Friedrich Nietzsche declared the death of God in 1882 soon after the Industrial Revolution had questioned the purpose and existence of the Catholic Church, and the manner it believed in God. Similarly, Krzysztof Kieslowski, the great Polish auteur declared the death of cinema around the time he made his last film Three Colors: Red (1994), which was soon after the advent of “multinational capitalism”, to borrow a term from Frederic Jameson (1986). These statements need to be correlated in the background of landmark historical moments and their larger cultural impact. If industrial revolution replaced the sacred and the holy with the secular and the banal, globalization further diminished the “aura of the unique” in the words of Walter Benjamin (1935/2008), replacing it with homogeneity. In the last 30 years or more, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, global capitalism has spread far and wide and metamorphosed multitudinally since the advent of the internet and the digital age. Now biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence are there for us to witness the next quantum leap!

Amid this global mayhem somewhere lies art, acted upon by history, politics and society. Almost all arts have transformed in the period of the rise of globalization or late capitalism. Painting led to multimedia installations; the art of novel came out of Dostoeveskian depths and the complexity of a Tagore or Amrita Pritam to settle in the world of self-publications and light reading. Likewise, music came out of concert chambers of bourgeois auditoria, feudal baithaks and made its way into smartphone apps. Cinema wasn’t left far behind. Even before the first quarter of this century has ended, Marvel & DC comic superheroes not only loom large on cinema screens but have replaced historical figures at Madame Tussaud’s wax museums and have invaded fashion stores!

Sergei Eisenstein became an intellectual and cultural ally of Lenin with his path breaking concept of intellectual montage in Battleship Potemkin (1925) that simulated the Marxist idea of thesis-antithesis and synthesis for propaganda purposes.  Cinema was also used by Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini in the 1930s for fascist propaganda. It was appropriated by the dominant political ideologies of their time all along. India, in the period coinciding with Leonid Brezhnev’s regime in Soviet Union and that of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, known for her proximity to the Soviet bloc, adopted social-realism, as the state art policy that reflected in the films produced by state funded NFDC. The artistic policy of the Stalinist era became India’s state film policy. This gave birth to the “Indian New Wave” and filmmakers like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani, amongst others. Their films though inspired by Satyajit Ray were vastly different from the humanist vision of Ray who was influenced by Italian Neo- Realism.

The American studio system known for producing popular entertainment genre films driven by its star system was a very effective vehicle for the American Dream, Cold War, and a moral compass as defined by the white man’s church. These entertainers, modelled on the Aristotelian principles of unity of time and space, were meant for mass consumption by the growing post-war bourgeoise. Catharsis and empathy are the corner stone of three-act structures of the hero’s journey in Hollywood films that result in purgation of emotions. Bertolt Brecht obviously had very different ideas when he proposed the alienation theory. The hero’s journey is unquestioning of larger social context and puts the individual at the center of the universe. This suits the capitalist, market-oriented society. Historically cinema was controlled by either the state or the market.  This will eventually link with the present-day dominance of OTT platforms and how they breed a certain kind of aesthetics in films.

Modernity Project

The modernity project was ushered in during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and peaked in the middle of the last century. Scientists, artists, poets, philosophers, and writers like Albert Einstein, James Joyce and Pablo Picasso were the ruling rebels of the modern era. Rebellion was the crux of modernism. Modernists did not try to “fit in” and were willing to face the social and economic consequences of that. In cinema, the standout movements like German expressionism, Italian Neo-realism, the French, German and Japanese New Wave, emerged as some of the most important phases in the history of modern cinema, after the World Wars, with far reaching influences. Novelle Vague propounded the “auteur theory” in the 1960s but cinema had leading auteurs long before that like Robert Bresson, Alfred Hitchcock, Yasujiro Ozu and our very own Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray. Sixties turned out to be a golden period for European cinema with Fellini and Antonioni taking the legacy of Italian Neo-Realism forward into expressionism and Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Resnais and Agnes Varda consolidating the Novelle Vague. The decade produced some of the greatest European films that spilled over into the 1970s.

