The Cinema of India

This collection of articles covers all the axes of Indian cinema from its beginnings to the present day, reflected through 24 of its most important films. The contributions provide diverse and eclectic views of the history and current state of Indian regional cinema, covering quintessential topics as stardom, politics, and the relation between the state and the film industry. With its invaluable contributions by both Indian and non-Indian specialists working in a variety of areas ranging from film studies and filmmaking to social sciences, this volume will certainly appeal not only to cinema studies scholars but also to film industry professionals, and is an indispensable complement to canonical studies of Indian cinema studies.' Barbara Lorey De Lacharriere, Fipresci

The Cinema of India closely examines 24 landmark films from one of the world's largest national cinemas - assembling writings by renowned scholars of Indian cinema. Each essay provides a novel framework to read a film and when considered together, a kaleidoscopic pattern emerges acknowledging the varied terrain of Indian film production and its reception both nationally and globally. This volume offers a comprehensive consideration of the histories of different regional cinemas; the role of the studios; the place of `middle' cinema and its relationship to state subsidies; the style of popular films; the allure of stardom; the resistant style of art films; the resurgence of auteurism; and the poetics of documentary. This study discusses in-depth a wide range of films released over a period of more than sixty years, including Saint Tukaram (1936), Parasakthi (1957), Bhuvan Shome (1969), Ghattashradda (1977) and Ram Ke Nam (1991).

Lalitha Gopalan is Associate Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Cinema of Interaptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema (2002) and Bombay (2005).