Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema

Front Cover
Routledge, Mar 5, 2013 - Performing Arts - 288 pages

'Bollywood' is the dominant global term to refer to the prolific Hindi language film industry in Bombay (renamed Mumbai in 1995). Characterised by music, dance routines, melodrama, lavish production values and an emphasis on stars and spectacle, Bollywood films have met with box-office success and enthusiastic audiences from India to West Africa to Russia, and throughout the English-speaking world.

In Bollywood, anthropologist and film scholar Tejaswini Ganti provides a guide to the cultural, social and political significance of Hindi cinema, outlining the history and structure of the Bombay film industry, and the development of popular Hindi filmmaking since the 1930s. Providing information and commentary on the key players in Bollywood, including directors and stars, as well as material from current filmmakers themselves, the areas covered in Bollywood include:

  • history of Indian cinema
  • narrative style, main themes, and key genres of Hindi cinema
  • significant films, directors and stars
  • production and distribution of Bollywood films
  • interviews with actors, directors and screenwriters.
 

Contents

1 INTRODUCTION
1
2 THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF POPULAR HINDI CINEMA
56
3 NARRATIVE STYLE IMPORTANT THEMES AND KEY CONFLICTS
103
4 GENRE AND HINDI CINEMA
137
5 CONTEMPORARY HINDI FILMMAKERS REFLECTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES
160
SIGNIFICANT FILMS OF POPULAR HINDI CINEMA
201
SIGNIFICANT FILMMAKERS OF THE HINDI FILM INDUSTRY
217
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
232
NOTES
240
BIBLIOGRAPHY
252
INDEX
261
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About the author (2013)

Tejaswini Ganti is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Program in Culture and Media at New York University.

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