Description
India is the largest film producing country in the world and its output has a global reach. After years of marginalisation by academics in the Western world, Indian cinemas have moved from the periphery to the centre of the world cinema in a comparatively short space of time. Bringing together contributions from leading scholars in the field, this Handbook looks at the complex reasons for this remarkable journey.
Combining a historical and thematic approach, the Handbook discusses how Indian cinemas need to be understood in their historical unfolding as well as their complex relationships to social, economic, cultural, political, ideological, aesthetic, technical and institutional discourses. The thematic section provides an up-to-date critical narrative on diverse topics such as audience, censorship, film distribution, film industry, diaspora, sexuality, film music and nationalism.
The Handbook provides a comprehensive and cutting edge survey of Indian cinemas, discussing Popular, Parallel/New Wave and Regional cinemas as well as the spectacular rise of Bollywood. It is an invaluable resource for students and academics of South Asian Studies, Film Studies and Cultural Studies.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction K. Moti Gokulsing, University of East London, UK and Wimal Dissanayake Part 1: Historical Analysis 2. From Cultural Backwardness to the Age of Imitation: An Essay in Film History M. Madhava Prasad 3. The Indian New Wave Ira Bhaskar 4. Regional Cinemas: 4.1 ‘Bengali’ Cinema: Its Making and Unmaking Sharmistha Gooptu 4.2 Assamese Cinema: Dreams, Reality and Dichotomies Manoj Barpujari 4.3 Odia (the new name for Oriya) Cinema at 75 Shyamhari Chakra 4.4 Marathi Cinema: The Exile, the Factory and Fame Amrit Gangar 4.5 Gujarati Cinema: Stories of Sant, Sati, Shethani and Sparks Afew Amrit Gangar 4.6 Matriliny to Masculinity: Performing Modernity and Gender in Malayalam Cinema Meena T. Pillai 4.7 Kannada Cinema and Princely Mysore M. K. Raghavendra 4.8 The Star-politicians of Tamil Nadu: The origin and emergence Theodore Baskaran 4.9 Beyond the Star: Telegu Comedy Films and Realpolitik in Andhra Pradesh Joe Christopher 4.10 Mapping the invisible world of Bhojpuri cinema and its changing audience Ratnakar Tripathy 4.11 From Lahore to Bombay…and Vancouver: The Chequered Journey of Punjabi Cinema Prabhjot Parmar Part 2: Themes and Perspectives 5. The evolution of representing Female sexuality in Hindi Cinema 1991 - 2010 Shoma A Chatterji 6. Queer Times in Bollywood Rama Srinivasan 7. The Scale of Diasporic Cinema: Negotiating National and Transnational Cultural Citizenship Jigna Desai 8. The Shifting Terrains of Nationalism and Patriotism in Indian Cinemas Vijay Devadas 9. Digitizing the National Imaginary: Technology and Hybridization in Hindi Film Songs of the Post-Liberalization Period Aniruddha Dutta 10. Trends in Hindi Film music with special reference to Socio-Economic and Political Changes Pankaj Rag 11. Music in Mainstream Indian Cinema Premendra Mazumder 12. Scriptwriting- In and Out of the Box Anil Zankar 13. The Fictions of Science and Cinema in India Raminder Kaur 14. Film Censorship in India: Deconstructing an Incongruity Someswar Bhowmik 15. Advertising and marketing of the Indian Cinema Lynne Ciochetto Part 3: The Business of Indian Cinemas 16. Film Distribution: The Changing Landscape Ravi Gupta 17. Corporatization and the Hindi Film Industry Tejaswini Ganti 18. Indian Cinemas: Acknowledging Property Rights Amir Ullah Khan 19. Foundations, Movements and Dissonant Images: documentary film and its ambivalent relations to the nation state Nicole Wolf Part 4: Cinema Halls and Audiences 20. Active Audiences and the Experience of Cinema Lakshmi Srinivas 21. Hindi film audiences outside South Asia Shakuntala Banaji 22. Cinema as Social Space: The Case of the Multiplex Adrian Athique 23. Virtual Darshan: social networking and virtual communities in the Hindi film context Steven Baker 24. Conclusion K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake
