ABSTRACT

This book traces the journey of popular Hindi cinema from 1913 to contemporary times when Bollywood has evolved as a part of India’s cultural diplomacy. Avoiding a linear, developmental narrative, the book re-examines the developments through the ruptures in the course of cinematic history. The essays in the volume critically consider transformations of the Hindi film industry from its early days to its present self-referential mode, issues of gender, dance and choreography, Bombay cinema’s negotiations with the changing cityscape and urbanisms, and concentrate on its multifarious regional, national and transnational implications in the 21st century.

One of the most comprehensive volumes on Bollywood, this work presents an analytical overview of the multiple histories of popular cinema in India and will be useful to scholars and researchers interested in film and media studies, South Asian popular culture and modern India, as well as to cinephiles and general readers alike.

part |82 pages

Histories

chapter |14 pages

Myths, Markets and Panics

Bombay cinema and the historical significance of the popularity of two Gujarati stage plays at the turn of the 20th century

chapter |21 pages

The Left Encounter

Progressive voices of nationalism and Indian cinema to the 1950s

chapter |18 pages

What Do the Villains Have?

Indian cinema's villains in the 1970s

chapter |11 pages

Inward Bound

Self-referentiality in Bombay cinema

part |68 pages

Bollywood Dance

chapter |19 pages

Dancing to the Songs

History of dance in popular Hindi films

chapter |25 pages

Designing the Song and Dance Sequences

Exploring Bollywood's cinematic creativity

chapter |22 pages

The Item Girl

Tradition and transgression in Bollywood dancing

part |58 pages

Changes in the Cityscape, Changes in Cinema

chapter |22 pages

Regionalist Disjuncture in Bollywood

Dabangg and the consumerist cinema

chapter |8 pages

Mourning and Blood-Ties

Macbeth in Mumbai

chapter |16 pages

Black Friday

A screen history of the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts

chapter |10 pages

The Re-Mapped Dialectics of Contemporary Indian Cinema

Kahaani and That Girl in Yellow Boots

part |96 pages

Other Regions, Other Nations

chapter |22 pages

Marking Out the ‘South' in/of Hindi Cinema

An approach via remakes

chapter |16 pages

Between Solidarity and the Stereotype

Chandni Chowk to China

chapter |23 pages

The Khan Mania

Universal appeal of superstar Shahrukh Khan in a post-globalised Bollywood era

chapter |16 pages

Old Wine in a New Bottle

Bollywood films shot in Australia after 9/11

chapter |17 pages

The Way Cinema was Banished

The intervention of cinema studies in India