Parallel Voices

2015 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Film Making ◽  
Indian Art

This chapter assesses Shyam Benegal's seminal Ankur (The Seedling, 1972). The emergence of state-sponsored film-making in the late 1960s with Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome (1969) laid the foundations for a new cinematic discourse, giving way to the next phase in the development of Indian art cinema, dubbed by many as ‘parallel cinema’. The work of film-maker Shyam Benegal forms a major part of the parallel cinema movement, and the rural trilogy of films characterising his early work not only sympathised with the oppressed underclass but also established an influential political precedent for many of the young film-makers emerging from the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India. The chapter looks at the origins and context of New Indian cinema, as well as the definitions of parallel cinema and its importance to the development of art cinema. It also considers Shyam Benegal's authorial status, key ideological strands, and the film's role in helping to politicise cinema in India.

The Trauma of Partition

2015 ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Satyajit Ray ◽  
Indian Art

This chapter shifts the focus to Indian art cinema with the Marxist work of Bengali director and iconoclast Ritwik Ghatak. The impressive Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960) is his best-known film. Dealing directly with the trauma of partition and its effects on a Bengali family, Ghatak's cinema is bold, uncompromising, and occupies a unique position in Indian cinema. Although his work is still somewhat overshadowed by that of Satyajit Ray, another masterful Bengali film-maker, and though many of his films are still sadly unavailable on DVD in the UK, Megha Dhaka Tara is now recognised as one of the key works of Indian art cinema. The chapter discusses numerous aspects, including Ghatak's position as a film-maker; the wider historical context such as the partition of Bengal; the relationship between melodrama and feminist concerns; the film's categorisation as an example of 1960s counter cinema; and the thematic importance of the family to the film's narrative.

Sound and the masters: The aural in Indian art cinema

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Indranil Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sound Recording ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Contested Terrain ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Previous Scholarship ◽  
Satyajit Ray ◽  
Indian Art

The study of art cinema has emerged as a richly discursive, but, at the same time, a deeply contested terrain in recent film scholarship. This article examines the discourse of art cinema in India through the prism of sound style and aesthetics. It analyses the sonic strategies deployed in the films of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and Mani Kaul, in order to identify the dominant stylistic impulses of sound in art cinema, ranging from Brechtian epic realism on one hand to Indian aesthetic theories on the other. Locating sound as a key element in the discourse of art cinema, the article surveys the different modes through which aesthetic philosophies were translated into formal strategies of sound recording, designing and mixing. Using previous scholarship on art cinema in India as the point of departure, this study combines theoretically informed textual analysis with new historical insights on Indian cinema.

Neo-realist Aesthetics

2015 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Satyajit Ray

This chapter examines the neo-realist masterpiece Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land, 1953) directed by Bengali film-maker Bimal Roy. Prior to the emergence of a distinctive art cinema led by Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, the aesthetics and ideologies of neo-realism as a distinctive cinematic approach were reflected sporadically in the socialist agenda of films such as Do Bigha Zamin. While Ghatak was busy filming his first film, Nagarik (The Citizen, 1952), and Ray was still struggling with the first part of The Apu Trilogy, it was Bimal Roy, a film-maker now considered part of populist cinema, who made the earliest attempt to integrate neo-realist aesthetics into the framework of a mainstream project. The chapter considers the state of Indian cinema before the emergence of neo-realism; the influence of the IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association); Bimal Roy as a film-maker; and the wider context including the Bengal famine of 1943–44. It also looks at Balraj Sahni's status as one of Indian cinema's first method actors; the links to Italian neo-realist classics such as Bicycle Thieves (1948); and, finally, the various Marxist ideologies that underpin such a despairing narrative.

Angry Young Men

2015 ◽  
pp. 145-164
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Young Men ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Star Image ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Film Stars ◽  
Indian Art

This chapter addresses how, unlike Hollywood, which has seen the rise of high-concept cinema overshadow the power a film star once possessed at the box office, Indian cinema, especially mainstream Hindi films, continues to underline the significance of film stars and views them as paramount to the development and marketing of most feature films. The angry-young-man persona of Indian cinema's biggest film star, Amitabh Bachchan, forged in an era of widespread political disillusionment, found its greatest expression in the 1975 super-hit Deewaar (The Wall), directed by Yash Chopra. The chapter moves away from Indian art cinema to the attractions of the mainstream film Deewaar. It engages with a range of key areas, such as the wider political context of the 1975 Indian Emergency and the angry young man as a sociopolitical symbol. It also looks at representations encompassing matriarchy, religion and poverty; Amitabh Bachchan's star image; and the lasting legacy of Deewaar for today's cinema.

