Last week, we hosted a chat with Professor Richard Pells, from the University of Texas. Dr Pells is currently at work on a book titled From Modernism to the Movies: The Globalization of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. He chatted with Rediff readers about Hollywood, the influence of American culture on the world, and more.

In case you missed the chat, here's what went on:

Richard Pells says, I am very pleased to be participating in this Web chat. I should say at the outset that I am NOT an expert on Indian films. My field of expertise is in 20th century American culture and American films. I am, however, interested in the contasts and similarities between the American and Indian film industries, and in the impact of American popular culture on the world as well as the continuing influence of foreign cultures on the US. So I would very much appreciate questions that have to do with specific American films, as well as with the more general popularity of American culture.

ramananda asked, Dr Pells, one of your books deals with how European culture has affected American values. But the way the British and the French see America, and vice versa, are radically different...why?
Richard Pells answers, Yes, it is quite true that there are differences among the ways that countries respond to America, its policies and values. In the case of Britain, there has been at least since World War II a sense of a "special relationship" with the U.S. In the case of France [Images], there has been more often a sense of competition with America. And this accounts, in part, for the different attitudes that American have toward the British and toward the French.

ramananda asked, Dr Pells, Hollywood and perhaps what is known as the McDonalds culture seems to be one of the biggest 'soft' American exports. Some cultures see that as a threat, as a sort of American cultural hegemony....do you agree with that perception?
Richard Pells answers, I think the impact of American culture is often exaggerated. People all over the world are affected by a variety of influences--their childhoods, their parents, their friends, where they grow up, their jobs, the climate in which they live, etc. So that people respond to American cultural exports on the basis of their own needs, tastes, and traditions. In that sense, the effect of American culture is more limited than its critics often suggest.

ramananda asked, Would you like to rate your three all time favorite Hollywood movies?
Richard Pells answers, Its very difficult to answer this question because its hard to limit the answer to only 3 movies. But let me throw out 3 titles: Citizen Kane, Annie Hall (left), The Godfather. Of course it would be much easier to list 20 films than just three!

Saby asked, Indian society is still prohibitive. It dies not encourage explicit sex,orgy, bloody violence on screen as such aspects hit Indian sensibilities.But the Hollywood movies do not habe to bther about such things.You putt a 'R' certificate and everything becomes viewable. Indian movies try to copy such things from Hollywood movies. Hence if Hollywood movies delete such materials, it will have a bearing on Indian movies. But as of now, hollywood movies encourage violence more than movies made in any other part of the world as hollywood movies are dubbed into maximum languages.
Richard Pells answers, For a long time, at least until the 1960s, American films were also the victim of censorship, or an elaborate series of rules and prohibitions of what could be shown and said on the screen. That system collapsed in the 60s, and was replaced with the rating system we have today. The rating system at least makes it possible for filmmakers to make more "realistic" films about a wide variety of subjects, and to show how people really live their lives. No society can ultimately prevent such portraits in art or in entertainment. So I suspect that India will have to permit its films to be more humanly realistic in the future.

ramananda asked, Did you come to India with any pre-conceived notions, and how close were they to the India you have actually experienced so far?
Richard Pells answers, This is a very hard question to answer. We all have "preconceived" notions of what a society is like, often based on the images of that society projected in movies. When I first saw Paris, in real life, I thought it looked just like all the Hollywood movies about Paris. Of course, it took me a while to realize that films are only a dramatization of reality. If I had any preconceived notion of India, it was of the enormous disparities between economic development and technological sophistication on the one hand, and extreme poverty on the other. This image, at least so far, and sadly, has been confirmed.

arsonist asked, Dr Pells, do you think one of the most basic problems with Bollywood acceptance in America is the long running time of the films?
Richard Pells answers, I think the basic problem with Bollywood's acceptance, not just in American, but with non-Indian audiences elsewhere in the world is that one really needs to know something about Indian culture, history, society, traditions, and above all music. Whereas to appreciate an American film, one really doesn't need to know much about America at all. So perhaps as Bollywood films become less contrained by their structure, especially of the musical, they may appeal more successfully to global audiences.