The colonized countries, started to get their Independence by the middle of the last century and this was followed by a Renaissance of sorts in India. From Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak in cinema to writers and painters from MF Husain to UR Ananth Murthy to the Nayi Kahani Movement, Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group, and the Indian New Wave Cinema, all made their presence felt on the cultural landscape of the country and the world.

The modernists were driven by a tremendous urge for enquiry. Introspection and criticism infused their works with subjective experiences that were insightful about the human condition. They shared a turbulent relationship both with their own self and modernity. Economics, market and social assimilation were least important to them. Even if they were wealthy like Picasso or commercially successful like Ozu and Alfred Hitchcock, it was due to the wide appeal of their art not because they altered their vision to sell. Hitchcock never won an Oscar and Ghatak died poor as we all know.

In our country also, tiredness was setting in with the melodramatic entertainers of Bollywood. It was then with the backing of Film Finance Corporation, now known as NFDC that filmmakers like Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani came out with Uski Roti (1969) and Maya Darpan (1972), Mrinal Sen with Bhuvan Shome (1969) and Shyam Benegal with Ankur (1974), though produced by a private producer. Within this New Wave, Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani did not think social-realism was an adequate answer to commercial cinema. They abandoned realism for a more formal approach to cinema in their films.

It was the quintessential flow against the dominant tide that defined these modern filmmakers and artists. They were not just flash in the pan rebels without a cause, but became some of the most formidable cultural icons of their times. Who can forget Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut et al protesting at the Cannes Film Festival in 1968? In fact, Godard was filming the yellow vest protests up until 2020, before the pandemic put a halt to all protests worldwide. Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’ Aventura (1960) was booed at Cannes in 1960 but went on to win the Special Jury Prize and the same holds true for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). The film went on to win Palme d’ Or after being booed at the screening that year. L’ Aventura broke all rules of narrative structure and filming that were in vogue that time. Pablo Picasso did not join the two World Wars or the Spanish Civil War, and was in fact denied French citizenship due to his evolving views on communism. Charlie Chaplin too was denied an Oscar for his communist sympathies.

Dissolution begins

Things started to change after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Postmodernism that was simmering for a few decades became the dominant outlook after the 1980s. With the rejection of the “grand narrative” came a celebratory response to multiculturalism. The abandonment of the grand narrative largely refers to Marxism and science, and it prospered with the advent of global capitalism. Frederic Jameson in his very important book, Postmodernism and the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) writes that, “the apparent victory of commodification over all spheres of life marks postmodernity’s reliance on the cultural logic of late Capitalism” (Preface, x). Jameson goes on to write that, “postmodernism is not the cultural dominant of whole new social order…but only the reflex and the concomitant of yet another systemic modification of Capitalism itself (Preface xii)”. So as multicultural as it may seem it is yet not a new social order.

Abandonment of the grand narrative led to focus on smaller communities, postcolonial cultures, ethnic groups etc. that the postmodernists felt were ignored earlier. This was most certainly a welcome change for it allowed different communities around the world to have a voice but there was also a breakdown of high and low culture. Kitsch took over in the name of furthering multiculturalism. Dissolution of boundaries challenged pre-existing hierarchies and there was euphoria all around! The world was moving at a fast pace. The Indian economy too announced its arrival on the global stage with the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh opening the doors of our economy to the world. Brands and corporations from across the world made a beeline for this massive new market that India potentially was. Corporatization of the film industry, privatization of television network with the launch of ZEE TV and a phenomenon called Shah Rukh Khan happened in and around 1992; Shah Rukh Khan would go on to become the superstar of Bollywood. The cultural landscape of India had altered for all times to come.