Erotic Spectacle

2015 ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Production History ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Perspectives ◽  
The Erotic

This chapter focuses on the courtesan film in Indian cinema. The courtesan film has been popular with audiences for a long time but today it is rare to see a mainstream Indian film choosing to use the figure of the courtesan to address the concerns of women in society. An extension of the Muslim Social, the courtesan film reached its creative epoch in the 1970s, exhausting genre possibilities with the erotic spectacle Pakeezah (Pure of Heart, 1972). A complicated production, film-maker Kamal Amrohi took fourteen years to complete Pakeezah. Unfortunately for Indian cinema's tragedy queen, Meena Kumari, who starred in the film, alcoholism cut short her life, and she never got to see what many consider to be her most accomplished work. The chapter analyses Pakeezah from a range of critical perspectives, including the conventions, origins, and history of the courtesan film; the production history and struggle to finish the film; representations of the courtesan related to sexuality and eroticism; an analysis of the song and dance sequences and their relationship to ideology; and the demise of the courtesan film in the contemporary era.

‘All I have to offer is myself’: The Film-Maker as Narrator

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Misek
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Voice ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Direct Address ◽  
Film Making ◽  
The Voice

Who precisely is the ‘I’ referenced in so many essay films’ voice-overs? It is easy to assume that it refers to the film-maker, but, even if the voice that we hear is the film-maker’s own, an essay film’s narrative ‘voice’ is always ambiguous. Starting from Chris Marker’s contradictory claim in a letter about Sans Soleil (1983) that all he has to offer is himself, the chapter explores how the aspiration of open and direct address is complicated through the various mediations involved in film-making. With particular focus on my own film, Rohmer in Paris (2013), it raises the paradoxical possibility that essay film-makers can only offer themselves, but are prevented by the form of the essay film from doing so.

scholarly journals MODES OF ORAL TESTIMONY IN ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM / FORMAS DE TESTEMUNHO ORAL EM FILMES ETNOGRÁFICOS

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (50) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Henley
Keyword(s):  
Ethnographic Film ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
Film Making

Este artigo parte do pressuposto de que o uso do termo “entrevista” para descrever performances verbais oferecidas em resposta aos questionamentos ou solicitações dos cineastas é restritivo e até mesmo enganoso quando empregado no contexto da realização de filmes etnográficos. Por isso, sugere-se o termo “testemunho oral”. Ademais, considera-se uma ampla variedade de formas nas quais o testemunho oral tem sido usado no filme etnográfico e em gêneros relacionados.ABSTRACTThis article proposes that the use of the term ‘interview’ to describe verbal performances offered in response to a series of questions from a film-maker is restrictive and even misleading, particularly when employed in the context of ethnographic film-making, and suggests that the term ‘oral testimony’ be used instead. It then considers a broad range of modes in which oral testimony has been employed in ethnographic film and related genres.

scholarly journals Follow the yellow brick road: The passeur , the gatekeeper and the young migrant film-maker

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Film Education ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Film Making ◽  
The Relationship

In the first part of this article, the author reflects on her experience of making filmmaking workshops with young people in Australia, China and the UK an integral component of a research project on the representation of child migrants and refugees in world cinema. She then sets her approach to these workshops in the context of Alain Bergala's ideas about film education, of which she had initially been unaware. In discussing a couple of further workshops that she ran in the UK and Australia as part of the 'Cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse' programme, she focuses particularly on the benign or obstructive role of institutional gatekeepers , who act as intermediaries or agents determining the terms of access to children and young people for film educators, researchers and practitioners. The legal, protective and ethical dimensions of the relationship between educator, gatekeeper and participating students are discussed. The article cites cases in which the interaction worked well, and others in which it proved problematic. The functions, responsibilities and potential drawbacks of gatekeepers are compared with Bergala's conception of the pedagogic role of the passeur – a figure who also holds power in relation to young people's access to film and film-making, but one that connotes positive, even magical, properties.

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