ramsengupta asked, How would you react to charges that American 'culture,' being just 300 years old, if that, tends to be more crass, in your face, and at times gross, when compared with the old European and even older Persian and Indian cultures?
Richard Pells answers, I don't think the "age" of a culture has much to do with its quality, or lack of quality. Almost all cultures, including America's, include great art and a lot of trash. And, if we're honest with ourselves, we can admit that we often enjoy both.

ramsengupta asked, Dr Pells, America, being a land of immigrants, a cultural melting pot, as it were, is now forced to be xenophobic post 9/11...would you agree?
Richard Pells answers, I don't think America is particularly xenophobic, or at least not any more so that other countries. Everyone tends to think that their country, or culture, is somehow superior. The real question for all of us, post 9/11 is not how we deal with foreigners, but how we deal with the issue of terrorism, no matter who does it or where it happens.

indian asked, why are there so many unwanted sex and violence in Hollywood movies? Is it purely for commercial reasons ? What is your take on this ?
Richard Pells answers, I don't know that there is so much "unwanted" sex or violence in American movies. There is sex and violence in Shakespeare. It depends on what particular movies you're talking about. Recently, some of my favorite American films have been Lost in Translation, Million Dollar Baby, and The Hours. There's no violence (except in Million Dollar Baby's boxing scenes) and little sex in any of those films. On the other hand, also in one of my favorite films, Pulp Fiction, there's a lot of violence, some of it quite graphic. But far from interfering with the film, it makes us think more about what we're watching. Again, it depends on the particular film and each of us relates to it.

arsonist asked, sir, what is your comment on jingoistic propaganda in popular american war cinema?
Richard Pells answers, There is a certainl amount of jingoism in American war films. But in one of the most emotionally powerful of those films, The Deer Hunter, about the war in Vietnam, the movie is really about the devasting consequences of the war on the kinds of people who actually fought it. And no one can watch that particular film without coming away emotionally drained with the horror of the war experience itself.

sabya asked, U S movie industry plays a pivotal role in influencing world wide film industries because of its grandeur, commercial acceptance among a wide audience.Why do we not see nowadays goods U S movies which promotes peace, non violence, moral values which can percolate all over the world? Hollywood which
Richard Pells answers, The international market often determines what American films are exported. But, in general, the best movies (no matter what country makes them) don't so much promote a particular set of values as tell stories about individuals. Art and politics have rarely mixed well, though there are some notable exceptions like Picasso's painting, Guernica, about the Spanish Civil War. Still, one shouldn't ask films or any other art form to advocate a particular political, social, or moral position, as to get people to think about the world in new ways.

Satyr asked, I mean, do audiences outside America have a say in what filmmakers in their own countries do?
Richard Pells answers, Audiences outside the U.S., and their desires, often do affect filmakers decisions in America about what movies to make and what stars to use. But msot of the time, the individual director or actor or screenwriter is trying to make the best movie he or she can, without worrying about what the audience's reactions will be. That said, everyone wants their films to be seen, so they are aware of what an audience might want or be moved by.

arsonist asked, sir, what about the trend of constant remakes? every big Hollywood film seems either adapted from a comic or an 80s television show.. what do you think is the reason for this dearth or originality?
Richard Pells answers, Remakes and sequels are prevalent both in the American and Indian film industries. The reason is that films are very expensive to make, and no one know what will work, what will succeed commercially. So when a studio or filmmaker makes a film that is commercially successful, they (and others) try to make 5-10 versions of the same thing. It is fundamentally a lack of imagination and an aversion to risk-taking. There are, however, occasional instances when a sequel is as good as, or better than, the original. The best American example of this is Godfather-Part II (right).

