Lahore University of Management Sciences

History 300: Cinema and Society: A history of the Pakistani film Industry

Spring 2010-11

Instructor: Ali Nobil Ahmad

Office hours: TBA
Office: 110-C (SSNew2 wing Academic Block)
Email: ali.nobil@lums.edu.pk

Apart from one notable exception (Mushatq Gazdars currently out-of-print, largely factual account of
Pakistani cinema) there have been no serious examinations or sustained analyses of the Pakistani film
industry. This despite the fact that in its heyday the industry was one of the biggest in the world,
churning out hundreds of films a year. Today Pakistans film industry faces an uncertain future, which
makes the business of recording, studying and understanding its history even more pressing. This
course sets out to make sense of rise and fall of the Pakistani film industry, and to read its films in the
context of social and historical transformations in Pakistani history. How do films and the history of
the film industry enrich our understanding of the history of Pakistan and its people? Equally: how does
the political and economic context of Pakistani history as a framework shape our understanding of
films and the film industry?

After a brief introduction to methods in cultural history, the course embarks upon an historical account
of how the Lahore film industry emerged before partition and then survived the political and economic
upheaval of 1947 to develop along a unique path in the 1950s. What follows is an in-depth look the
development of Urdu films in the 1960s the Golden Era of Pakistani cinema, as it is often called. We
will also examine the rise of vernacular cinemas in the context of the changing social composition of
audiences since the 1970s. Particular attention will be given to the spectacular rise of Punjabi cinema in
the 1980s and Pushto cinema in the 1990s. All this will be explored in the wider regional and global
context: cinemas development as a technology and cultural form throughout the twentieth century in
South Asia and beyond. Having examined the industry and its history, we focus upon a number of
sociological themes in Pakistani history, playing close attention to questions such as class, nation,
gender and ethnicity. The course is primarily empirical, but some knowledge of psychoanalysis and
gaze theory will be indispensible, as will a basic understanding of the cultural theory: Marxism, post-
structuralism, feminist and queer theory provide conceptual tools that students may find helpful in
highlighting key issues.

Primary Source material

The films themselves will be the most important primary texts, and we will examine these closely by
looking at clips and in some cases, lengthy segments of important films. Life-histories of directors,
screenwriters, producers, actors, cameramen and others who have spent lifetimes struggling against the
enormous challenges faced by the industry will also provide useful primary material. These will mostly
have already been conducted by myself and Ali Khan as part of our ongoing research on the Lahore
film industry; a key objective of the course is to develop students understanding of the value of oral
history and students will have access to our digital archive of footage and audio interviews. They will
also have an opportunity to quiz and engage the protagonists themselves (several will be invited to
speak briefly at some of the sessions as guest speakers). A final point to note is that cinematic popular
culture and its relationship to the urban landscape is an object of study in itself: we will be looking at
street graphics, and in particular, the film poster as an art form. Lahore and its cinemas, that is to say,
are treated visual texts with meanings that have changed over time to produce and reflect important
aspects of social experience.

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Assessment

The course will be examined by two essays (20% each); an oral presentation (20%) in which students
present in depth research on a particular film or topic to the class; a practical research-based exercise in
which students will be expected to attempt some of the core investigative research skills of a historian
outside the classroom (20%). (The latter will probably involve some kind of research activity in Lahore
or local history in another part of Pakistan: e.g. conducting an oral history interview with a cinema-
owner or industry professional). There will also be a mark for participation in classes (20%).

Expected Learning Outcomes

Students will enhance their critical writing skills and their oral presentation skills. They will increase
their proficiency in reading visual and other kinds of texts critically; they will understand and apply
theoretical concepts in empirical contexts; they will learn to conduct interviews and use appropriate
multimedia technologies for recording and archiving digital data. They will increase their knowledge of
Pakistan and its history, as well as cinema as an art form and cultural formation in Pakistan and around
the world.

Wk Topic Readings Further Films

readings

1 What is history?; EH Carr Barthes Death No films in the first week

of the Author we focus instead on
Cultural history The historian and his in Music, theoretical issues: history,
facts Image, Text cultural history and above
all, differentiating
Jakob Burkhardt The Raymond between image, text,
Renaissance Williams context and the
Structures of relationship between
Feeling them.

2 A history of film Thompson and Encyclopedia of Selection of clips from

and cinema culture Bordwell Film Indian Cinema canonical Hollywood,
History, an Rajadhyaksha Indian and Egyptian
Introduction and Willemen popular films. Clips will
(Introduction) reflect the changing
Franco Moretti Planet history of cinema as a
Hollywood Popular technology (e.g. silent,
Egyptian black-and-white,
Cinema Viola animation) and its diverse
Shafiq genres: musicals, western,
Melodrama and Asian
cinema W. (Introduction) melodrama, action,
Dissanayake comedy, horror etc.

