Through Charulata's Opera Glass: Re-viewing the Cinema-Effect

2008

DEV SANSKRITI: Interdisciplinary International Journal (2016), 7, 38-49 (ISSN: 2279-0578) ABSTRACT With what outlook should one construct, analyze or dissect film theory? Should one view cinema as a medium of mass communication? Propaganda? Entertainment? Art? Or should cinema be considered a concoction of them all? In trying to formulate a film theory, dealing with all these elementary characteristics of cinema poses a serious problem. Gaston Roberge notes that – “A theory of movies would tell us what a movie is, what it is made for, how it is created in images and sounds, and for whom it is made.” Gaston Roberge; The Indian Film Theory: Flames of Sholay, Notes and Beyond, (Sampark) p. 11 The questions respectively deal with the content of a movie, the validity of the content in terms of the prevailing socio-political circumstance,the form of the movie and the target audience of the movie. Now, obviously, it is required for Indian cinema to be able to provide at least a level of generalization in answering the aforementioned questions to be considered to have a theory of its own. The purpose of this article would be to investigate whether or not such a generalization (subsequently, a film theory) is possible for Indian cinema, and then to delve further to find out how much of that theory is rooted in our original outlook toward audio-visual art. Now obviously the span of one article does not allow analysis of every type of cinema produced in as cinema-crazy a country as ours, where almost every state has its own regional cinema, independent cinema, art-house cinema and recently, underground cinema. For the purpose of the present article, therefore, we would restrict ourselves to the popular Indian cinema, namely Bollywood productions that some critics coin as commercial or entertainment cinema. Keywords : Bollywood, Indian Cinema, Natyasastra,

2020

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Farabi Publishing House, 2022

If we compare movies, cinema, and film, in general, it will seem that those are all similar. But there are dissimilarities. The movie has a commercial implication, while the film is somehow academic or educational. Cinema has been reflected in both characteristics. It has images of academia and commercial. Therefore, cinema is one of the most inventive twigs of Fine Arts that the blooming of literature has influenced. Among Indian filmmakers, William Shakespeare is famous through his work of literature, and artistic creation, recognized through his art of play and bloomed within the global film industry. It has been criticized that the movie should not assess books, but it has been observed that literature has always found a way to the silver screen. Filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal have flawlessly translated the words on pages to conversations on screen. Indian movies like Pinjar, The Blue Umbrella, Saawariya, Shatranj Ke Khiladi, and Junoon were made on the classic novel. The paper's objective is to learn about the connection between literature and Indian cinema. The paper's outcome is to find a clear image of Indian cinema, which has been influenced by literature for a long time. The methodology has been completed through documentary analysis. The feature question is, why does Indian cinema accept the charms of literacy?

2015

The aim of this project has been to explore the possibility of applying Phenomenology and Classical Indian Theories to cinema with the hope that their systematic application would generate new insights in a deeper understanding of cinema. This need has been felt in the context of the existing film discourse having reached a stage of stagnation, even a “crisis”, in recent times. The reason for this moribund state of contemporary film discourse has been analyzed in my thesis as due to the failure of the existing film theories to incorporate film audiences‟ ordinary experiences of cinema, viz. the romance, the thrills, and the emotions which motivate them to come to the cinema halls all over the world. The film theories have failed to acknowledge the importance of this phenomenon which is built on the audiences‟ embodied experiences of the world and their socio-cultural practices that have grown on top of them which together form, at the very basic level, what constitutes the audiences...

Media Asia, 2015

Wide Screen, 2014