Shyam Benegal S The Churning Manthan

Shyam Benegal is the best known and most prolific contemporary film-maker from India's arthouse or 'New Cinema' tradition. This work traces a career with its beginnings in political cinema and a realist aesthetic. Sangeeta Datta demonstrates how the struggles of women and the dispossessed and marginalised in Indian society have found an eloquent expression in films as diverse as Nishant, Bhumika, Mandi, Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda and Kalyug. The book also traces Benegal's work with his protégés and collaborators including many of the biggest names in Indian Cinema - Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Karishma Kapoor and A.R. Rahman.

Using the influential and field-changing Writing Culture as a point of departure, the thirteen essays in Writing Culture and the Life of Anthropology address anthropology's past, present, and future. The contributors, all leading figures in anthropology today, reflect back on the "writing culture" movement of the 1980s, consider its influences on ethnographic research and writing, and debate what counts as ethnography in a post-Writing Culture era. They address questions of ethnographic method, new forms the presentation of research might take, and the anthropologist's role. Exploring themes such as late industrialism, precarity, violence, science and technology, globalization, and the non-human world, this book is essential reading for those looking to understand the current state of anthropology and its possibilities going forward. Contributors. Anne Allison, James Clifford, Michael M.J. Fischer, Kim Fortun, Richard Handler, John L. Jackson, Jr., George E. Marcus, Charles Piot, Hugh Raffles, Danilyn Rutherford, Orin Starn, Kathleen Stewart, Michael Taussig, Kamala Visweswaran

For over forty years, Shyam Benegal has been one the leading forces in Indian cinema. Informed by a rich political and philosophical sensibility and a mastery of the art and craft of filmmaking, Benegal is both of, and not of, Bollywood. As a philosophical filmmaker Benegal brings to life the existential crisis of the downtrodden Indian, the 'subaltern' if you will-the serf, the peasant, the woman-and imposes a distinctive philosophical vision on his cinematic reworkings of literary products. To understand Benegal's cinema is to understand, through his lens, modern India's continued process of political and social becoming. Focusing on the philosophical depth of Benegal's oueuvre, Samir Chopra identifies three key aspects of his work: - A trio of films which signalled to middle-class India that a revolt was brewing in India's hinterlands - Two sets of movies which make powerful feminist statements and bring viewers into the lives of Indian women by showcasing strong, interesting female characters - Benegal the master storyteller, who possessed of a unique fabulist style in a reboot of the Indian epic Mahabharata, a Ruskin Bond novel set during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and a Rashomon-like retelling of an Indian experimental novel, where three perspectives converge to form a unified whole

This book examines Shyam Benegal’s films and alternative image(s) of India in his cinema, and traces the trajectory of changing aesthetics of his cinema in the post-liberalisation era. The book engages with the challenges faced by India as a nation-state in post-colonial times. Looking at hybrid and complex narratives of films like Manthan, Junoon, Kalyug, Charandas Chor, Sooraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda, Zubeidaa and Well Done Abba , among others, it analyses how these stories and characters, adapted and derived from mythology, folk-tales, historical fiction and novels, are rooted in the socio-political contexts of modern India. The author explores diverse themes in Benegal’s cinema such as the loss of home and identity, women’s sexuality, and the status of dalits and Muslims in India. He also focuses on how the filmmaker expertly weaves history with myth, culture, and contemporary politics and discusses the debate around the interpretive value of film adaptations, adaptation of history and the representations of marginalised communities and liminal spaces. The book will be useful for students and researchers of film studies, cultural studies, and the humanities. It will also interest readers of Indian cinema and the social and cultural history of India.

Sound is a new area of interest in the Arts and Humanities. The study of sound in cinema has only recently been established in Film and Media Studies. Furthermore, so far, attention has focused on Hollywood and European cinema in this regard. Reading sound from other world cinemas, particularly those from the global South, remains underexplored. As India is currently the world’s largest producer of films with a formidable global presence, this book bridges the gap with a collection of interviews, introducing leading film industry sound practitioners from the subcontinent. The book examines historical developments from the advent of the talkies to present-day digital cinema productions, providing an embodied understanding of the unique Indian film sound world with new perspectives on cinematic narration in the practitioner’s own words.