3.

1 METHODOLOGY

3.1.1 Data Analysis

The time and effort required for data analysis and interpretation depend on the study’s
purpose and the methodology used. Every research must be carefully planned and performed
according to specific guidelines. The validity and accuracy of the study, research and findings
is essential.

3.1.2 Content Analysis

Content analysis refers to any systematic procedure devised to examine the content of
recorded information. It is a research technique for making replicable and valid references
from data to their context. It is a systematic process, the content to be analysed is selected
according to explicit and consistently applied rules. All content under consideration should be
treated in the same manner.

This method of study is extremely objective, the researcher’s personal biases and
idiosyncrasies should not enter into the findings and if replicated by else, the results yielded
should be the same. The operational definitions and rules for the classification of variables
should be sufficiently comprehensive and clear to fully explain the sampling and
categorisation methods. Content analysis is also primarily quantitative as the ultimate goal of
it is the accurate representation of a body of messages.

3.1.3 Qualitative research

It is a field of inquiry that crosscuts disciplines and subject matters. Qualitative researchers
aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such
behavior. The discipline investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what,
where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed rather than large
random samples.

Qualitative research was one of the first forms of social studies during the 50s. In later years,
qualitative research began to be used in several disciplines, and became a significant type of
research in the fields of education studies, social work studies, women's studies, disability
studies, information studies, management studies, nursing service studies, human service
studies, psychology and communication studies.
In the last thirty years the acceptance of qualitative research by journal publishers and editors
has been growing. Prior to that time many mainstream journals were prone to publish
research articles based upon the natural sciences and which featured quantitative analysis.

Qualitative research is often used for policy and program evaluation research since it can
answer certain important questions more efficiently and effectively than quantitative
approaches. This is particularly the case for understanding how and why certain outcomes
were achieved (not just what was achieved) but also answering important questions about
relevance, unintended effects and impact of programs such as: Were expectations reasonable?
Did processes operate as expected? Were key players able to carry out their duties? Were
there any unintended effects of the program? Qualitative approaches have the advantage of
allowing for more diversity in responses as well as the capacity to adapt to new developments
or issues during the research process itself. While qualitative research can be expensive and
time-consuming to conduct, many fields of research employ qualitative techniques that have
been specifically developed to provide more succinct, cost-efficient and timely results. Rapid
Rural Appraisal is one formalised example of these adaptations but there are many others.

Study and analysis based on this kind of research process is referred to as Qualitative
Analysis. It allows a researcher to view behaviour in a natural setting without the artificiality
that sometimes surrounds experimental or survey research. These techniques tend to increase
the researcher’s depth of the phenomenon under investigation. They are flexible and allow
the researcher to pursue new areas of interest. The major disadvantage about this method
however is that the sample sizes are sometimes too small and the reliability tends to pose a
problem as it is possible to lose objectivity while working for data assimilation.

3.1.4 Quantitative Research

It is the systematic scientific investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their
relationships. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical
models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to natural phenomena. The process of
measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental
connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative
relationships.
Quantitative research is widely used in both the natural sciences and social sciences, from
physics and biology to sociology and journalism. It is also used as a way to research different
aspects of education. The term quantitative research is most often used in the social sciences
in contrast to qualitative research.

It is often an iterative process whereby evidence is evaluated, theories and hypotheses are
refined, technical advances are made, and so on. Virtually all research in physics is
quantitative whereas research in other scientific disciplines, such as taxonomy and anatomy,
may involve a combination of quantitative and other analytic approaches and methods.
Quantitative methods are research techniques that are used to gather quantitative data -
information dealing with numbers and anything that is measurable. Statistics, tables and
graphs, are often used to present the results derived from it.

Quantitative analysis is more of a comparative study and often makes use of data collection
methods like telephone, mail and internet surveys. Quantitative analysis requires that the
variables or parameters under consideration be measured. It uses more standardised
questions while comparing and the advantage here is that the usage of numbers allows greater
precision in reporting results.

3.1.5 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE

METHODS OF RESEARCH

Qualitative
The aim is a complete, detailed
description.
Researcher may only know roughly in
advance what he/she is looking for.
Recommended during earlier phases of
research projects.
The design emerges as the study
unfolds.
Quantitative
The aim is to classify features, count
them, and construct statistical models
in an attempt to explain what is
observed.
Researcher knows clearly in advance
what he/she is looking for.
Recommended during latter phases of
research projects.
All aspects of the study are carefully
designed before data is collected.
 Researcher uses tools, such as
Researcher is the data gathering
questionnaires or equipment to collect
instrument.
numerical data.
Data is in the form of words, pictures Data is in the form of numbers and
or objects. statistics.
Subjective - individuals’ interpretation
Objective – seeks precise measurement
of events is important ,e.g., uses
& analysis of target concepts, e.g., uses
participant observation, in-depth
surveys, questionnaires etc.
interviews etc.
Qualitative data is more 'rich', time Quantitative data is more efficient, able
consuming, and less able to be to test hypotheses, but may miss
generalized. contextual detail.
Researcher tends to become
Researcher tends to remain objectively
subjectively immersed in the subject
separated from the subject matter.
matter.

