Different types of film theories and their application in Bollywood

1. Queen (Feminist Film Theory)

Cinema, an industry which emerged from theatre industry and just like the theatre, cinema was also a male dominated industry from its beginning. Terms like gender equality, wage equality, objectifying the female actresses did not exist at that time. People were not aware about these issues and these issues were not something that existed at that time, nobody cared about gender equality not just in cinema but in every field.

Feminist film theory is mainly focused on the function of women characters in a particular film narrative or genre. It also focuses on the stereotypes of a society's view of women and tries to break free the society from all these stereotypes. Feminist film theory was inspired from 2nd wave of feminism which was all about workplace rights, voice against patriarchy and supporting gender equality.

Bollywood movies usually revolves around a hero who can solve all the problems of the heroine in the movie and comforts her in every situation, he becomes her saviour and wins her heart but The movie "Queen" is not any of that. Yes, the actress faces many problems and difficult situations throughout the movie but there is no hero to rescue her from all her difficulties. "Queen" is one of those very few Bollywood movies which talks about women empowerment with silence and conveys the message strongly with silence and simple innocent actions without any loud irrelevant protests as seen in many Indian TV shows. Movie is about a girl "Rani" who is dumped by her fiance a day before the wedding and after a day of locking herself in her room and grieving, she decides instead of sulking about past, she will alone go to her honeymoon. This movie is loved and admired because of its true and natural emotions which makes the movie relatable and more. Rani is shown as typical Punjabi girl who is sweet and innocent and her life revolves around his family and fiance. She never explored her interests, hidden talents and did everything according to her family and fiance. Rani who needed Vijay (her fiance) for small tasks like crossing the road, goes to a foreign country all alone. The adventurous life changing journey of Rani starts from there only. She meets amazing people on the journey and the movie shows the struggles of an indian woman in a very subtle way at many places. For eg: While laughing with her friend whom she met in paris, her friend burps and Rani says " you guys can burp? Back in India we as girls are not even allowed to burp in public".

Even her friend Vijayalakshmi is shown as an independent single mother, she lives her life according to her own rules and she's shown in a positive light which motivates Rani to change the way how she lives and starts taking her own decisions. She shares a room with 3 guys, runs her own cooking stall with great success for 1 day. The movie has highlighted the hypocrisy of many Indian male by the situation when Rani a well educated girl leaves a good job opportunity just because her fiance doesn't want her to work.

In a typical Bollywood movie we would expect entry of a hero when Rani goes to Paris alone from a Freightened girl in a foreign land tk a strong girl who fights back when someone tries to mug her, Rani inspired us all. Queen is a movie about independence, empowerment and breaking all the social stereotypes.

2. Badla (Cognitive Film Theory)

Film theory has seen the emergence of a cognitive theory of narrative comprehension and interpretation. The theory arose from a dissatisfaction with poststructuralist theories of narrative that emphasize the film viewer's ideologically coded responses to screened images. Cinematic cognitivism advocates a particular ontological nature of narrative film. According the theory, viewers constructs a hypothesis about the meaning of the events they perceive. Then match narrative events to this hypothesis so as to infer a film's meaning. In interpreting what they are seeing on screen, viewers actually construct the film.

"Badla" a film that will take you on a 2 hr journey of mind games and riddles. The basic plot of the movie is a top lawyer Baadal Gupta is brought onboard by a very successful businesswoman Naina Sethi to save her from the charges of alleged murder of her lover Arjun. In Between this story there are many little stories unfolding uniquely. This movie is not a movie, you won't feel like you're watching a movie, it's like watching a cricket match you'll start to play along with the characters. Sometimes you'll replace Baadal with yourself and try to figure if she's telling the truth or making up the story. In fact, the entire chain of events which take place in the movie doesn't fit in the story sometimes and is hard to believe in and leaves you asking a plenty of questions. The movie plays back and forth in different timezone and in different places because the movie keeps getting back to flashbacks and coming back from it. There's only 1 story but it can be seen as 2 totally opposite stories because of 2 different mental frame is used, one is of Naina Sethi and other one is of Baadal Gupta. At the heart of it, the movie is all about perception and that's what fascinates us as the audience the most that we can to participate and decide is what we are seeing a 6 or actually a 9, or as we heard in the movie " Jo dikhta so vo hota nahin, Aur jo hota he vo dikhta nahi." Who then is manipulating whom?

