CITY FLICKS: Indian Cinema and the Urban Experience
Book Specification
| Item Code: | IDE855 |
| Author: | Edited By: Preben Kaarsholm |
| Publisher: | Seagull Books |
| Language: | English |
| Edition: | 2004 |
| ISBN: | 8170462509 |
| Pages: | 283 |
| Cover: | Paperback |
| Other Details | 9.4" X 6.3" |
| Weight | 620 gm |
Book Description
The growth of Indian film production, the significance of cinema in Indian society within and beyond India, and the rapid expansion of Indian cities and the urban lifestyle are closely linked phenomena. The relationship between cinema and modernity in the Indian cinema and modernity in the Indian context is both complex and multifaceted, and in this volume, some of the leading names in film and cultural studies explore its many dimensions.
The introductory essay sets the parameters of the discussions to follow, analyzing the interfaces between cinematic representation, globalization and city life. The essays range from discussions of urbanity and film language to realism and the Indian city in Bengali film of the 1940s; from the cultural resonances of popular Hindi film songs and the idea of the 'city' to realism and fantasy in cinematic representations of metropolitan Indian life; from cinematic aspects of Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children to genre, narrative form and film style in contemporary Indian urban action films; from the complexities of female spectatorship for the urban vigilantism of Telugu heroine Vijayasanthi, to an analysis of the current primary of 'Bollywood' in today's media-driven urban environment; and finally, to the cultural impact and influence of Indian films in diaspora communities in Fiji, Australia, Nigeria and South Africa.
Dealing as it does with the intersection of vital contemporary cultural phenomena - cinema, the city and the modern - these thought provoking essays are a valuable addition to current scholarship in the field.
Contributors:
Moinak Biswas
Vashna Jagarnath
Preben Kaarsholm
Sudipta Kaviraj
Brian Larkin
Peter Larsen
M. Madhava Prasad
Tejaswini Niranjana
Ashish Rajadhyaksha
Manas Ray
Ravi S. Vasudevan
Martin Zerlang
| Acknowledgements | vii |
| PREBEN KAARSHOLM: Introduction Unreal City: Cinematic Representation, Globalization and the Ambiguities of Metropolitan Life |
1 |
| PETER LARSEN Urban Legends: Notes on a Theme in Early Film Theory |
26 |
| MOINAK BISWAS The City and the Real: Chhinnamul and the Left Cultural Movement in the 1940s |
40 |
| SUDIPTA KAVIRAJ Reading a Song of the City - Images of the City in Literature and Films |
60 |
| M. MADHAVA PRASAD Realism and Fantasy in Representations of Metropolitan Life in Indian Cinema |
83 |
| MARTIN ZERLANG A Close-Up on Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children |
100 |
| ASHISH RAJADHYAKSHA: The 'Bollywoodization' of the Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena |
113 |
| MANAS RAY Chalo Jahoji: Bollywood in the Tracks of Indenture to Globalization |
140 |
| BRIAN LARKIN Colonialism and the Built Space of Cinema in Nigeria |
183 |
| VASHNA JAGARNATH The Politics of Urban Segregation and Indian Cinema in Durban |
211 |
| RAVI S. VASUDEVAN The Exhilaration of Dread: Genre, Narrative Form and Film Style in Contemporary Urban Action Films |
223 |
| TEJASWINI NIRANJANA Vigilantism and the Pleasures of Masquerade: The Female Spectator of Vijayasanthi Films |
237 |
| Bibliography | 255 |
| Contributors | 272 |