The tryst with modernity had come in various forms to Indian cinema. The high art achievements of Satyajit Ray, Marxist-modernist efforts of Ritwik Ghatak, the avant-garde experiments of Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani and the dilution of several traditions by Bollywood, in its endeavour to reach the largest common denominator, were all steps taken by an independent country to assert itself as a major motion picture making industry. These phenomena have now taken different forms in the digital, OTT age that we live in. Netflix may have followed Burger King after a decade but it is a part of the same phenomenon, that Jameson and Zizek call new mode of colonisation.

At the time of India’s Independence its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was a mere 3 percent of the world GDP and its literacy rate was an abysmal 12 precent. Today, 75 years later we may be doing a lot better, still a lot needs to be achieved. Despite the so-called progress, glitter and glamour of liberalisation there are more than 200 million people who still live below the poverty line with little or no access to health, food, employment opportunities and shelter. Post globalization, the task of providing basic democratic rights to all communities and social groups, became an even taller order.

A poor country like India had several fault lines and cinema became a major tool of focussing on social issues like untouchability, migration, women, because of its virtue of simultaneity and mass consumption. Thus, films became tools of mass communication that combined with entertainment. Leading filmmakers of independent India like Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Dev Anand and Mehboob Khan amalgamated social concerns of a new country with mass entertainment using the technological means of cinema. The newly acquired technology was fascinating and readily available for dissemination and consumption. Most of them modelled themselves on major Hollywood stars and makers.

The concept of “aesthetic” was not associated with cinema despite Ray and Ghatak’s international recognition. The precedence of social relevance over artistic merit defined the Indian New Wave as well, as mentioned earlier.

Cinema as an art form received a monumental setback in the process. The debate on the art of cinema became polarised between the “art for art’s sake” approach of Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani and the “social responsibility of an artist”, that Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani and others exemplified, clearly delinking aesthetics and form from their social and historical contexts. What it precipitated was a crisis of sorts. The filmmaker, in the process finds herself at confusing crossroads. The conflict within the maker arises from the choices she wants to make or should make and the choices available to him or her. The idea of cinema as a cinematographic art went abegging once the initial euphoria over Ray and Ghatak settled. Corporate capitalism did not help and consumed the semblance of whatever anger of the working class was there in the mainstream, personified by the anti-hero persona of Amitabh Bachchan.

Economic progress after 1992, commodified art. The present-day usage of the term “content” in the context of OTT platforms is a direct descendent of this. Weekend visits to the concerts and movie viewing in plush environs of multiplexes had a direct impact on the experiential, experimental and rebellious imperative of any creative work. The world was a supermarket, so reaching maximum consumers was the determining factor. This not only affected Indian cinema at large but also the so-called niche films made for the film festival circuit. Festivals too took to market forces and today film festivals world over have become soft on the artistic merit of a film and focus on the ones that can sell tickets easily.

Predominantly narrative films largely ticking the “social issue” boxes are the ones that find their way to film festivals. Another kind of acceptable films from India and other countries of its kind are either the exotic kind, or “relationship films” which thrive in the name of universality. Globalisation means that Indian films need to cater to other cultures as well, hence there is a growing preference for “relationship films” in the so-called independent circuit that foreigners can identify with. Lunchbox (2013), Village Rockstars (2017) and Paradise (2023) are a case in point. Mise-en-scene and form as narrative tool or the concept that form is content have been long obliterated. While our films have fair representation at film festivals they have formally regressed. Multicultural representation is there but it is well within the western construct of a third world country like India. This is as racist as traditional imperialism. Formal experiments are the luxury for western filmmakers. Secondly, presence of Indian films at any major film festival is only for those films that are western co-productions, largely.

Filmmaking has become even more of a challenge than before. Big producers and studios controlled the means of production, distribution and exhibition. Those who control these, controlled form. Corporates came into existence in the name of professionalism and the game not only altered modes of traditional capital generation but started to exclude any means of deep and intense enquiry by an artist.

The challenge, despite the booming economy was still communication because economic boom obfuscated social issues under the veneer of prosperity. Without a more organic social and political evolution, artistic endeavour was perceived as the privilege of the west. For the non-west, it was either social communication or entertainment. Any engagement with form was denigrated as “art for art’s sake”, thereby depoliticising form. In a recent module on the cinema of long take jointly taught by my colleague and me, we addressed the long take poetics of slow cinema seeing it as political, that challenges our patience, hence our relationship with temporality in the age of reels, Tik Tok and memes, that provides an immersive experience as opposed to consumption.

The unrepresented needed to be represented but not without an enquiry into the “how” of representation, its relationship to larger social context and examining the aesthetics of the political and the politics of aesthetics. In fact, the term representation itself is problematic. Slavoj Zizek calls multicultural inclusivity an accomplice of global capitalism that colonises a culture in a manner similar to traditional colonisers. We need to see how this is so. The advent of OTT platforms meant nonstop supply of movies and shows, and this became a feverish race for supremacy by getting more and more eyeballs and hits. Netflix, Amazon, Hot Star, ZEE5 and Sony Liv, all jostled for space. Films and shows soon earned the sobriquet of “content” that had to be consumed for purposes of profit alone. We are all referred to as consumers who consume content. Can it be denied that Plan 199 introduced by Netflix to reach those who consume content on their mobile phones had an impact on the subject matter and quality of content? The mise-en-scene that was evident even in mainstream films of the 1950s of Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy is disregarded mostly in present day films. Abandonment of form releases the pressure of engagement thereby making a movie available for easy viewing. This in turn, creates simplistic, formulaic and self-defeating films.

Another point of discussion is the notion of “mainstreaming”, that gives rise to a kitschy pastiche. In the context of Dalit- Muslim alliance and why Dalit leaders like Mayawati do not wish to go for it, Apoorvanand, a professor of Hindi in Delhi University says that Muslims want to be accepted by the upper caste who have discriminated against them. Similarly, “mainstreaming” draws from the very structures that have exploited the Dalits without allowing for a more revolutionary battle for legitimate social space.

This social and cultural attraction to mainstreaming is what has made the “woke phenomenon” take centre stage in the 21^st century. Those marginalised over centuries started to find a voice, a place in the mainstream of the arts. The question is what is the nature of this very attractive “mainstream”? It is nothing but the same old instrument of the ruling elite driven and designed by capitalist modes of production, commodification and profiteering. Zizek calls this inclusivity deceptive. In my view in the global world both needed each other. Those in the periphery in terms of caste, gender and sexuality were waiting for an endorsement from the white, upper caste and the ruling class and the capitalists needed them as newer areas of market that had to be colonised by a westernised vision. Imagine a Coca Cola advertisement that offends or excludes the LGBT or say Latin Americans. There will be mayhem, and rightfully so, but those who will be up in arms cannot see that they are upset for not being considered as a market, and not at being depoliticised at the outset. Ross Douthat, a Republican columnist with the New York Times coined the term “woke capitalism” for brands that used politically progressive messaging as a substitute for genuine reform. According to The Economist, examples of woke capitalism include advertising campaigns designed to appeal to millennials, who often hold more socially liberal views than earlier generations. These campaigns were often perceived by customers as insincere and inauthentic. Ross may be a Republican but his argument has merit. The same holds true for cinema as well. Social scientists, woke, left wing academia and cultural activists dominate the art world, in film festival committees and funding and grants committees, juries and curatorial positions.

Cultural scientists Akane Kanai and Rosalind Gill (2020) describe woke capitalism as the dramatically intensifying trend to include historically marginalized groups (currently primarily in terms of race, gender, and religion) as mascots in advertisement with a message of empowerment to signal progressive values. Kanai and Gill argue that this creates an individualized and depoliticized idea of social justice. This is precisely one of the points that I wish to make in this paper with respect to cinema.

