1117 | Law and Film: Cultural Dimensions

The course is designed to provide an overview of law and popular cinema’s constitutive role in culture in India. It will build on the students’ knowledge of jurisprudence, in addition to introducing them to some foundational concepts in film and media studies.Filmis oneof the most powerful and expressive forms of contemporary cultureand because of its reach to the masses, a majority of people engage in popular discourse about the legal system through their encounter with its representation on film. This course, in addition to tackling debates where the two disciplines intersect, will also introduce studentsto basics in film language, film history and cinematic melodrama and realism. Due to paucity of time, this course will limit itself to discussions on Bombay cinema, or popular Hindi cinema, with detours to other Indian cinemas as and when necessary. The following division of the course into three modules ensures that the course gains thematic momentum as it moves forward: