Monday, November 5, 2012
Rush 7: Revisiting Devdas!
To drape means to place casually and loosely; to hang. Though where Devdas is concerned, a drape is a piece of fabric that can be adjusted into graceful folds, and attractive lines. While drapes are physically placed in reoccuring places throughout the film, the second meaning contains more potential for expanded meaning here. In Indian culture, a womans duty is to appear leisurely and perfectly beautiful. In comparison, they must be graceful and attractive. And in comparison, it is the men who are placed to appear casual and loose.
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I like the potential tension between these usages of "drape"--in fact the utility of the technique we're practicing here resides in our pushing this tension as far as possible. In this case, the duality "hanging"/"folding" could be useful... How? Hard to say in advance--and that's the point: We're trying to trick ourselves into epiphany, to prompt unforeseen connections concerning the film's core attributes. To do this you need to preserve the tension (rather than siding with one meaning or another). In other words, the point is to consider the tensions driving the film's arc can be mapped to the incongruous pairing of connotations you've arrived at through your gram, if that makes sense. And the way to pursue this is to take it back into the film's concrete details, by thinking (and writing) about those specific places in the film where you're tracking your gram's (re)appearances. To do this, use the cinematic terms and categories we've been working on in class.
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CS