Case Studies

For the purpose of discussion in this paper we shall look at three recent films dealing with caste, gender and sexuality respectively: Jhund (Herd, 2022) by well-known Dalit filmmaker, Nagraj Manjule, which is his first Hindi film, starring Amitabh Bachchan produced by T Series, which formerly a music company is now one of the biggest Bollywood studios; the other two films are Kiran Rao’s Lapata Ladies (Lost Ladies, 2023) produced by Jio Studios and Aamir Khan Productions, and Harshvardhan Kulkarni’s film Badhai Do (Give Congratulations, 2022) produced by the Times of India group’s Junglee Pictures.

Nagraj Manjule’s, debut feature, a Marathi film, Fandry (2013) was a fine film with a clear sense of aesthetics and a solemn introduction to transgenerational experience of caste oppression. It was a distinct critique of so-called modernity in our society and had a clear non-Savarna gaze without any notion of victimhood. There was rebellion, anger and despair instead. Then came considerations of mass communication. The message became bigger and more important than art and the message was separated from form. The endorsement from the mainstream society as mentioned by professor Apoorvanand earlier took priority over rebellion against the very order that had perpetrated the Dalit condition depicted in Fandry. Nagraj felt, his films needed to be commercially viable and his message needs to reach a larger audience. His second film Sairaat had earlier done that: produced by ZEETV, the film made at a cost of 4 crores earned more than 100 crores at the box office.

If film studios that are representatives of dominant ideology will not touch a radical formal approach, then why make a film with a legitimate Dalit issue? This is what Zizek means when he says, “inclusion is deceptive”, for it will be only to the extent that it serves the purpose of the dominant class and caste. All of this is a far cry from the element of enquiry, challenge and discomfort provided by Brechtian and other avant-garde forms.

Armed with the tremendous success of Sairaat, Nagraj Manjule perhaps wanted to further expand his audience base. So, in his third film Jhund, Nagraj Manjule opted to make a mainstream Hindi film with the superstar of the millennium, Amitabh Bachchan as the slum-soccer coach, Vijay Borade.

Fig. 1 – Still from Jhund (2022).

The gaze in the film produced by a producer like T Series and enacted by a star who has been betrothed to commercial viability is decided by the market. Jhund comes with all the cliched savarna tropes to come out with a formulaic pudding. To begin with Jhund portrays the slum inhabitants as victims whose only defence is their lumpen existence, and just as a shepherd is needed to guide the cattle, they need a messiah to bring them out of the cesspool of their existence, as opposed to self-realisation and empowerment. The problem here is not the need for a mentor, an upper caste mentor at that, but the patronising air to it. It is said to be based on a true story. The epithet “based on a true story” is often a way to seek legitimacy in today’s films and television shows. The film lampoons the slum inhabitants as people who are crass and make a fool of themselves: the way they dress up and come for the soccer match opposite the school team on the other side or their command over English when they say “sanema” instead of “cinema” has a mocking air to it and generates laughter. The film shot on location in Nagpur is based in a slum that otherwise has a rich history of Ambedkarite movement. It is peppered with Buddhist Viharas that are kept completely out of the frame by Nagraj. In fact, the Ambedkar Jayanti sequence also does not include Buddha and Buddhist iconography. How would one want to read this coming from an Ambedkarite like Nagraj Manjule? Is it denial of Buddhism or as Apoorvanand says, a wish to be assimilated by the same hierarchical caste structure that oppress Dalits? Nagraj Manjule completely disassociates the film from its immediate social-historical context thus rendering it as a commodity.

This aspiration of the Dalit community to find validation by the upper caste is problematic, whether it is Mayawati vying for that in politics or a Nagraj Manjule in his films. It essentially means that finally one wants to be assimilated in the very system that oppressed one for centuries. While one can argue that it is a choice a community is entitled to make but as an artist should Nagraj Manjule be endorsing and propagating that assimilation, or should he provide a more critical insight into caste structure and what can freedom from it actually look like? Neither the possibilities nor the resulting conflict are indicated in the film. Is Dalit assertion all about validation by their oppressors? If yes, then to call these films as mascots of “Dalit cinema” is questionable.

