The Melodramatic Public: Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema

Front Matter....Pages i-xvii
Introduction....Pages 1-15
The Melodramatic Public....Pages 16-64
Front Matter....Pages 65-65
Introduction....Pages 67-73
Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: Realist Art Cinema Criticism and Popular Film Form....Pages 74-97
The Cultural Politics of Address in a ‘Transitional’ Cinema....Pages 98-129
Neither State Nor Faith: Mediating Sectarian Conflict in Popular Cinema....Pages 130-162
A Modernist Public: The Double-Take of Modernism in the Work of Satyajit Ray....Pages 163-198
Front Matter....Pages 199-199
Introduction....Pages 201-212
Voice, Space, Form: The Symbolic and Territorial Itinerary of Mani Rathnam’s Roja (1992)....Pages 213-228
Bombay (Mani Rathnam, 1995) and Its Publics....Pages 229-258
Another History Rises to the Surface: Melodrama in the Age of Digital Simulation: Hey Ram! (Kamalahasan, 1999)....Pages 259-289
Front Matter....Pages 291-291
Introduction....Pages 293-302
Selves Made Strange: Violent and Performative Bodies in the Cities of Indian Cinema 1974–2003....Pages 303-333
The Contemporary Film Industry—I: The Meanings of ‘Bollywood’....Pages 334-361
The Contemporary Film Industry—II: Textual Form, Genre Diversity, and Industrial Strategies....Pages 362-397
Conclusion and Afterword....Pages 398-414
Back Matter....Pages 415-457