Cinematically speaking: The impact of orality on Indian popular film

Abstract

Drawing from the conceptual studies of oral tradition, this paper extends previous analysts’ tracings of the “oral residue” that unconsciously marks literature into the realm of visual media, positing that there are very clear characteristics of oral performance and orally‐transmitted narratives ("the oral epics") operating within, and indeed formatively shaping, the popular cinema of India. These include not only broad psychodynamic characteristics of orally‐based thought, such as aggregative rather than analytic elements, and a conservative‐traditionalist rather than experimental mindset, but as well specific devices and motifs common to orally‐based storytelling—from the use of clichés and the portrayal of gross physićal violence, to the significance of the verbalized oath, the reliance on “heavy” characters, and the acceptance of—in fact, preference for—formula.