The story moves forward very quickly and same events happening again and again but always with some slight difference is what keeps you engaged to the screen and so hyped about the film and you reach a point where nothing is predictable and there comes the climax which destroys all the theories and hypothesis you as audience made in your mind during the time you were watching the film and this interaction, flashbacks, participation is what gets you so hyped and involved in the film.

The cat and mouse game between Baadal Gupta and Naina Sethi, their light bolt quick actions, reactions and mind games they play with each other and, in turn with the audience. Their give and take about truth, lies, many version of truth, about who is speaking the truth and who is not, the multiple perspectives on the same crime. These factors are what makes "Badla" fit perfectly in the Cognitive Film theory.

3. Dil Dhadakne Do (Linguistic film theory)

Linguistic film theory is a form of film theory that studies the aesthetics of film bh investigating the concepts and practices the underlying themes of the movie, how the different characters are portrayed in the film and how all those different characters with different qualities and personalities come together to comprise the experience and interpretation of the movies.

"Dil Dhadakne Do" is about a bunch of incredibly rich folks going on a foreign trip, trying to celebrate a family event. No, the film is about how the lives of people who live in the houses build of glases is not as shiny as it seems. The film has layers, director Zoya Akhtar made this movie with the intention of Passing on the message that "money is not everything and it certainly can't buy you happiness" to live to the fullest you got to have lover for people you have, passion for the things you do and sympathy for people surrounding you. The one main big theme of the movie was rich people and their lavish parties and happy lives but there are many under lying themes when you go into the depth. It shows even the lives of super rich people can be as messed up as yours. Movie very subtly slides the feminist issues and everything that is wrong with the Indian society. For starters, for others the parents of Priyanka Chopra they present themselves as understanding and modern People but when it comes to their own daughter they become stereotypifal and starts thinking about society before thinking about their family. They sent out invitation cards with every family member's name on it except for Priyanka's and justified their action by saying "Tu ab humare ghar ki nahi he, Tera pati ka ghar hi ab tera ghar he." On the other side there is this relative of their who forces her daughter to wear tight and revealing clothes saying "aise kapde nahi pehenegi to koi ladka tuje pasand kaise karega" her mother is objectifying her daughter's body to find her a groom. Ranveer on the other hand has everything, a big business, family, plane but he is not happy because he doesn't have a passion for any of those and all the money and business doesn't give her happiness. His parents pretend to be in a happy marriage while they can't even sleep in the same bedroom his father is suffering from sever anxiety and her mother is depressed coz of her relationship with her husband. Anushka Sharma who is a dancer by profession who left her family, home and everything with just £200 and she is living happily because she's doing what she loves for a living and has friends and is following her passion.

The movie passes on a message "It says money is not everything and nobody is perfect, if you want to live happily learn to embrace what you have and accept your flaws and live with it."

4. Udaan (Schreiber theory)

David Morren Kippen chose the Yiddish word for writer "Schreiber", in honor of the many early screenwriters who had Yiddish as their mother tongue. Schreiber theory is a writer centered approach to film criticism and film theory which holds that the principal author of a film is screenwriter than the director. If the film is a ship them screenwriter of the film is the captain of the this ship.

"Udaan" is a story of a 17 years old who is expelled from the his school and returns back to his home to his so called father who he had not seen in last 8-9 years after his mother died and his cold father beats him, forces him to give up on his dream of becoming a writer and makes him work in his own factory like a labour and make him go to the engineering college even when he didn't want to. The film is a very low budget film, no star studded starcast, no sceneries the film is not shot in any aesthetic beautiful locations so what makes this movie so successful and loved? The script is written by Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap the entire beauty of the movie lies in the story telling skills of the writer. The story is about struggle, pain, love, sympathy, inspiration, dreams amd most importantly flight. Rohan who was expelled from school living at his home with his father who was almost a stranger to him, lonely without any friends, worked tirelessly at factory and then attended college too. When once told his father he didn't want to become an engineer and wants to become a writer his father said " Y writer bannke kuch nahi hoga, ye writer log ya to bhookh se marrte he ya to frustration me aakar daaru peekar marrte he." When people heard his poems and stories and started appreciating his work, instead of feeling proud and appreciating his work his father beat him and burned his diary of poems and stories. This movie is a lesson to every dreamer out there, even after being so tortured Rohan never gave up on his dreams and if you too believe in your dreams and yourself never give up on them be patient and keep working hard and one day you too will take your "UDAAN".

