Author: Yves Thoraval
Publisher: Macmillan
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 507
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0333934105
Description
A comprehensive guide to wade through the world of Indian cinema, from 1896 to 2000, this book, an enlarged edition of the original French title, Les Cinemas de L'Inde, presents its multiple regional facets illustrated by filmmakers that the world is now beginning to discover.
Born at the same time as in the West, over a century, Indian cinema, has today earned the pride of place as the world's largest cinematographic industry. Dynamic and professional, it seems that the Indians are never tired of seeing images on the screen, a trend that causes alarm to the Hollywood film industry, which has its eye on such a luscious market, given its recent efforts at dubbing American blockbusters into Hindi and Tamil for release in theatres.
But the Seventh Art is totally integrated into the Indian millennial tradition of images and plastic and performing arts, taking up all the 'genres' and reflecting the diversity of the cultures, languages and music's of a country as vast as a continent. That is why this book's title is plural, The Cinemas of India, a journey through the galaxy of Indian films and filmmakers, mostly auteurs, since the very beginning of cinema in India and its instrumentalisation by the pioneer Dadasaheb Phalke. And the reader will also make substantial incursions into the dream factories of commercial cinema, mostly in Mumbai's Bollywood, Chennai and Hyderabad.A work of indispensable referral value, may this book give the desire to the Indians to care more about the grandeur of their cinemas and to the non-Indian readers to pay far more attention to the beauties that all the Cinemas of India have to offer.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
The Cinemas of India (1896-2000)
The Talkie: The Beginning of a Golden Age
The Supremacy of Hindi Cinema
1960-1990: Escapism, Formulas and Star System
New Indian Cinema-The Rise of Auteur Cinema
The Regional Cinemas
Tamil Cinema
Telugu Cinema
Kannada Cinema
Malayalam Cinema
At the Foot of the Himalayas:
The Cinemas of Assam and Manipur
A Few Words About the Cinema of Orissa
Post-Scriptum 2000: Towards a Commercial-Middle Cinema?
Indian Feature Film Production (1990-1999)
Bibliography
Index