rumann) - an appointment that will destroy the Warsaw underground. There, Sobinski enlists the aid and special talents of the Tura's theater group to save and protect the Resistance. A satire built around a rather complex spy plot 'To Be or Not to Be' lampoons the Nazis and paints the Poles as brave patriots fighting for their land, for whom Hamlet's question "To be or not to be" takes on national implications. Released in 1942, in the midst of America's involvement in WWII, the film drew a great deal of criticism from people who felt that Lubitsch, a German (though he left long before Hitler's rise), was somehow making fun of the Poles. October 17, 2003, 4:30 pm Komal Gandhar (1961), 133 minutes Directed by Ritwik Ghatak Ghatak's personal favorite and his most celebratory film, 'Komal Gandhar' looks at the Marxist-influenced Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) of which he was a member. It is a story of romantic love, focusing on two individuals belonging to rival touring theatre companies in Bengal who come together for a joint production. ''Nature plays a critical role in expressing the director's ideas in 'Komal Gandhar'.... The cleaving of the two Bengals - East and West - and by extension the partition of the Indian subcontinent are the major concerns of the story. The divide within the Left; the contradictory pulls inherent in the Movement are also treated obliquely and with sly humour. The growing love between Bhrigu (Abaneesh Bandhopadhyay) and Anushuya (Supriya Choudhary) is brought to life through the juxtaposition of the landscapes they appear in, and enhanced by the music which uplifts their conversations and gives them the authenticity of art. Their conversations then, like the other exchanges of dialogue in the film, assume real importance only when seen in the context of the total visual-aural design. Dialogue, for all the information that it carries, plays 'counter-point' to the 'melodic role' assigned to the image and the 'harmonic' one to music and incidental sound.'' Partha Chatterjee October 24, 2003, 4:30 pm The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), 115 minutes Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi The Japanese critic Tadao Sato defined the shinpa tragedy, a staple of Japanese dramaturgy, as "the grand display of the ego or will of a woman who endures her fate in tears." An example of the genre, this film stars Kakuko Mori as Otoku, the lowly wet-nurse of a powerful family of kabuki actors. One of the members of the family, Kikunosuke Onoue (Shotaro Hanyagi), comes to realize that his acting is praised only because of his influential connections, while other actors complain of his incompetence behind his back. When Otoku and the despondent actor begin to see each other, his father forbids the relationship, due to her low status, but Kikunosuke is willing to accept banishment from his family. Realizing that her new husband is talented but undisciplined, Otoku suggests that the couple leave Tokyo, so that Kikunosuke can continue to train in the kabuki tradition far from the reach of his family's influence. Apart from the highly charged and adroitly edited Kabuki sequences, the film is mainly constructed in extremely long takes, and an intricate rhyme structure between the two time periods is developed by matching camera angles in the same locations. The film also has a complexity of characterization that's shown with sublime economy. October 31, 2003, 4:30 pm Farewell My Concubine (1993), 157 minutes Directed by Chen Kaige In Chen Kaige's adaptation of the Lilian Lee novel, Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Fengyi Zhang) grow up enduring the harsh training of the Peking Opera Academy. As the two boys mature, they develop complementary talents: Dieyi, with his fine delicate features, assumes the female roles while the burlier Xiaolou plays masculine warlords. Their dramatic identities become real for Dieyi when he falls in love with Xiaolou; the resolutely heterosexual Xiaolou, however, marries a courtesan, Juxian (Gong Li), creating a dangerous, jealousy-filled romantic triangle. Kaige's passionate, exquisitely shot film captures the vast historical scope of a changing world and the mesmerizing pageantry of the opera while also providing the intimate and touching details of a tender, heartrending love story. 'Farewell My Concubine' spans fifty-three years, presenting the lives of two men against the historical backdrop of a country in upheaval. The film is neatly divided into eight chapters, including a 1977 prologue and epilogue that bookend the story. Each section represents a different era in Chinese history and the lives of the characters. The historical background from the time of the Warlords through the Cultural Revolution, including the Japanese invasion of 1937 and the Communist takeover, is integral to the plot. IV. SARAI @ NEXT FIVE MINUTES 4, AMSTERDAM September 11-14, 2003 Next 5 Minutes (N5M) is a festival that brings together art, campaigns, experiments in media technology, and transcultural politics. It is held once every three to four years. Readers will remember that Sarai also hosted one of the N5M4 Tactical Media Labs in November 2002. (http://www.sarai.net/events/tml/tml.htm) Next Five Minutes 4 (N5M4), International Festival of Tactical Media was held on September 11-14, 2003, at Amsterdam (www.next5minutes.org). Monica Narula, Mrityunjay Chatterjee, Ashish Mahajan and Shveta Sarda from the Cybermohalla Project put up an installation and presented ideas and reflections from Cybermohalla around issues of feminism and tactical media. The installation was a multi-media work with sound, texts, photographs, animations and a sound and text film created at the Cybermohalla labs. The Cybermohalla Book Box was also released here. (http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book02/booklets.htm) Cheers, Ranita The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net