5. The Lunchbox (Structuralism film theory)

Structuralist film theory accentuates how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions similar to the way language is used to convey meaning. Structuralists believe in paradigms and that everything has a set of rules to be followed, this is rule for structuralist theory of films. Different types of paradigms consists of props, characters and setting.

"The Lunchbox" the entire movie is made up of codes and conventions only, two people who've grown to be very close to each other but have never met never seen each other in real life are connected to each other through just a Lunchbox only. In the starting few minutes of the movie, Fernandez was travelling in the train and the beggars were singing the song "Pardesi" in the background and the scene cuts and next scene Ila is seen doing her work and the same song is playing on her radio which establishes that a bond has been formed between the two after the first letter. Fernandez was a sad and lonely man, in one scene only his legs are shown him sitting on the swing shaking his legs the shot is taken from inside the room from darkness; this movement of legs suggest that life is moving on, time is passing by physically he is fully functional working, travelling, eating but just like the rest of his body his mind has not moved on from the death of his wife and is still stuck there. In one of the letters Ila mentions about her father having lung cancer due to his smoking habit, that night Fernandez when goes to his balcony to smoke looks at the family across the street and just puts back the cigarette back in its box and didn't smoke. In one scene as the dialogue starts " Life is very busy these days." You can see a hoard of men walking in, though there appearance is different yet they all look alike, it explains the rush of the city. How busy and Crowded the city is with people struggling to fulfill their dreams. In the starting of the movie when Fernandez looks at the family across the street having dinner the youngest girl of that family gives him bitter look and closes the window on his face but when the movie was about to end the same situation arises again and this time instead of closing the window the girl waves at him with a smile which shows that the character of Fernandez has grown up to be a good Neighbor from being a bitter one. The character development is shown very beautifully through these 2 scenes at the starting and at the ending of the movie.

6. Gangs of Wasseypur (Marxist theory)

Marxist film theory is one of the oldest form of film theories. It was developed promoted and expressed in the 1920's mainly by the Russian filmmakers. Movies influenced from the Marxist film theory shows the class divide that exists in the society and how it affects the society. The story is not communicated with audience through just the main character, the story is carried forward by many characters, each and every character has its importance and instead one character, a group of characters carries the narrative forward. Gangs of Wasseypur is an indian dark comedy crime film. The base of story starts from the enemity between "Pathans" and "Qureshi" Wasseypur is shown as a district which is dominated by Muslim population and in that too they don't have unity they have serious enemity. Everyday someone dies over this enemity, Law and order has no power there, any local goon will put the gun on a police officer's head if they try to interfere. The story start when Shahid Khan loots a train in name of "Sultana Daaku" a faceless dakoit, when Sultana Daaku a Qureshi by caste gets to know a Pathan is using his name to loot the train, He Threatens to kill Shahid and his entire family if he does that again and kicks him out of the village because Qureshi clan had Power, money and weapons. After that Shahid starts to work as a labour in the coal factory and he couldn't be with her wife when she died because the guard won't let him go and that's when the legacy of Shahid Khan started, he killed that guard. He couldn't stay by his wife's side because he was poor and lacked power, and he was being ruled over by power people like "Ramadhir singh". The movie shows social evils like class system, caste discrimination, corruption at its best and also shows the reality of the coal mafia of Dhanbad and how the scenario of Wasseypur was. Nasir's narration in the background, tells you about the I'll doing of the government back in the days, how the caste system was, how crime was a part of everyone's daily life.

The movie is a continuous tale of revenge between Shahid Khan and Ramadhir singh but it doesn't Focus on any one single character. Sardar Khan, Asgar, Nagma, Ramadhir, Nasir, Sultan Qureshi all these characters have very unique and powerful personalities and they carry this story and every character is in focus from time to time and this is what makes you bite your nails for 2hr 40 mins.

7. Zindagi na milegi dobara (Psychoanalytic Film Theory)

Psychoanalytic film theory says that things happening in the movie have a reason for why they are happening in a particular way. If a character acts in a particular way in the movie then there's a reason behind it, why he acts in the particular way, his behaviour, appearance everything resembles something that we need to analyse and understand. Psychoanalytic film theory was developed in the 1970's and 80's. Sigmund Freud is a physician and neurologist who developed the Psychoanalytic theory and thus was applied to the film.

"Zindagi na milegi dobara" feels more like a vacation to your heart and mind than a movie. When the movie ends and the screen goes blank, you're left with questions, you start introspecting your heart and start asking question about life, about love, about passion to yourself. Bollywood movies mostly focuses on a single protagonist rather it be a romantic movie, a horror movie or a gangster one but this movie focuses on multiple characters and their interconnected emotional journey.

It shows the life of upper class society people with whom not everyone of us can relate but they show it in such a subtle way that we all can relate with their fear, struggles, work and life. The mentality of the movie is urban indian. Their world is urban but realistic and that's what makes it believable. It is a narrative based film and through this journey and adventures they are somewhere trying to overcome their phobia and pet fears while also fulfilling the void they have in their lives. Every character has a void of love in their life, Arjun's girlfriend left him and he can't move on from it. Imraan never met his real father and is searching for him, Kabir is marrying the girl he loves, but later on realises he is not sure about marriage that's why there are many mid shots in the fill where all the 3 friends are shown together but each of them are lost thinking about something in their mind and the poems of Imraan in the background are a proof of that. The 3 characters are the human form of the 3 concept of Psychoanalytic theory given by Sigmund Freud. Farhaan resembles the Id because he always listen to his pleasure principles and is impulsive and does what his heart says while on the other side Arjun is the Super-ego, he function according to his mind on the basis of logic not emotions, he works hard, makes good money, works because it is the ideal thing to do in the real world. Kabir is the Ego he sometimes listens to his Id part and sometimes to the Super-ego part and keeps a balance between both of them.

8. AK vs AK (Apparatus Film Theory)

Apparatus theory is all about the cinematic devices that captures and records optical imagery as required by the demands of the cinematic bible which is the written movie scripts and how it easily links to the audiences as though like a massive metal chain that never breaks apart. Putting it simply, Apparatus theory is an affinity between the movie audiences and eyes of the movie cameras being used in a cinematic film.

"AK vs AK" a movie directed by Vikramaditya Motwane which is more like an experiment than a film. AK vs AK the characters are played by the real people on whom the entire movie is based but still the characters are fiction. No doubt the film is a new fresh concept in the Bollywood and is very innovative but it is also inconsistent at time. A movie being made inside a movie. AK vs AK feels more like a documentary film than a commercial film. This movie is innovative coz they have very naturally shown that they are making a movie, it look so natural because the use of devices is what makes it so real and natural. At places the camera is shaky because it is shown it is handheld and it makes it more believable because everyone has experienced this while shooting a video. You'll also get to hear mic glitches and perfectly timed raw thud sounds when someone falls on the ground or hit someone, As the girl shooting the movie was an amateur her camera movements are also very amateur she often zooms in and out while recording. Both Ak's are shown to have a dark side and that sinister tone of their behaviour is shown with extreme close ups on their faces. The movie has very few cuts and while the girl is running with the camera while shooting, you can see the motion blur and light flares in the footage and this is what confuses the audience that is it a fictional movie or all of this is happening in Real. Camera is the hero of this movie, camera carries the movie forward, as camera moves forward the movie also movie proceeds further. This movie highly rely on its devices and on the technical aspects on which it was based that's why it fits perfectly in the Apparatus theory.

9. Devdas (Auteur Film Theory)

Auteur Theory is a way of looking at films that state that the director is the “author” of a film. The Auteur theory argues that a film is a reflection of the director’s artistic vision; so, a movie directed by a particular filmmaker will have recognizable, recurring themes and visual queues that inform the audience who the director is and shows a consistent artistic identity throughout that director’s filmography.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Devdas" is everything that will please your eyes and ears and overwhelm your heart. It is extravagant, sporting an incredible variety of colours, the Playfulness of lights and shadows, visual flair, Melodies of the songs, it is a perfect masterpiece in all the aspects. With all means Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the Auteur of the movie. Bhansali is known for his 'Larger than life' depiction of stories in his movies, he takes cares of every small detail in his work showing grand lifestyle and exotic images. Bhansali creates a spectacle on screen that helps us to see a world we wish existed and has done all of this in his "Devdas".