Satyr asked, Hollywood produces its share of rubbish films, but American audiences are able to appreciate a wider range of movies... Bonnie and Clyde was a major hit in the 60s; and who would have thought American Beauty could make so much money? Bollywood meanwhile has entered this pretentious phase where it's catering to an urban audience that considers itself sophisticated. Do you think audiences outside America dictate the direction of storytelling, given commercial interests, or can scriptwriters retain a measure of their artistic integrity?
Richard Pells answers, Bonny and Clyde helped revolutionize the American film industy in the late 1960s. It taught a young generation of American filmmakers what was possible in an American movie, both artistically and commercially. That revolution lasted until the end of the 1970s. But it has in some respects reoccurred today. That is, big expensive special-effects blockbusters co-exist with smaller, more independent, less expensive films. And it is the latter that not only win the awards, but linger in the mind long after the blockbusters have been forgotten.

Orson Wells asked, Be it any culture, why do you think there is so much trash generated in the name of movie making?
Richard Pells answers, Orson Welles would have known the answer to your question, since he became a victim of the commercial nature of the film-making medium. There is a lot of trash made because people are unwilling to take artistic risks. And because there's a lot of money that can be made, or lost, on a film. Above all, however, some filmmakers have talent and some don't. It's not that the talented filmmakers will always make good movies. But it's pretty often true that lousy filmmakers will make lousy movies.

judas asked, What do you think has the influence been of Foriegn movies on American movies? I can see a lot a French, Spanish and Iranian movies gaining lots of acceptance amongst the popular culture in America... how do you think are american movies adapting their techniques in their own movie making?
Richard Pells answers, There have been various moments in the history of Hollywood when foreign-language films were enormously influential. The 1920s--the era of Fritz Lang, Sergei Eisenstein, F.W. Murnau, etc--was one of these. The period from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s--the era of Bergman, Truffault, Fellini, Antonioni, Bunuel, Kurosawa--was another. And more recently, foreign directors like Ang Lee [Images] have done very well in the U.S. But foreign films have never appealed to a mass audience in the U.S. More often, they have appealed to film critics, filmmakers, and a younger audience of educated filmgoers, often in universities towns as well as in big cities like New York

Satyr asked, I'm researching for a satire on the Indian film industry. Bollywood seems stuck in the Hollywood 1940s and 50s, the era of the Musical. Did Hollywood discard the Musical because the artifice of song-and-dance sequences jarred with audiences? Now, of course, we've had Chicago, Moulin Rouge, Ray and Walk the Line... but their stories "justified" songs and dances. Do you think tastes will similarly shift in India, or is Bollywood rooted in fantasy?
Richard Pells answers, There are a lot of reasons for the decline of the Hollywood musicals during and after the 1950s. The most important was that American music change; rock became more important than the songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Rogers and Hart, all whom wrote for Fred Astaire and later Gene Kelly. Yet musicals underwent a kind of revival in the 1970s, especially with Bob Fosse's Cabaret and All That Jazz, Robt. Altman's Nashville (which is, after all, a musical) and Sat. Night Fever. But Fosse had the largest influence (which certainly shows up in Chicago, which was the movie version of his own stage musical in the 70s). The characteristic of a Fosse film was not only the jazz dancing, but the alternation between the story and the song/dance, and how each comments on the other. Perhaps Indian films will emulate the sort of brilliance that Fosse's musicals embodied.

ramananda asked, Dr Pells, what is the main argument, or theme, behind your yet to be published book, From Modernism to the Movies: The Globalization of American Culture in the Twentieth Century?
Richard Pells answers, My book, From Modernism to the Movies, is about the cosmpolitan nature of American culture, and its historic dependence on foreign talent and ideas. It is precisely that dependence that has made American culture so popuar for so long in so many countries

arsonist asked, among the current Hollywood filmmakers, whom do you see as the one with the most impact and influence (among his peers' work and audiences) and why?
Richard Pells answers, This is a difficult question to answer. The generation of the 60s.70s---Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen [Images], etc.---had an huge influence on their contemporaries. They have few counterparts today. Certainly, Quentin Tarantino [Images] was, and may still, be influential. So are younger directors like Wes Anderson, or Sophia Coppola. But there's no longer a "school" of filmmakers, as in the 70s, that saw themselves as in rebellion against Hollywood (even as they made films funded by Hollywood).

Richard Pells says, Thanks very much for all you questions. I'm sorry I couldn't answer all of them, but I tried to deal with the ones I thought I had the most knowledge about. In any case, keep going to the movies!!