3.2 CONTEXT

The understanding of visual representation and imagery in any form or language is very
important in the construction of social elements, consciousness and to create awareness as
well. Amongst the different senses, the one that creates the most recall and has a tremendous
impact on the human brain is the sense of vision. In this manner, Films and television
influence our perception, judgement and thought even if we are not really aware of it.

Speech and dialogues add to the entertainment factor of the medium, however critics argue
that the visual depiction can stand all alone in its merit and can be viewed universally as it
has no barriers of language and the like. This is one of the primary reasons this topic was
zeroed in upon as the area of study because it is essential that the power and strength of
cinema, and its impact on the audience should not be lessened due to stereotypical
characterisation, biased depiction or inefficient research before forming the narrative.

In films made by the Europeans and Americans over the decades, a sense of superiority in
terms of their way of living as compared to the lives of the people in other nations is very
evident. This unnecessary ethnocentrism in their content has triggered off many debates and
discussions amongst the most brilliant critics and academicians.

This paper primarily looks at the way India and Indian culture as portrayed in movies by
western film makers. It analyses the content scene by scene to identify common traits or
similarities in the depiction of India, its people, language, beliefs and culture to recognise
perhaps a trend in the method. The focus here is the treatment of the locales, music, colours,
characters, practices and everyday life of Indians in western movies.

3.3 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The analysis of films through the examination of the cinematic units and the story plots is
akin to looking for specific structures that hold the film together. The term structure here
refers to those properties or parameters of the film that holds the entire narrative together.
This is a attempt to move away from the traditional focus on the mere chronological
progression of the film, with little attention being paid to the finer nuances like music,
semiotics, set structure, placement of objects and other such details that enables the narrative
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
’’’’’’’’’’’’’’to be ‘put together’ and deliver a specific message.

The design of study in this paper is content analysis, however with more emphasis on the
structural depiction and portrayal in the chosen sample of the population. Examining the
pieces of the frame and scenes and its dynamics constitute this study on structural analysis.
This approach makes it possible to delve further than the stereotypes and look at the films as
complex texts, with layers of meaning and several interpretations wherein numerous aspects
of a community of people are represented.

Cinema is a text that uses specific signifying strategies to produce and contest meaning.
These strategies are the cinematic styles developed or adopted by a film-maker to tell a story.
He always has an ideal viewer in mind who will eventually share the preferred and intended
meaning of the text. The way in which the audience ‘makes’ the meaning of the film is often
predicated by their political, social and ideological predisposition and particular location in
the structure of society. An essential part of the study includes semiotic representation, as it
becomes important and necessary to see how specific signs can take on the multiple meanings
and the manner in which these meanings are contested in the public sphere.

3.4 PROCEDURE ADOPTED FOR DATA COLLECTION

Stereotyping is done by people all over the world, and by different media all over the world
simply by habit and culture, without really forming conscious decisions about why it is being
done. In order to successfully bring out exactly how and where Indians and their culture have
been stereotyped by western film makers we decided to identify certain limits and boundaries
and establish a link between some of the most widely known and accepted stereotypes and
their use and knowledge in the movie business.

When trying to come up with concise parameters for defining stereotyping we consulted a
number of books on the subject, along with previous works on each of the films and on the
many other films made not only by outsiders but by Indians themselves. The three movies
were selected after careful consideration, and short listing from the hundreds of movies
available in the genre. Each of the three movies were not extremely successful at their time of
release, but were also able to establish a new type of audience, especially because each of
them received such a great extent of negative criticism and disapproval with their release,
along with worldwide acclaim.

Belonging to three different time periods, with at least a decade of lapse between their
releases, The Party (1968), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Slumdog
Millionaire (2008), they are able to give us a clear representation of the type of stereotyping
done throughout the past 50 years, and help in our study to identify a sort of trend or
tendency that might exist in the making of such movies.

To identify the parameters we consulted a number of movie experts and movie watchers, who
listed out the most common set of stereotyping that they were able to identify in the film
genre.
3.5 VARIABLES SELECTED FOR QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

3.5.1 Positive Parameters of Stereotyping

- Faith in God

- Strong Family Bond

- Ancient Wisdom

- Strong-willed

- Hard Working

- Literacy

- Friendship

- Karma and Destiny

3.5.2 Negative Parameters of Stereotyping

- God Fearing

- Violence

- Poverty

- Inability to speak the language

- Use of Animals in day-to-day life

- Strange Cultural practices

- Corruption

- Discrimination

- Patriarchy
3.5 POPULATION AND SAMPLE

A critical process in research analysis is the description of the nature of sample or

population- a group or class of subjects, variables, concepts or phenomena. The process of
examining every member of such a population is referred to as a Census. In most situations
this becomes impossible and a thorough study of the sample is resorted to instead. A sample
refers to a subset of the population that is representative of the entire population. The most
important word being ‘representative’; if the sample is not reflective of the population by
large then it becomes inadequate regardless of its size. Thus, selecting a sample that is
suitable and efficient is a very important process of research analysis.

After a long process of screening and elimination, the three films that have been short-listed
for this paper are The Party (1969), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and
Slumdog Millionaire (2008). The basic reasons for choosing them were that they not only
belonged to different decades, but each of the films are blockbusters that were thoroughly
enjoyed by the audience in various parts of the world. An interesting observation here is that
although extremely successful in terms of box office figures, these 3 films also stirred up
huge controversies. Numerous analysts and critics expressed opinions that a biased, racist or
incomplete portrayal of India was predominant in the stories and cinematography.

3.6 SAMPLE PROFILE – A THOROUGH DESCRIPTION OF THE 3 MOVIES

CHOSEN FOR CASE STUDY

3.6.1 THE PARTY (1968)

• Director/Producer: Blake Edwards

• Screenplay: Blake Edwards, Frank Waldman, Tom Waldman
• Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
• Editor: Ralph E. Winters
• Production Design: Fernando Carrere
• Music: Henry Mancini
 • Cast: Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Steven Franken

The Party is a 1968 comedy written and directed by Blake Edwards, starring Peter Sellers.
The film has a very loose structure, and essentially serves as a series of set pieces for the
comic talents of Sellers. Sellers had played another Indian man in his hit film The
Millionairess, and a similar klutz as Inspector Clouseau; the world famous character from his
Pink Panther films. The film remains popular among fans of Sellers as one of his most
inventive comic roles, much of which was improvised at the time of filming.

3.6.1.1 The Plot

The plot involves Sellers playing a well-meaning, but hapless, Indian actor who is
accidentally invited to a lavish Hollywood party, causing havoc.

This struggling actor Hrundi V. Bakshi is employed as an extra in an elaborate Hollywood

remake of Gunga Din, but the accident prone Bakshi is dismissed after blowing up an
expensive set before the cameras roll. The director in a fit of rage fires Bakshi immediately
and tries getting him blacklisted in the industry. Instead of ending up on his employer's
blacklist he is mistakenly added to a list of invitees to a lavish party at the producer's high-
tech home.

Bakshi's natural curiosity creates further havoc at the party, attended by the director who
fails to recognise the stumblebum he had fired in the first place. Only a sweet-natured French
starlet (Claudine Longet) takes pity on him but eventually falls victim to Bakshi's clumsiness
as well.

Upon arrival, he loses his shoe in the stream that flows through the house and spends a
significant amount of time attempting to retrieve it (a scene later copied by Amitabh
Bachchan in the movie Namak Halaal). As he offers to engage in chitchat, guests and host
look on in puzzled confusion. The only ones at the party to pay him much notice, at first, are
Michèle, and a Macaw whom he talks gibberish to and overfeeds ‘birdie num nums.’ These
two scenes clearly bring out the fact that not only is Bakshi regarded as an outsider, but also a
ridiculous simpleton with no social grace whatsoever.
So as not to put the focus entirely on Bakshi’s goof-ups, the attendants of the party include a
drunken female guest, a drunken waiter (Steven Franken) who becomes increasingly more
inebriated as the film progresses and his irritated superior, politicians, various Hollywood
luminaries, and a Russian ballet troupe that arrives towards the end of the party.

During the main course, Bakshi's roast hen is accidentally catapulted off his fork and
becomes impaled on a guest's tiara. He leaves damaged appliances and havoc everywhere he
wanders to. At one point he mistakenly sticks his hand into a bowl of crushed ice that turns
out to be the caviar dish; then spends a good amount of time shaking hands with other guests,
passing around a fishy odour. Other party obstacles include a control panel with various
switches that activate the intercom, the slide-out bar which he closes while the bartender is
still busy mixing drinks and various retractable floor panels that extend the size of the indoor-
outdoor swimming pool, artwork, a backed-up toilet with bidet, and an electric toilet paper
roll, all of which is ruined by the eccentric man.

The would-be hippie children of the Hollywood executives eventually turn up in the plot,
bringing along a baby elephant covered in stereotypical 1960s slogans. The action of the
party then moves to the pool, where Bakshi asks that the elephant be restored to a more
dignified state, a portrayal of the Western notion that all animals are considered sacred in
India. The entire house is soon overrun with soap bubbles as they scrub graffiti off the
animal. The police arrive as well. Bakshi offers to drive Michèle home and the film ends with
a hint that this is the beginning of a romantic relationship.

3.6.1.2 Hrundi V Bakshi- The Protagonist

The Bumbling Hrundi, is a likeable, sympathetic fellow and an earnest guy, that it seems
totally convincing that the last thing on his mind would be to create havoc at the party. But
not long after the opening scene, it becomes evident that not only is he going to get into
difficulties despite his good intentions but those same intentions will get him into the most
absurd and amusing situations which just doesn't stop right till the end. Every time Bakshi
realises that he has done something wrong, he immediately goes about to fix it, however,
ending up in a worse situation than he already was in to begin with.

It can also be argued that of all the characters in The Party, Hrundi V. Bakshi is the absurdly
weird and challenged despite the presence of the Anglo cowboy, the snooty hosts, the
oblivious woman with a Chicken in her wig, the cigar chomping studio head, his materialistic
wife and the drunken waiter.

Hrundi is the hero and the only character with any words of depth. His character shows true
emotion and earnestness, especially when it comes to helping other. He is curious and simple
and always ready for a good time and is prepared to make everyone around him feel good. He
is humble, inquisitive, sincere, and cares about the feelings of damsels in distress. His
inability to conform to the others expectations, his failure to understand another person’s
sense of space and comfort zones are brought about in his open and intrusive manner.

3.6.1.3 Production of ‘The Party’

Essentially a string of jokes and sight gags inspired by Peter Sellers' gift for mimicry, The
Party is one of Blake Edwards' most unconventional films. The script, barely sixty-five
pages, was about half the length of the normal Hollywood screenplay and at least a fourth of
the film had no dialogue, just sound effects and incidental music. Truly a concept film, it
bears favourable comparison to the comedies of Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy in the
way that Bakshi retains his innocence and naivete in the face of recurring disaster. There are
also similarities to the films of French comedian Jacques Tati and his fascination with
gadgets and inanimate objects. This is particularly true of the scenes at the movie executive's
home where Bakshi manages to turn a fountain into a geyser, a roast chicken into a woman's
headwear, and a public address system into an ear-splitting broadcast of music.

The Party originally hit theaters in April 1968, sandwiched in-between instalments of those
more-famous Edwards/Sellers 'Pink Panther' collaborations. But this comedy almost did not
reach movie screens.

At the time of its release, The Party garnered mixed reviews. Roger Ebert loved the film,
save his reservations with the overstuffed ending. A Time magazine critic cited the film’s
occasional humour, commenting, 'most of the evening is just about as trite and tedious as a
real-life party would have been with such a stereotyped guest list, the ad-lib approach is not a
swinging riot of originals but a parade of old reliables. This party, in short, is strictly for those
who don't get around much.'
Curiously enough, Sellers was no stranger to playing docile Indians. In The Millionairess,
opposite Sophia Loren, he played Dr. Ahmed el Kabir, a general practitioner with a slum-
district office. He also turned up in a cameo appearance as yet another Indian doctor in The
Road to Hong Kong. In fact, internationally acclaimed director Satyajit Ray of The Apu
Trilogy was so impressed by Sellers' impersonation in The Millionairess that he wrote a
screenplay specifically for him entitled The Alien. In it, Sellers' character was a self-
promoting businessman who tries to exploit his association with a space visitor and claim
credit for the latter's miraculous deeds. Either Sellers was put off by the unflattering portrayal
or he was more interested in playing romantic comedy leads in films like The Bobo (1967)
because he abandoned the project. Nevertheless, Ray came to visit Sellers on the set of The
Party but felt that the actor's impersonation of a New Delhi native was evolving into a course
caricature. Some critics agreed as well but many also admired Edwards' homage to the silent
slapstick comedies, including Film Comment writer Richard Combs who called The Party
"both classic farce and trenchant satire, a self-sufficient fantasy about the fantasy of
Hollywood life."

3.6.2 INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

• Director: Steven Spielberg

• Producer: George Lucas, Robert Watts, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy
• Story: George Lucas
• Screenplay: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
• Cast: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan, Amrish Puri
• Music: John Williams
• Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
• Editor: Michael Kahn
• Distributor: Paramount Pictures
• Budget: $28.17 million, Gross revenue:$333.11 million
3.6.2.1 Character Sketch
- Indiana Jones: An archaeologist adventurer who is asked by a desperate Indian village
to retrieve a mysterious stone.
 - Wilhelmina "Willie" Scott: An American nightclub singer working in Shanghai.
Willie is unprepared for her adventure with Indy and Short Round, and appears to be a
damsel in distress.

- Short Round: Indiana's ten-year old Chinese sidekick, who drives the taxi which
allows Indiana to escape during the opening sequence.

- Mola Ram: A demonic Thuggee priest who performs rituals of human sacrifices.

- Chattar Lal: The Prime Minister of the Maharajá of Pankot.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 period adventure film directed by Steven
Spielberg. It is the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise, and prequel to Raiders of the
Lost Ark (1981). After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find
a mystical stone. He agrees, stumbling upon a Kālī Thuggee religious cult plotting child
slavery, black magic and ritual human sacrifice.

Producer and co-writer George Lucas decided to make the film a prequel as he did not want
the Nazis to be the villains once more. The original idea was to set the film in China, with a
hidden valley inhabited by dinosaurs. More cancelled plot devices included the Monkey King
and a haunted castle in Scotland. Lucas then wrote a film treatment that resembled the final
storyline of the film, with Lawrence Kasdan turning down the offer to write the script.

Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz wrote the script, while the filmmakers were denied
permission to film in North India because the government found the script racist resulting in
filming to take place in Sri Lanka. Most of Temple of Doom was shot using sound stages at
Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England. Harrison Ford suffered a severe spinal disc
herniation during filming. Despite other problems, Spielberg finished filming on schedule.
The film was originally released with mixed reviews and helped spawn the creation of the
PG-13 rating. Nonetheless Temple of Doom was a financial success and has received
generally positive feedback since 1984.

3.6.2.2 The Plot

Set in 1935, a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones narrowly escapes the
clutches of a Shanghai crime boss. At the nearby Nang Tao airport, with nightclub singer
Willie Scott and his ten-year-old sidekick Short Round, Indiana escapes from Shanghai. En
route to India, their plane crashes in the mountains. After a dangerous ride down the
Himalayan mountains and a raging river, the trio eventually come to a desolate village in
India. The poor villagers enlist their help in retrieving a sacred Shiva lingam stone, as well as
the community's kidnapped children from the evil forces of nearby Pankot Palace. During the
journey to Pankot, Indy hypothesizes that the stone may be one of the fabled Adi Shankara
Stones. The village's elder believes Shiva sent Indiana.

The residents at Pankot Palace are insulted by Indiana's questions about the villagers' claims.
Later that night Indy is attacked in his room by a would-be assassin, which leads him, Willie
and Short Round to discover an underground temple beneath Pankot. They find a Kālī
Thuggee destructive cult, child slavery, black magic, and human sacrifice. The Thuggee have
enslaved the village children to dig for two last stones within the mines of the palace. Mola
Ram, the cult's villainous high priest, hopes to use the power of five united stones to rule the
world. The protagonists witness a ritual in which Mola Ram bare-handedly pulls a man's
heart out of his chest. The man survives, his heart beating in Mola Ram's hand, until he is
lowered slowly into a lava pit, causing the beating heart to burst into flame.

Indy, Willie, and Short Round are captured by the Thuggee and separated. Indy is forced to
drink the "Blood of Kali", a mind-control potion which puts him into a trance called the
"Black Sleep of Kali Ma," and begins to serve Mola Ram. Willie is kept as a human sacrifice,
while Short Round is put in the mines alongside the village children as a slave labourer. Short
Round frees himself and escapes back into the temple, where Willie is about to be sacrificed
to Kali. He burns Indy with a torch, shocking him out of the trance. After returning to
himself, Indiana is mortified at the thought of having nearly cost his friends their lives, asking
forgiveness from Short Round. Although Mola Ram escapes through a trap door, Indy and
Short Round manage to save Willie, take the three Sankara Stones, and free the village
children. In the fight to escape the palace, the three jump into a mine cart and are closely
pursued by two Thuggee-filled carts.

The climax leads to Indy, Willie and Short Round on a narrow ledge of a canyon. They try to
cross a rope bridge, but are surrounded by Mola Ram and the Thuggee on both ends. Indy
prepares his friends to brace themselves. He uses a machete to cut the bridge in half, but
Mola Ram holds on. In a final battle for the stones, the evil priest declares that they belong to
him. Unafraid, Indiana invokes the name of Shiva, which causes the stones to glow red hot.
They burn a hole in his satchel and two of them fall into the river. The final stone burns Mola
Ram's hand as he grabs it. Indiana catches it and watches as Ram is eaten. Jones climbs up
the bridge as Blumburtt and his Indian riflemen, warned by the Maharajá, suddenly appear
and help defeat the Thuggee reinforcements. Indiana, Willie, and Short Round return to the
village with their sacred stone and the missing children. Indiana tells the village headman that
he finally understands the stone's power.

3.6.2.3 Indiana Jones- The Protagonist

Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr. a.k.a. ‘Indiana Jones’ is a fictional adventurer, soldier, professor
of archaeology, and the main protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas
created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials. The character first
appeared in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, to be followed by Temple of Doom in
1984, The Last Crusade in 1989, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles from 1992 to 1996,
and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008.