Nobody else could've visualised of having stained glass windows and Paro passing by them while she runs thinking about her dev and blushing at the same time. The aesthetic when moonlight passes through those windows and creates a painting on the white marble floor and Dev just keep looking at his Paro's face while both of their face is been lit up by the candle light is something that we can only think of in our dreams. Having Romance at night by a waterfall in full moon night, moonlight shimmering on the water and singing "Morey Piya" is not something anyone else can think of except Bhansali. The songs and editing of the movie acts as cherry on top.

10. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S (Realist film theory)

Cinematic realism is neither a genre nor a movement, and it has neither rigid formal criteria nor specific subject matter. Realism has been an extremely useful concept for asking questions about the nature of cinematographic images, the relation of film to reality, the credibility of images, and the role cinema plays in the organization and understanding of the world. Realism, at the very least, has been a productive illusion. Cinematic realism refers to the verisimilitude of a film to the believability of its characters and events. Even though we know what we're seeing is not real, can not possibly happen in the real world but we believe it and that's what make a movie, a realist movie.

Munna Bhai M.B.B.S is a film that just didn't just earn the money but also earned the love of the Indian audience. It is an evergreen film in the history of Indian cinema. We all admire Munna Bhai as a character, we all love the way he calls someone "Mamu" we loved his sidekick "Circuit" he was way cooler than Batman's sidekick "Robin". We knew during the entire movie no matter how difficult the situation is Bhai will find a solution to it. Munna Bhai surely won our hearts by his unique way of showing gratitude bh giving "Jaadu ki jhappi" and making everyone laugh and healing them, now be it Zaheer who had cancer or the suicidal youngster who tried to kill himself because of her lady love or be it Anand Bhai who has not moved a single part of his body in years. Munna Bhai was magical, he had love to spread and we believe in him and look up to him during the entire movie as if all of this is real while we all know that Munna Bhai can't exist in real life, a saint and goon both in one person can't exist. Sending college professor to write your college exam is not possible, asking your friend to bring a living human body to perform practical I'm Human anatomy's class is not possible, yet Munna Bhai does it very easily and we happily belive him without any second thoughts. This is because of the strong direction and the acting of the actors.

11. Robot (Formalist theory)

Formalist approach was proposed by Hugo Münsterberg, Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, and Béla Balázs. Formalist film theory is an approach to film theory that is focused on the creative and technical, elements of a film: i.e., the lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing. There are no limitations to anything in the formalist theory, you can be as creative and imaginative as you want. You can create your own different world and you can do whatever you want to do with that because formalists are totally opposite of realists and they believe without creativity and imagination movies lose their essence and objective of making movies.

Robot is an Indian sci-fi action film directed by S. Shankar. The story revolves around a scientist, played by Rajinikanth who has spent half of his life on making a Robot with feelings who can serve as a multi-purpose machine and can help humanity. All of this is very common a believable because we are living in a machine era and we sre surrounded by machines and people are working on robots to make them more modern and more useful. In the quest of making him better some events took a wrong turn and this Robot turns into rebel kidnaps Rajnikanth's girlfriend because it falls in love with her and the robot starts making an army to take over the control of th world. In the movie there's excessive use of of editing during the entire movie, unnecessary slo-mo which make the scene more unrealistic i.e a bullet leaves the barrel of the gun and then close up on the flying bullet which just gives it an animated feel. Other thing is that this Robot acquires qualities on its own according to the situation which is not interesting, it's just makes the whole thing more phony and funny. For eg: He starts skating on the railway tracks right next to a Bombay local train to catch up with the train, turns his body into a magnet and attracts all the weapons, turns himself and other versions of him into a joint cannonball and starts rotating at its place and keeps on firing at the same time too. It's like you're are exploiting the audience and your creative liberty. You're mocking your audience because everyone knows that the irony is A Robot is a Robot bacause it doesn't have feelings and no brain of itself it needs to be fed instructions then only it can exist and work, they are breaking the basic main rule of the thing "Robot" by doing what they did. From the starting of the movie we knew it is not real but we still believed it and all of this movie was possible at the first place because of the director's creativity and imagination that's why this fits in the Formalist theory of films.

- Sourabh Upreti