What to do: READ THE ASSIGNED TEXT FIRST, WATCH THE FILM AFTERWARDS. The English title of the film is: Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness. This a very different film style from previous ones, it is more melodramatic and spectacle-centered (music, dance, color). So be open to experience a different style.

Introduction: This week’s film is one of the biggest blockbusters of Indian film history and Bollywood (Bombay, the center of Indian film production + Hollywood). With this film you will have an exposure to the three major sites of film and image production in the world: Hollywood, Nollywood, and Bollywood.
The text by Ganti is the introduction to a book on Indian cinema entitled "Producing Bollywood" (16 pages) and centers on its globalization, which is also known as Bollywood cinema.
The text addresses a fact that is hard to see from Hollywood-centered, North-American culture: the importance and strength of Indian film in Asia, which in absolute terms surpasses that of Hollywood and, also, has a wide-world following in other countries such as Russia. Iran, and many Latin American countries. In short Bollywood represents a trans-national circuit that is hard to see and understand from the USA. The English-speaking Indian diaspora in the UK and the USA has further globalized and complicated the reach of Bollywood (and as you will see, this diaspora is represented centrally in the film).
The goal this week is to discuss another area of globalization, centered on the second most populous country after China, India, who is the most influential, culturally speaking, alongside South Korea and ahead of China. Although there are 6 separate film industries in India (which use different languages), the most central is located in Bombay and it is filmed in Hindi, the Indian language with most speakers (its relation with the language Urdu is an ongoing debate). Thus, the Hindi film tradition, is characterized by the production of very long film (sometimes over 4 hours), in which other forms of spectacle are incorporated (mainly music and dance). Therefore, in order to fully understand Bollywood cinema, it is best to approach it as spectacle, rather than film. In other words, Bollywood films are closer to long spectacles such as football or opera than to film, strictly speaking. Bring your friends, make some popcorn, take breaks, discuss the film as you watch it, sing along or dance, etc.
The pace is slower, the spectators take breaks and return to the film, and thus the action-packed 90 minute American film is not a good starting point to approach Hindi cinema. Keep in mind, that globally speaking, such a spectacle is closer to many cultures around the world than its Hollywood counterpart. Also notice that the new genre of Hollywood, the blockbuster film, tends to be longer and slower, and thus it resembles Hindi film.
As with films organized around the idea of the society of spectacle (Debord) and Baroque culture, you will see clear social polarization in the film. Anecdotally, the actor who plays the father in the film, Amitabh Bachchan, is the best known Indian actor and for a while also became the best known actor in the world, ahead of its North American counterparts.
Plot Summary: It is a relatively simple story. Yashvardhan Raichand is a very rich man with many businesses and lives with his family: Nandini, his wife, and Rahul and Rohan, his two sons. Rahul, the protagonist, is adopted. He falls in love with a young woman, Anjali Sharma, who is of a lower social class/extraction and, thus, does not meet the approval of the father. A disagreement follows and the entire family intervenes to make peace between father and son. Warning: very melodramatic. Most men dance in this film.
Availability: Kabhi Khushi, Kabhie Gham (2001, India, Johar). Library: PN1995.9.I47 K323 2013 VideoDVD. Amazon Video, YouTube, ITunes, Google Play. Neflix: DVD only.
Question (answer 1, 2, and 3; do not disconnect the questions, attempt to create logical transitions from 1 to 3 while using different paragraphs; give a conclusion, 4, at the end). Disclaimer: The questions below do reveal part of the plot of the film, although at a very general level.

1- Begins by reviewing the existing literature on the topic (in our case and for lack of time just the weekly article) and isolates the concepts and ideas that might help construct the student’s own analysis.The two most important concepts in the article are: "gentrification" and “condescension and distaste expressed toward popular Hindi cinema [and spectators] by Indian elites and the English- language media.”

2- Focuses on a scene in order to analyze the film, since a complete analysis of the film is impossible with 350 words. Make sure that you give a detailed, concrete analysis, and give the exact time in order to proof that you have watched it. This week, you must focus on the second half of the film.

3- The paper retakes the key concepts/ideas from section 1 and 2, and gives a more general conclusion that situates the film and the analysis in the context of globalization.

It helps to also use the key concepts that we have learnt through the semester: the Other as defining Us/our Identity or Self, Dual Identification/Disavowal, Phases of Globalization, Power, Master/leader, Cultural Hegemony, Imperialism, Biopolitics, Masculinity, Double Consciousness, Hybridity…..

Word Limit: Respond with no less than 325 words and a maximum of 350. Posting: Copy directly the text onto the window of the essay question. Grading criteria: The weekly papers will be graded on: grammar and vocabulary, logic and structure of the papers, originality, and the degree to which the paper responds to the question posted on l2d without digressing.Word Limit: Respond with no less than 325 words and a maximum of 350. Posting: Copy directly the text onto the window of the essay questions.