Bollywood and Postmodernism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neelam Sidhar Wright
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
First Century ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Alternative Method ◽  
Twenty First Century

‘New Bollywood’ has arrived, but its postmodern impulse often leaves film scholars reluctant to theorise its aesthetics. How do we define the style of a contemporary Bollywood film? Are Bollywood films just uninspired Hollywood rip-offs, or does their borrowing signal genuine innovation within the industry? Applying postmodern concepts and locating postmodern motifs in key commercial Hindi films, this book reveals how Indian cinema has changed in the twenty-first century. Equipping readers with an alternative method of reading contemporary Indian cinema, the book takes Indian film studies beyond the standard theme of diaspora, and exposes a new decade of aesthetic experimentation and textual appropriation in mainstream Bombay cinema. A bold celebration of contemporary Bollywood texts, this book radically redefines Indian film and persuasively argues for its seriousness as a field of cinematic studies.

Introduction: The Bollywood Eclipse

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neelam Sidhar Wright
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Aesthetic Style ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
And Function ◽  
Film Language

This book examines changes in Bollywood's film production during the twenty-first century, and particularly after its economic liberalisation, giving rise to a ‘New Bollywood’. It shows how the Indian cinema has acquired evidently postmodern qualities and explains what postmodernism means in the context of Bollywood cinema. It also considers what postmodernism tells us about the change and function of Bollywood film language after the twenty-first century. The book describes Bollywood's ‘postmodern turn’ as a form of transformation that reworks or revisits previous aesthetic trends in order to produce a radically different aesthetic. ‘New Bollywood’ refers to contemporary films characterised by a strong postmodern aesthetic style which was not as present in the 1990s. This introductory chapter discusses the meaning of ‘contemporary Bollywood’, postmodernism as a means of reading and interpreting films, and the structure of the book.

Theorizing Adaptation in the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-172
Author(s):  
Kamilla Elliott
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
First Century ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation Studies ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Theoretical Pluralism ◽  
Literature And Film

Chapter 4 traces the expansion of adaptation studies to new media and new theories in the twenty-first century. By 2006, literary film adaptation studies outnumbered general literature-and-film studies, and Linda Hutcheon authoritatively opened adaptation studies beyond literature and film and beyond dyadic disciplines and theoretical camps into a pluralism of media, disciplines, and theories, although debates between pre–theoretical turn and post–theoretical turn theories have continued. They continue because new theories have not resolved the problems of old theories for adaptation, so that scholars return to older theories to try to redress them. New theories have done a great deal for adaptation, but they have also introduced new theoretical problems: so much so, that the latest debates in adaptation study no longer lie between theoretical progressivism and theoretical return but between theoretical pluralism and theoretical abandonment. Beyond specific theories and differing modes of pluralism, this debate points to theorization’s failure to theorize adaptation more generally.

Conclusion: A Bollywood Renaissance?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neelam Sidhar Wright
Keyword(s):  
Effective Means ◽  
First Century ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
The West ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
The Core ◽  
Alternative Method ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Film Texts ◽  
Film Language

This book has highlighted some of the fundamental changes that have occurred in Bollywood cinema after its economic liberalisation at the turn of the twenty-first century. Through an analysis of various film texts, it has demonstrated how Bollywood, as well as being global and transnational, has reached a postmodern stage that has provided new ways of reading Indian cinema. It has also examined the Bollywood remake, arguing that remaking was contemporary Bollywood's most significant and effective means of achieving creative innovation. Furthermore, it has described some of the devices at the core of New Bollywood's unique cinematic language, such as figural excess and hyperrealism, which enable the cinema to operate differently as an art form and film language. The book concludes by offering a redefinition of contemporary Bollywood cinema, proposing the value of postmodernism as a new alternative method for studying, teaching and articulating Bollywood in the West. It also reflects on Bollywood's future prospects.

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