Just as the celebration of 100 years of Indian cinema comes to an end, this book takes stock of continuities as well as breaks that have made Indian cinema what it is now
Volume contains original, sophisticated and complementary selection of chapters that examine ‘figures’ in and of Indian cinema
Indian cinema here is taken in its broad sense to include popular and more art and new / niche film developments
This collection of essays brings together ideas about figures and figurations that have been swirling around in Indian cinema studies for a considerable period now
Thematically arranged under four sections, the essays (12) examine a wide range of films that differ stylistically and linguistically under an umbrella concept of ‘figuration’ or ‘Indian modernity’
The authors approach Indian cinema from multiple perspectives, ranging from investigations of the political and the generic, to unraveling the figurative resonances of fabrics, stars, and icons, in an era of media convergence. Figurations in Indian Film demonstrates that the conversation about the relationship between bodies, modernity, globalization, aesthetics and politics is far from settled and suggests some exciting new ways of theorizing the same.
This book would appeal to any reader interested in Indian cinema, culture and politics.
Meheli Sen is Assistant Professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL) and the Cinema Studies program at Rutgers University, USA.
Anustup Basu is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Introduction: Meheli Sen PART I: POLITICAL AND TYPOLOGICAL FIGURES 1. Sensate Outlaws: The Recursive Social Bandit in Indian Popular Cultures Bishnupriya Ghosh 2. What Happened to Khadi? Dress and Costume in Bombay Cinema Anupama Kapse 3. Configuring the Other: The Detective and the Real in Satyajit Ray's Chiriakhana Gautam Basu Thakur PART II: GENERIC MUTATIONS 4. Diverting Diseases M. Madhava Prasad 5. Nevla as Dracula: Figurations of the Tantric as Monster in the Hindi Horror Film Usha Iyer 6. Haunted Havelis and Hapless Heroes: Gender, Genre and the Hindi Gothic Film Meheli Sen PART III: STAR FIGURES 7. 'The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships': Helen and Public Femininity in Hindi Film Anustup Basu 8. From Superman to Shahenshah: Stardom and the Transfigurative Body of Hrithik Roshan Nandana Bose 9. Con-figurations: The Body as World in Bollywood Stardom Sumita S. Chakravarty PART IV: FIGURING (OUT) NEW BOLLYWOOD 10. Metafiguring Bollywood: (Brecht after Om Shanti Om) Bhaskar Sarkar 11. Bodies in Syncopation Moinak Biswas 12. Between Violetta and Vasantasena is Toulouse-Lautrec: Cinematic Avatars and Bollywood in Moulin Rouge! Kirsten Strayer Afterword Anustup Basu