This essay explores strategies of cultural representation in the production of British director Gurinder Chadha. Renowned for the global success of her Bend it like Beckam (2002), this director of Sikh origin places herself firmly in what Marie Louise Pratt defines as ‘contact zones’, negotiating her cinema between Hollywood, European and Indian audiences. The result is a peculiar directing style that puts together ‘East’ and ‘West’, Bollywood and Hollywood, making use of a wide range of elements from both popular and high-brow culture as well as from many cultural ‘areas’, whose space is hence radically reconfigured through its hybridization with the others. This happens in particular through her use of music and soundtrack, starting from her early steps as director in the documentary I’m British but… (1990), up to the recent Hollywood/Bollywood fantasia offered by Bride and Prejudice (2004). Here, many and diverse musical languages are put together through the representational strategies of parody and kitsch, deconstructing the very idea of cultural identity in the same movement that creates it. In this way, well aware of the mechanisms that concern film production and distribution, Chadha mediates between the requirements of a popular cinema that must take into account a new global audience and the possibilities of experimentation offered by the many genres and performativities available to a ‘global’ director.

Musical ‘Contact Zones’ in Gurinder Chadha’s Cinema

GUARRACINO S
2009-01-01

Abstract

This essay explores strategies of cultural representation in the production of British director Gurinder Chadha. Renowned for the global success of her Bend it like Beckam (2002), this director of Sikh origin places herself firmly in what Marie Louise Pratt defines as ‘contact zones’, negotiating her cinema between Hollywood, European and Indian audiences. The result is a peculiar directing style that puts together ‘East’ and ‘West’, Bollywood and Hollywood, making use of a wide range of elements from both popular and high-brow culture as well as from many cultural ‘areas’, whose space is hence radically reconfigured through its hybridization with the others. This happens in particular through her use of music and soundtrack, starting from her early steps as director in the documentary I’m British but… (1990), up to the recent Hollywood/Bollywood fantasia offered by Bride and Prejudice (2004). Here, many and diverse musical languages are put together through the representational strategies of parody and kitsch, deconstructing the very idea of cultural identity in the same movement that creates it. In this way, well aware of the mechanisms that concern film production and distribution, Chadha mediates between the requirements of a popular cinema that must take into account a new global audience and the possibilities of experimentation offered by the many genres and performativities available to a ‘global’ director.
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/128971
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 2
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 2
social impact