Bollywood Cinema : Temples of Desire

India is home to Bollywood - the largest film industry in the world. Movie theatres are said to be the "temples of modern India", with Bombay producing nearly 800 films per year that are viewed by roughly 11 million people per day. In Bollywood Cinema, Vijay Mishra argues that Indian film production and reception is shaped by the desire for national community and a pan-Indian culture. Seeking to understand Bollywood according to its own narrative and aesthetic principles and in relation to a global film industry, he views Indian cinema through the dual methodologies of postcolonial studies and film theory. Mishra discusses classics such as "Mother India" (1957) and "Devdas" (1935) and recent films including "Ram Lakhan" (1989) and "Khalnayak" (1993), linking their form and content to broader issues of national identity, epic tradition, popular culture, history, and the implications of diaspora. "Bollywood Cinema" considers not only the impact of Indian filmmakers upon the world of cinema, but also how movie-going affects our sense of self and community.
Contents:
A note on transliteration; inventing Bombay cinema; melodramatic staging; the texts of "Mother India"; auteurship and the lure of romance; the actor as parallel text - Amitabh Bachchan; segmenting/analyzing two foundational texts; cinema after Ayodhya - the sublime object of fundamentalism; cinema and diasporic desire.