Bombay Cinema

Bombay Cinema

An Archive of the City

Ranjani Mazumdar

Table of Contents

$22.50 paper
ISBN: 0-8166-4942-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4942-6

$67.50 cloth
ISBN: 0-8166-4941-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4941-9

The urban experience in India through the lens of popular Bombay cinema.

Cinema is not only a major industry in India, it is a powerful cultural force. But until now, no one has undertaken a major examination of the ways in which films made in Bombay mediate the urban experience in India. In Bombay Cinema, Ranjani Mazumdar takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding Bombay cinema as the unofficial archive of the city in India.

In this analysis of the cinematic city, Mazumdar reveals a complex postnationalist world, convulsed by the social crisis of the 1970s and transformed by the experience of globalization in the 1990s. She argues that the upheaval of postcolonial nationalism led to Bombay cinema’s articulation of urban life in entirely new terms. Specifically, the place of the village in the imaginary constitution of anticolonial nationalism gave way to a greater acknowledgment, even centrality, of urban space. Bombay Cinema takes the reader on an inventive journey through a cinematic city of mass crowds, violence, fashion, architectural fantasies, and subcultural identities. Moving through the world of gangsters and vamps, families and drifters, and heroes and villains, Bombay Cinema explores an urban landscape marked by industrial decline, civic crisis, working-class disenchantment, and diverse street life.

Combining the anecdotal with the theoretical, the philosophical with the political, and the textual with the historical, Bombay Cinema leads the reader into the heart of the urban labyrinth in India, revising and deepening our understanding of both the city and the cinema.

“The book brings new perspectives on the themes it chooses to explore. Here is a book, which will not disappoint but instead inform those who are engaged with cities other than Bombay, and cinemas other than Hindi.” —Economic & Political Weekly

Ranjani Mazumdar is an independent filmmaker and associate professor of film studies at the School of Art and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

312 pages | 44 halftones | 5 7⁄8 x 9 | 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Urban Allegories

1. Rage on Screen
2. The Rebellious Tapori
3. Desiring Women
4. The Panoramic Interior
5. Gangland Bombay

Conclusion: After Life
Notes
Bibliography
Index



Bombay Cinema *An Archive of the City* Ranjani Mazumdar Table of Contents		$22.50 paper ISBN: 0-8166-4942-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4942-6 $67.50 cloth ISBN: 0-8166-4941-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4941-9
The urban experience in India through the lens of popular Bombay cinema. Cinema is not only a major industry in India, it is a powerful cultural force. But until now, no one has undertaken a major examination of the ways in which films made in Bombay mediate the urban experience in India. In Bombay Cinema, Ranjani Mazumdar takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding Bombay cinema as the unofficial archive of the city in India. In this analysis of the cinematic city, Mazumdar reveals a complex postnationalist world, convulsed by the social crisis of the 1970s and transformed by the experience of globalization in the 1990s. She argues that the upheaval of postcolonial nationalism led to Bombay cinema’s articulation of urban life in entirely new terms. Specifically, the place of the village in the imaginary constitution of anticolonial nationalism gave way to a greater acknowledgment, even centrality, of urban space. Bombay Cinema takes the reader on an inventive journey through a cinematic city of mass crowds, violence, fashion, architectural fantasies, and subcultural identities. Moving through the world of gangsters and vamps, families and drifters, and heroes and villains, Bombay Cinema explores an urban landscape marked by industrial decline, civic crisis, working-class disenchantment, and diverse street life. Combining the anecdotal with the theoretical, the philosophical with the political, and the textual with the historical, Bombay Cinema leads the reader into the heart of the urban labyrinth in India, revising and deepening our understanding of both the city and the cinema. “The book brings new perspectives on the themes it chooses to explore. Here is a book, which will not disappoint but instead inform those who are engaged with cities other than Bombay, and cinemas other than Hindi.” —Economic & Political Weekly Ranjani Mazumdar is an independent filmmaker and associate professor of film studies at the School of Art and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. 312 pages \| 44 halftones \| 5 7⁄8 x 9 \| 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Urban Allegories 1. Rage on Screen 2. The Rebellious Tapori 3. Desiring Women 4. The Panoramic Interior 5. Gangland Bombay Conclusion: After Life Notes Bibliography Index