In the series, Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, is portrayed as an adventurous

throwback to the 1930s film serial treasure hunters and pulp action heroes, with an alter ego
of Doctor Jones, a respected archaeologist at Marshall College. In this first adventure, he is
pitted against the Nazis, traveling the world to prevent them from recovering the Ark of the
Covenant.

The 1984 sequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, set in 1935, took the character into
a more horror-oriented story, skipping his legitimate teaching job and globe-trotting, and
taking place almost entirely in India. This time, Jones attempts to recover children and the
Sankara Stones from the bloodthirsty Thuggee cult.

In his role as a college professor of archaeology, Henry Jones Jr. is scholarly and learned in a
tweed suit, lecturing on ancient civilizations. But at the opportunity to recover important
artifacts, he transforms into "Indiana", a near superhero image he has concocted for himself.
Like many characters in his films, Jones has some autobiographical elements of Spielberg.
Indiana lacks a proper father figure because of his strained relationship with his father, Henry
Senior. His own contained anger is misdirected at the likes of Professor Abner Ravenwood,
his mentor at the University of Chicago. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom however,
the character becomes the father in a temporary family unit with Willie Scott and Short
Round to survive. Indiana is rescued from the evil of Kali by Short Round's dedication.
Indiana also saves many children from slavery. Indiana uses his knowledge of Shiva to
ultimately defeat Mola Ram.

Because of Indiana's strained relationship with his father, a Christian searching for the Holy
Grail, the character rejects the spiritual side of the profession he has followed. The
inconsistency of the three films is that after appearing to become a believer in Judaism (in
Raiders), Hinduism (in Doom) and Christianity (Crusade), Indiana reverts back in the next
film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Temple of Doom, chronologically the earliest of the
films, has Indiana as a mercenary, searching for fortune and glory.

3.6.2.4 Mola Ram- The Antagonist

Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) is the main antagonist and the Thuggee high priest. He has made
Pankot Palace his lair and wants to use the five Sankara Stones to create a temple to worship
Kali. To that end, Mola Ram enslaves the children of a village that had one of the Stones to
mine the other two that are underneath the palace. He also brainwashes humans with the
potion containing the blood of Kali Ma to make them devout followers until they are exposed
to a burning sensation. Indiana eventually uses the Stones to burn Mola, who falls into a river
and is mauled by the crocodiles below.

Mola Ram is named after a 17th century Indian painter. Lucas wanted Mola Ram to be
terrifying, so Huyck and Katz added elements of Aztec and Hawaiian human sacrificers, and
European devil worship, to the character. To create his headdress, make-up artist Tom Smith
based the skull on a cow, and used a latex shrunken head.

For the role of Mola Ram, the arch-villain, they searched through England and the United
States to find someone to play the part. Both Lucas and Spielberg were most anxious that
they did not cast the principal Indian roles with Western actors darkened down. They wanted
real Indians. They couldn't find anybody amongst the resident Indian actors in the United
States, and so they got a permit for Amrish Puri, one of India's top actors, to go and do the
film. Puri was working on 18 films in India simultaneously at the time of his casting. ‘This
was something I had never before come up against,’ commented Watts. ‘The Indian film
industry operates in a manner that would drive me stark raving mad. The actors work
sometimes two or even three shifts a day, four-hour shift. And they may work on two or three
different films; they'll be in one in the morning and another in the afternoon. In the end, we
had four different visits from Amrish (one in Sri Lanka, three in London). He had to juggle
around all his Indian commitments to do this movie. It wasn't easy.’

Veteran Indian actor Rosan Seth was given the role of oily prime minister of the Pankot
Palace, while David Yip, known in Britain by the TV series The Chinese Detective, would
play Wu Han, an ill-fated ally of Indy in the opening night club scene.

3.6.2.5 Production

When George Lucas first approached Steven Spielberg for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg
recalled, ‘George said if I directed the first one then I would have to direct a trilogy. He had
three stories in mind. It turned out George did not have three stories in mind and we had to
make up the subsequent stories.’ Spielberg and Lucas attributed the film's tone, which was
darker than Raiders of the Lost Ark, to their personal moods following the break-ups of their
relationships. In addition Lucas felt ‘it had to have been a dark film. The way Empire Strikes
Back was the dark second act of the Star Wars trilogy.’

Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains once more. He
created an opening chase scene that had Indiana Jones on a motorcycle on the Great Wall of
China. China authorities refused to house filming, and Lucas considered the Monkey King as
the plot device. Lucas came up with ideas that involved a religious cult devoted to child
slavery, black magic and ritual human sacrifice. Lawrence Kasdan of Raiders of the Lost Ark
was asked to write the script. Kasdan reflected, ‘I didn't want to be associated with Temple of
Doom. I just thought it was horrible. It's so mean. There's nothing pleasant about it. I think
Temple of Doom represents a chaotic period in both their [Lucas and Spielberg] lives, and the
movie is very ugly and mean-spirited.’ Lucas hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz to write
the script because of their knowledge of Indian Culture. Gunga Din served as an influence for
the film.

The first draft was delivered in early-August 1982 with a second draft in September. Captain
Blumburtt, Chattar Lai and the boy Maharaja originally had more crucial roles. A dogfight
was deleted, while those who drank the Kālī blood turned into zombies with physical
superhuman abilities. During pre-production the Temple of Death title was replaced with
Temple of Doom.
3.5.2.6 Filming the prequel

The filmmakers were denied permission to film in North India and Amber Fort because the
government found the script racist. The government demanded script changes and final cut
privilege. As a result, location work went to Kandy, Sri Lanka, with matte paintings and scale
models applied for the village, temple, and Pankot Palace.

3.6.3 SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

• Director: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan (co-director: India)

• Prod ucer: Christian Colson
• Script: Simon Beaufoy
• Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Tanay Chheda, Ayush Mahesh
Khedekar, Azharuddin Ismail, Rubina Ali, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan
• Music: A.R. Rahman
• Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle
• Editor: Chris Dickens
• Budget: $15 million
• Gross revenue: $311,107,572

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon
Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is the movie adaptation of the novel
‘Q & A’ by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in India, Slumdog
Millionaire tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the
Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Kaun Banega Crorepati, and goes on to
answer every question correctly thereby arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of
law enforcement officials.

Few films in recent memory have captured global audiences in the manner that “Slumdog
Millionaire” has. The movie was released nationwide in the United States just weeks after the
November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The feel-good story resonated with millions around
the world, and for many, watching the film in theaters became a means of channeling
sympathy for Indians, learning about a people they otherwise knew relatively little about.

3.6.3.1 The storyline of Slumdog Millionaire

Set in 2006, the film opens in Mumbai with a police constable torturing Jamal Malik (Dev
Patel), a former street child from the Juhu slums. The impact on the audience and grabbing
their attention occurs right from start, in the opening scene, a title card is presented: ‘Jamal
Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it?

a) He cheated c) He’s a genius

b) He's lucky d) It is written

Jamal is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Kaun Banega
Crorepati hosted by Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor) and has made it to the final question for two
million rupees, scheduled for the next day. Following up on a tip-off from Prem Kumar, the
police now suspect Jamal of cheating, because the other possibilities, that he either has a vast
knowledge or that he is very lucky, seem unlikely.

Jamal then explains that, while at least the question about Bollywood superstar Amitabh
Bachchan was very simple, he knew the answers of most questions by chance, because of
things that happened in his life, conveyed in a series of flashbacks documenting the details of
his childhood. This includes scenes of him obtaining Bachchan's autograph, the death of his
mother during anti-Muslim violence, an attempt at rekindling memory of the 1993 anti-
Muslim attacks in Mumbai in the slums, and how he and his brother Salim befriended Latika
(Rubina Ali). He refers to Salim and himself as Athos and Porthos, and Latika as the third
Musketeer.

In Jamal's flashback, the children are eventually discovered by Maman (Ankur Vikal) while
they are living in the trash heaps. Maman is a gangster who pretends to run an orphanage in
order to "collect" street children so that he can ultimately train them to beg for money. Salim
is groomed to become a part of Maman’s operation and is asked to bring Jamal to Maman in
order to be blinded to improve his income potential as a singing beggar. Salim protects his
brother, and the three children try to escape, but only he and Jamal are able to do so, catching
up to a train which is departing. Latika catches up and takes Salim's hand, but Salim
purposely lets go, and she is left behind as the train accelerates away.

The brothers make a living, traveling on top of trains, selling goods, picking pockets, and
cheating naive tourists at the Taj Mahal by pretending to be tour guides. Jamal eventually
insists that they return to Mumbai since he wishes to locate Latika, which annoys Salim.
They eventually find her, discovering that she had been raised by Maman to be a culturally
talented prostitute whose virginity will fetch a high price. The brothers attempt to rescue her,
but Maman intrudes, and in the resulting conflict Salim draws a gun and kills Maman. Salim
then uses the fact that he killed Maman to obtain a job with Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar), a
rival crime lord. Salim returns to the room where the three were staying and orders Jamal to
leave. Jamal, knowing his brother is here to claim Latika as his own, attacks his brother
violently before being overturned by Salim and confronted by a revolver as Salim threatens to
kill him. Latika intervenes and tells Jamal to leave, breaking his heart and sacrificing herself
to keep him safe. With Maman's men searching for Salim, Salim and Latika flee to an
unknown location, leaving Jamal alone to fend for himself.