The scenario however is a lot more complex and choices do not come easy. It is also true that Dalit directors like Nagaraj Manjule and Pa.Ranjith are suggesting through their films that it is the upper caste that needs to set an example, and that they need to take the lead in abolishing untouchability. To give Jhund its due, not many mainstream films would have an upper caste character standing with folded hands in front of an Ambedkar portrait. But generally speaking, Dalit representation in Indian films stays away from truly avant-garde political expression, and this can defeat the purpose of voicing one’s needs of social restructuring. A presentation more than representation, that challenges given conventions of filmmaking will be truly radical.

Not very different is the state of representation of LGBTQ community in our films. Here again, it is heartening to see their presence in films like Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui (Chandigarh does Romance, 2021) and Badhai Do (Give Congratulations, 2022). They are made with stars and raise some valid questions about family and society for not being accepting of, and for their lack of sensitisation, education and more progressive understanding of the sexual minorities. But largely the portrayal is sentimental, judgemental and devoid of agency and experiential insights. In a universe that has a glut of plots and ideas, the LGBTQ characters provide novelty pandering to a supermarket approach where the wares are on display for us to make a choice. The gaze is still of the outsider. To avoid this commodification, the community formed its own ecosystem of films and makers from within the community. That only to my mind solves the problem of the gaze but those films are largely tacky and as sentimental and bourgeoise as the ones with mainstream stars. Harshvardhan Kulkarni’s Badhai Do produced by the Times group has a very sad story at its heart. Nothing can be more tragic than a gay and a lesbian entering into a heterosexual alliance as they cannot come out in the open. Instead of a Chaplinesque or a Jacques Tati kind of approach that combined cinema and social satire to reflect on the absurdity of the situation, an approach that met with unprecedented success, Badhai Do has a kind of comedy that is quite offensive. Badhai Do almost borders on lampooning redeemed by the unquestioning acceptance from the mother in the end. Gradually films can be seen catering more to subscription plans that can be easily consumed on smartphones and tablets. The impersonal screens of various devices reduce films to mere data and hits. The sensory pleasure or a more spiritual or satisfying experience that cinema can provide is now no longer a necessity.

Fig. 2- Still from Badhai Do (2022).

Kiran Rao’s Lapata Ladies (Lost Ladies, 2023) considered as mainstream cinema’s latest foray into feminism is a well-made film, that has two brides from the hinterland exchanged, that is, each one finds herself with the other’s groom. It is a lovely, warm world that Kiran creates and the film has some fine performances by newcomers, and a veteran actor Ravi Kishan. The film boasts of a great crew behind the camera as well. If one were to simply enjoy the film as a middle of the road Bollywood entertainer in the zone of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee of yester years, it is a wonderful film. But when it is perceived as a feminist film by the media, curators and critics, that is when the film asks for a closer examination. There cannot be any denying the need to have more and more films made by women with women protagonists. To that extent the film succeeds and no one in the mainstream milieu would have made a film like this with new faces. But it is the gaze that needs to be discussed here, and on closer examination it is an outsider’s look. Also, the film is found wanting on the fronts of research and experience of the social and individual interiority of rural women, their lives and their aspirations.

Lapata Ladies is so cleverly and deceptively packaged for its urban audiences that on a first viewing one comes home happy thinking that this is exactly how a film should tackle patriarchy -without preaching or overt bashing but through gentle humour. One can’t deny that is a much better way of getting the messages across but the problem lies in the very depiction of the characters and the dialogues that they speak. Despite its heart in the right place it doesn’t get the rural characters correct. The soul remains urban. It is pop feminism with an instant sort of appeal. It is the dialogues that make it most obvious along with the deep schism in the characters and personality types.

Fig. 3 – Still from Lapataa Ladies (2023).