3 A social history of Mushtaq Gazdar Interview Selection of canonical

the film industry in Pakistani Cinema transcripts, Urdu, Punjabi and Pashto
Lahore audio and video films one from every
Guest: Nasir Adeeb material in decade since the 1960s -
showcasing diverse

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 digital archive. genres.

4 Memory, trauma Ann Caplan Trauma Urvashi Kattar Singh (1959)

and Pakistani film: and Cinema Cross- Battalia The
1947, 1971 cultural explorations Other side of Khamosh Raho (1964)
(2004); Silence
Khamosh Pani (2003)
Melodrama, cinema F.Khan&,A.,
We will look at some
and trauma (2001) Behera
Bangldeshi films about
Speaking
Palestinian cinema: 1971 as a way of
Violence:
landscape, trauma, confronting its total and
Pakistani
memory (2008) Gertz, complete absence in
Women's
Khelifi Pakistani cinema.
Narratives of
Partition

Freuds essay
Mourning
and
Melancholia

5 Class and class Michael Wayne The Class and Jago Huta Savera (1962);
struggle Critical Practice and class struggle Aadmi (1968); Maula Jatt
Dialectics of Third in Pakistani (1979); Dubai Chalo
Cinema; Hamid cinema and (1979)
Dabashi Close Up: society
Iranian cinema, past
and present

6 Nationalism, anti- Theorising national Aijaz Ahmad Khamosh Raho (1964)

imperialism cinema Jamesons
rhetoric of Zerqa (1969)
Vitali & Willemen otherness
Barrud ka tofa (1990) &
and the third
world allegory Da barrod (1990)

7 Gender, morality Gonul Colin-Donmez Lotte Hoek Khamosh Raho (1964)

and misogyny in Women, Islam and Cut-pieces as
South Asian cinema Cinema; Stage Film Zinda Lash (1967)
Bangladeshi
Arundhati Roy The Ek Gunah Aur se (1980)
Pornography
Great Indian Rape in Action 0B Lady Smuggler (1987)
trick Cinema
Hasina Atomb Bomb
1B

Laura Mulvey Hulsing (1990)

Viewing pleasure and Pushto
cinematic narrative Da Khwar Lasme
2B

Spogmay (1997)

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 Horror films

8 Violence in Slavoj Zizek

3B Aijaz Ahmad Maula Jatt (1979)
Pakistani cinema Violence Democracy &
and society Violence: the strong
4B

Dictatorship in (and several other Sultan

and the weak Rahi classics Veshi Jatt
Pakistan 1971-
McKinney 1993 etc).
Vitali Hindi Action
5B
1980 Savage
Cinema: Industries, Capitalism &
Equivalent examples in
Narratives, Bodies Civil Society
Pushto cinema (still
2008. in Pakistan
Empowering the researching)
oppressed through
participatory theatre
Augusto Boal

9 Cinema and visual William Glover

6B Rachel Dwyer Field trip to Evernew
culture Making Lahore Cinema studios (depending on class
Modern; India: the size and budget)
Guest: Mohsin Truck Decoration
visual culture
7B

Artist Veteran and in Pakistan JJ

Elias; of Hindi film;
Lollywood Filmi
The Art of Auto-
8B

billboard/poster Mobility; magazines as

painter S.Chattopadhyay historical
documents

10 Subjectivity and the Freud Civilisation and Sudhir Kakar Muthi pur chaval (196?)
family its discontents The Inner
World

Roland In
search of Self
in India and
Japan

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11 Corporeality, Althusser ISAs & Judith Butler Zinda Lash (1969)
scopophilia and Freud and Lacan Bodies that
queer trangressions Matter and Khamosh Raho (1964)
Lacan The mirror Gender
stage Aurat Raj (1979)
Trouble

Georges Bataille
Eroticism

12 Musicality and The use of music in

9B Casssette
11B Selection of songs and
dance in Pakistani popular film: East and culture: dance sequences presented
film West Popular music and discussed by veteran
Beeman 1988 and
Lahore-based
technology in
A Historical Survey
10B north India choreographer, currently
of the Urdu Ghazal- PL Manuel - actively working in the
Song in India' Manuel 1993 industry
1988 -

13 Language, folk Homi Bhabha The Aijaz Ahmad Heer Ranja (1970)
tradition; vernacular Third Space In the mirror
cinema and of Urdu Yusuf Khan Sherbano
translation Punjabi folk tales (1970)

Aurbul (1973)

14 Islam and the Jalal Self and Muslim anti- Zerqa (1969)
Muslim World Sovereignty: individual semitism
& Community in South Bernard Garnata (19????)
Lewis; Joseph
Asia since 1850
Massad, International Gorillay
2004). (1990); see also the Turkish
Semites and Valley of the Wolves
anti-Semites,
(2006)
that is the
question