Co-Winner, 2023 Chidananda Dasgupta Award for the Best Writing on Cinema, Chidananda Dasgupta Memorial Trust
Shortlisted, 2022 MSA Book Prize, Modernist Studies Association
Longlisted, 2022 Moving Image Book Award, Kraszna-Krausz Foundation
The project of Indian art cinema began in the years following independence in 1947, at once evoking the global reach of the term “art film” and speaking to the aspirations of the new nation-state. In this pioneering book, Rochona Majumdar examines key works of Indian art cinema to demonstrate how film emerged as a mode of doing history and that, in so doing, it anticipated some of the most influential insights of postcolonial thought.
Majumdar details how filmmakers as well as a host of film societies and publications sought to foster a new cinematic culture for the new nation, fueled by enthusiasm for a future of progress and development. Good films would help make good citizens: art cinema would not only earn global prestige but also shape discerning individuals capable of exercising aesthetic and political judgment. During the 1960s, however, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak—the leading figures of Indian art cinema—became disillusioned with the belief that film was integral to national development. Instead, Majumdar contends, their works captured the unresolvable contradictions of the postcolonial present, which pointed toward possible, yet unrealized futures.
Analyzing the films of Ray, Sen, and Ghatak, and working through previously unexplored archives of film society publications, Majumdar offers a radical reinterpretation of Indian film history. Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures offers sweeping new insights into film’s relationship with the postcolonial condition and its role in decolonial imaginations of the future.
"From writer Rochona Majumdar comes this decidedly anti-colonialist read about the history of Indian cinema, with a specific eye towards post-independence India and the house of cards its democracy is built on. Highlight of the book is whenever Majumdar waxes philosophical about Ritwik Ghatak, a filmmaker worthy of much more discussion here stateside." - CriterionCast
"Rochona Majumdar, the historian, intervenes in the rich discourse surrounding the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak through her meticulously researched and compelling book, Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony. " - South Asian History and Culture
"Majumdar’s brief comment on Ray’s Calcutta trilogy as an ethnographic turn in his career, for example, is a fine provocation to rethink the shifting significance of realism in Ray’s oeuvre. Such remarks invite scholars to study these filmmakers in a comparative vein across regional, national, and transnational concerns, a task set in motion by Majumdar’s book." - Film Quarterly
"Rochona Majumdar's book on Art Cinema is a compelling chapter on India's modern history recorded on screen." - The Indian Express
"Rochona Majumdar's book is a pleasingly accessible academic study on Indian art cinema." - India Today
"The book is nuanced and its arguments are complex. Yet, it is lucid and accessible, and makes for a compelling reading. It is a compulsory book for anyone interested in history and/or visual culture." - Critical Collective
Формат: Скан PDf
Shortlisted, 2022 MSA Book Prize, Modernist Studies Association
Longlisted, 2022 Moving Image Book Award, Kraszna-Krausz Foundation
The project of Indian art cinema began in the years following independence in 1947, at once evoking the global reach of the term “art film” and speaking to the aspirations of the new nation-state. In this pioneering book, Rochona Majumdar examines key works of Indian art cinema to demonstrate how film emerged as a mode of doing history and that, in so doing, it anticipated some of the most influential insights of postcolonial thought.
Majumdar details how filmmakers as well as a host of film societies and publications sought to foster a new cinematic culture for the new nation, fueled by enthusiasm for a future of progress and development. Good films would help make good citizens: art cinema would not only earn global prestige but also shape discerning individuals capable of exercising aesthetic and political judgment. During the 1960s, however, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak—the leading figures of Indian art cinema—became disillusioned with the belief that film was integral to national development. Instead, Majumdar contends, their works captured the unresolvable contradictions of the postcolonial present, which pointed toward possible, yet unrealized futures.
Analyzing the films of Ray, Sen, and Ghatak, and working through previously unexplored archives of film society publications, Majumdar offers a radical reinterpretation of Indian film history. Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures offers sweeping new insights into film’s relationship with the postcolonial condition and its role in decolonial imaginations of the future.
"From writer Rochona Majumdar comes this decidedly anti-colonialist read about the history of Indian cinema, with a specific eye towards post-independence India and the house of cards its democracy is built on. Highlight of the book is whenever Majumdar waxes philosophical about Ritwik Ghatak, a filmmaker worthy of much more discussion here stateside." - CriterionCast
"Rochona Majumdar, the historian, intervenes in the rich discourse surrounding the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak through her meticulously researched and compelling book, Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony. " - South Asian History and Culture
"Majumdar’s brief comment on Ray’s Calcutta trilogy as an ethnographic turn in his career, for example, is a fine provocation to rethink the shifting significance of realism in Ray’s oeuvre. Such remarks invite scholars to study these filmmakers in a comparative vein across regional, national, and transnational concerns, a task set in motion by Majumdar’s book." - Film Quarterly
"Rochona Majumdar's book on Art Cinema is a compelling chapter on India's modern history recorded on screen." - The Indian Express
"Rochona Majumdar's book is a pleasingly accessible academic study on Indian art cinema." - India Today
"The book is nuanced and its arguments are complex. Yet, it is lucid and accessible, and makes for a compelling reading. It is a compulsory book for anyone interested in history and/or visual culture." - Critical Collective
Формат: Скан PDf
https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/art-cinema-and-india-s-forgotten-futures-film-and-history-in-the-postcolony.html