Village women are not clones of their urban counterparts as we or Kiran Rao would want to imagine. Lapata Ladies is a frothy presentation of rural women to urban audiences, designed for the multiplex consumption. Also, the inherent didacticism of the film makes the film seem like a state propaganda film.

The stand taken by the three above-mentioned films, the accompanying celebration of these films by critics and theatre audience, and their success on OTT platforms can be seen more a result of what Theodore Adorno refers to in his work on aesthetic theory as the Hegelian concept of content-aesthetics that superseded formal aesthetics. Hegel’s content-aesthetic according to Adorno recognized that element of otherness immanent to art, thereby confining otherness to content alone and relegating formal aesthetics, which operates with a purer concept of art and liberated non-representational art that was blocked by Hegel’s content-aesthetics.  This notion of representation that can become high art in Bicycle Thieves and Pather Panchali, can totally annihilate mise-en-scene, the cornerstone of formal aesthetics in the process as in the three films discussed here amongst others. The absence of mise-en-scene results in representation being reduced to coverage of master shot, two shot and close-up, thus depoliticising, de-aestheticizing a film and therefore facilitating mass viewership, catharsis and bourgeoise comfort. Also, it offers the freedom from guilt of ignoring the unrepresented. The platforms’ perception remains politically correct, gives them a larger audience base, the subscription base has a positive impact. These films, are hailed as brave attempts and referred to in a hyperbolic manner, but exemplify the concept of woke capitalism, as discussed above. The forces of rebellion and a legitimate, rightful space, challenging the status quo are duly nullified in the process. Assembly line production then assimilates these communities within its own exploitative paradigm.

The followers of concept aesthetics seem to consider that non-representational formal approaches in art are not connected with reality. This was a belief held by Indian social-realists like Benegal and Nihalani as well. However, this Adorno argues may well be erroneous, for non-representational formal choices are deeply connected to reality. Michelangelo Antonioni, for instance, is abstracting the physicality of Milan in his brilliant La Notte from his urban series. Antonioni also places a woman in the centre of his critique of post-war western capitalism. Representation becomes subjective in such formal approaches in cinema. Likewise, Kumar Shahani in his films Maya Darpan and Tarang abandons realism and adopts a highly stylised formal approach in his Marxist criticism of labour and patriarchy. The poetic form of Shahani emanates from material reality. The same holds true for the formal aesthetics of Mani Kaul and Alain Resnais in Hiroshima Mon Amour, where the documentary footage lends to deeply personal enquiries into the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This also became a template for my own film Ek Betuke Aadmi ki Afrah Raatien where social reality of the communal pogrom, use of documentary footage, caste etc. exists in a dialectical relationship with the interiority of the film’s characters. Picasso’s “Guernica” is a classic example of amalgamation of cubist form and reality. Godard, the most political of all the auteurs arrives at a brilliant merging of his politics that included gender, race, colonisation with ever evolving form that broke all shackles.

Conclusion

The Natyashastra, an ancient Indian encyclopaedic treatise on the arts, says that entertainment is a by-product of a creative act not the end in itself. The purpose of art is to provide a deeply metaphysical and psychological experience, akin to the religious or spiritual. The mere presence of a character from a social group or a story revolving around such a character is not cultural inclusivity and the creation of something new. Inclusivity begins with first recognizing that a certain caste or gender position has been underrepresented in cinema and must be brought to the realm of representation and freedom. Freedom needs a liberating, open-ended form, with depth and nuance in the gaze of the artist to make them feel empowered, and not as a source of box office collection. The rebellion of the age of modernity has now changed to conformity. The artist is no longer an outsider but a part of the system that uses them to further its own agenda.

In my view Jean-Luc Godard and Agnes Varda, though both are perceived as the connecting link between modernism and postmodernism in cinema, show a way forward of formally, artistically and politically engaging with political subjects and culture. Films like Weekend (1967), Wind from the East (1970), Vagabond (1985) are fine examples of merger of content-aesthetics and formal-aesthetics.