[Sarai Newsletter] The Melodramatic Public Book Dsicussion

[The Sarai Programme]

*The Melodramatic Public Book Discussion*


We invite you for a discussion of Ravi Vasudevan's The Melodramatic Public

http://permanent-black.blogspot.com/2010/03/ravi-vasudevan-ends-long-hibernation.html

*The panel of discussants:*
 
Prathama Banerjee, CSDS
Jeebesh Bagchi, Sarai and Raqs Media Collective
Christine Gledhill, Prof of Media Studies, University of Sunderland

*Date: Friday, 17 September 2010
Venue: CSDS Seminar Room, New Building
Time: 4.30 pm

*

The Melodramatic Public draws on melodrama as a key conceptual apparatus 
to understand how entertainment cinema in India drew audiences into 
complex passages of historical change. As the seeming consensus of the 
1950s about nation-building unravelled in the 1970s, and globalisation 
introduced new economic and territorial compulsions, Indian cinema 
offered compelling testimony to debates about economic advancement, 
social justice, inter-community conflict, and urban lifestyles.

Melodrama provided a narrative architecture and an expressive form which 
connected the public and the private, as well as the personal and the 
political, in ways which engaged audiences emotionally. In continuous 
dialogue with cinematic 'others'­within American cinema, in Indian 
popular cinema, and in a realist art cinema­mainstream melodrama also 
underwent significant mutations. This book explores the dynamics of form 
and narrative strategy across a wide repertoire of film practices. These 
include the pioneer D.G. Phalke, popular 'auteurs' Raj Kapoor and Guru 
Dutt, industry moguls Aditya and Yash Chopra, mainstream innovators Mani 
Rathnam, Kamalahasan, and Ram Gopal Verma, and art and documentary 
cinema icons Satyajit Ray and Anand Patwardhan.

The book concludes with the contemporary global moment associated with 
'Bollywood'. It considers changes in state policy and industrial 
organization, and the impact of digital technologies, new economies of 
consumption, and wider export markets on Indian film culture.

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