Years later, Jamal has a position as a tea server at a call center. When he is asked to cover for
a co-worker for a couple of minutes, he searches the database for Salim and Latika and
succeeds in getting in touch with Salim, who has become a high-ranking lieutenant in Javed’s
organization. Jamal confronts a regretful Salim on tense terms. Jamal asks him where Latika
is. Salim, annoyed and bewildered that his brother still cares about her, responds she's "long
gone." Salim invites Jamal to live with him, and after Jamal follows him to Javed's house, he
sees Latika (Freida Pinto) there, and she also notices him. He bluffs his way in, pretending
initially to be a chef and then later a dishwasher. Jamal and Latika have an emotional reunion,
but elation quickly turns to despair after Jamal discovers that Latika is married to Javed.
Upon discovering this, Jamal tries to persuade Latika to leave. She rebuffs his advances and
insists that he forget about her and leave, but instead Jamal confesses his love for her and
promises to wait for her every day at 5 p.m. at Mumbai's largest train station, the Chhatrapati
Shivaji Terminus (C.S.T.), until she comes. One day, while Jamal waits there, Latika attempts
to rendezvous with him, but she is recaptured by Salim and Javed's men. Javed slashes her
cheek with a knife as Salim drives off, leaving a furious Jamal behind with a crowd of
onlookers.
Jamal again loses contact with Latika when Javed moves to another house outside of
Mumbai. In another attempt to find Latika, Jamal tries out for the popular game show Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire, because he knows she'll be watching. He makes it to the final
question, despite the hostile attitude of the host who feeds Jamal a wrong answer during a
break. At the end of the show, Jamal has one question left to win Two Crore rupees but the
host calls the police and Jamal is taken into police custody, where he is tortured as the police
attempt to learn how he, a simple ‘slumdog’, could know the answers to so many questions.
After Jamal tells his whole story, explaining how his life experiences coincidentally enabled
him to know the answer to each question, the police inspector calls Jamal's explanation
"bizarrely plausible" and, knowing he's not in it for the money, allows him to return to the
show for the final question.

At Javed's safehouse, Latika watches the news coverage of Jamal's miraculous run on the
show. Salim gives Latika his phone and the keys to his car. He urges her to run away and to
"forgive him for what he has done." The final question asked of Jamal is to name the third
musketeer in the story of The Three Musketeers. When Jamal uses his Phone-A-Friend
lifeline to call Salim, Latika barely succeeds in answering the phone in time and they
reconnect. She does not know the answer to the final question, but she tells Jamal that she is
safe and says ‘I am yours’ before the phone connection cuts off. Jamal simply guesses the
correct answer to the question of the one musketeer whose name they never learned, and wins
the grand prize. Simultaneously, Salim is discovered to have helped Latika escape and allows
himself to be killed in a bathtub full of money after shooting and killing Javed. Later that
night, Jamal and Latika meet at the railway station and they share a kiss. It is then revealed
that the correct answer to the opening question is ‘d) it is written’, implying that it is destiny.

During the closing credits, Jamal and Latika -- along with dozens of bystanders and even the
younger versions of themselves, dance in the C.S.T. train station to the song "Jai Ho," the
title of which epitomizes victory.

3.6.3.2 Production of the film

Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy wrote Slumdog Millionaire based on the ‘Boeke’ Prize-winning
and ‘Commonwealth Writers Prize’ nominated novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup. To hone the
script, Beaufoy made three research trips to India and interviewed street children, finding
himself impressed with their attitudes. The screenwriter said of his goal for the script: ‘I
wanted to get across the sense of this huge amount of fun, laughter, chat, and sense of
community that is in these slums. What you pick up on is this mass of energy.’ Originally
appointed as one of the five casting directors in India, Loveleen Tandan has stated that she
suggested to Danny and Simon Beaufoy, the writer of Slumdog, that it was important to do
some of it in Hindi to bring the film alive.

Boyle then decided to translate nearly a third of the film's English dialogue into Hindi. The
director fibbed to Warner Independent's president that he wanted 10% of the dialogue in
Hindi, and she approved of the change. Filming locations included shooting in Mumbai's
mega slum and in shantytown parts of Juhu, so film-makers controlled the crowds by
befriending onlookers.

In addition to Swarup's original novel Q & A, the film was also inspired by Indian cinema.
Tandan has referred to Slumdog Millionaire as homage to Hindi commercial cinema, noting
that Simon Beaufoy studied Salim-Javed's kind of cinema minutely. Boyle has cited the
influence of several Bollywood films set in Mumbai. The rags-to-riches, underdog theme
underlying the film was also a recurring theme in classic Bollywood movies from the 1950s
through to the 1980s, when India worked to lift itself from hunger and poverty.