Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South IndiaA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. To produce the song sequences that are central to Indian popular cinema, singers' voices are first recorded in the studio and then played back on the set to be lip-synced and danced to by actors and actresses as the visuals are filmed. Since the 1950s, playback singers have become revered celebrities in their own right. Brought to Life by the Voice explores the distinctive aesthetics and affective power generated by this division of labor between onscreen body and offscreen voice in South Indian Tamil cinema. In Amanda Weidman's historical and ethnographic account, playback is not just a cinematic technique, but a powerful and ubiquitous element of aural public culture that has shaped the complex dynamics of postcolonial gendered subjectivity, politicized ethnolinguistic identity, and neoliberal transformation in South India. |
Contents
Prehistories | 20 |
Making a Dravidian Voice | 53 |
On Being Just the Voice 4 The Sacred and the Profane Economies of the Illicit 78 104 | 78 |
On Timbral Qualia | 131 |
Liveness and Deadness in | 158 |
Antiplayback | 187 |
Notes | 205 |
| 225 | |
| 243 | |
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Common terms and phrases
acting actors actress aesthetics animation appearance asked associated audience became become began body called chapter characters classical context contrast cultural dance decades described desire devotional distinction earlier early effects elements embodied emerged Eswari example expression fact female playback female singers female voice figure film songs frame gendered girl give hero heroine husky ideal identity Indian industry Janaki Karnatic kind known labor late light listening live male masculinity meaning move music director musicians norms noted onscreen onstage particular performance persona pitch play playback singers political possible practice present produced recording respectable role sang scenes separate sequence sexual shift singing voice social song sound South space speaking stage stand star status studio style suggested sung Susheela Tamil cinema TMS’s visual vocal Western woman women young