The Essential Guide to Bollywood


Book Description

This book picks 200 of the best Hindi films ever produced and catalogues them. Densely packed and visually appealing, the guide is written in a reader-friendly, accessible style to enable even those not familiar with Hindi to see and understand popular Bollywood films. Entries are arranged genre-wise as drama, comedy and romance, among other categories.




Bollywood's India


Book Description

Bollywood movies have long been known for their colorful song-and-dance numbers and knack for combining drama, comedy, action-adventure, and music. But these exciting and often amusing films rarely reflect the reality of life on the Indian subcontinent. Exploring the nature of mainstream Hindi cinema, the strikingly illustrated Bollywood’s Indiaexamines its nonrealistic depictions of everyday life in India and what it reveals about Indian society. Showing how escapism and entertainment function in Bollywood cinema, Rachel Dwyer argues that Hindi cinema’s interpretations of India over the last two decades are a reliable guide to understanding the nation’s changing hopes and dreams. She looks at the ways Bollywood has imagined and portrayed the unity and diversity of the country—what it believes and feels, as well as life at home and in public. Using Dwyer’s two decades spent working with filmmakers and discussing movies with critics and moviegoers,Bollywood’s India is an illuminating look at Hindi cinema.




Bollywood


Book Description

'Bollywood' is the dominant global term to refer to the prolific Hindi language film industry in Bombay (renamed Mumbai in 1995). Characterised by music, dance routines, melodrama, lavish production values and an emphasis on stars and spectacle, Bollywood films have met with box-office success and enthusiastic audiences from India to West Africa to Russia, and throughout the English-speaking world. In Bollywood, anthropologist and film scholar Tejaswini Ganti provides a guide to the cultural, social and political significance of Hindi cinema, outlining the history and structure of the Bombay film industry, and the development of popular Hindi filmmaking since the 1930s. Providing information and commentary on the key players in Bollywood, including directors and stars, as well as material from current filmmakers themselves, the areas covered in Bollywood include: history of Indian cinema narrative style, main themes, and key genres of Hindi cinema significant films, directors and stars production and distribution of Bollywood films interviews with actors, directors and screenwriters.




Bollywood


Book Description

In Bollywood, anthropologist and film scholar Tejaswini Ganti provides a guide to the cultural, social and political significance of Hindi cinema, outlining the history and structure of the Bombay film industry, and the development of popular Hindi filmmaking since the 1930s. Providing information and commentary on the key players in Bollywood, including composers, directors and stars, as well as material from current filmmakers themselves, the areas covered in Bollywood include: history of Indian cinema main themes and characteristics of Hindi cinema significant films, directors and stars production and distribution of Bollywood films interviews with actors, directors and screenwriters. Anyone interested in, or studying Bollywood cinema will find this a valuable purchase.




America Explained: A Guide for Indian Immigrants


Book Description

America is a confusing place, especially today. In America Explained: A Guide for Indian Immigrants, Allison Singh draws upon interviews with Indian immigrants and her own experience to answer practical and complex questions about America. For example, if America is a land of immigrants, how could anyone be anti-immigrant? How do I know what is offensive to others? How do I give my children Indian culture in America? How is Donald Trump different from past U.S. presidents? What should I expect as a minority in America? Why are there so many mass shootings in America? How are gender roles, the workplace, schools, parents, medicine, business, finance and government different in America than India? Allison discusses common questions immigrants share, as well as those they might not know to ask. The book has two goals. First, to provide immigrants with information they need to be comfortable, confident and successful in America. Second, to remind them that America is a land of immigrants just like them, and they are still welcome here.




Picture Abhi Baaki Hai


Book Description

‘This superb book is everything we could have expected from a major authority on India cinema. It shows both how India has shaped Bollywood and Bollywood has shaped the Indian imagination. It will be indispensable for scholars and a delight for the general reader.’ – Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University When Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge released in 1995, it marked a watershed moment in popular Hindi cinema – gone were the thakurs and the judwa bhais; in came the celebration of love, with expansive sets, foreign locales and beautifully decked-up stars. No longer was Bollywood just the Hindi film industry – instead, it became a symbol of the times, of India’s expanding liberalization and the corresponding rise of the new middle class. In Picture Abhi Baaki Hai, eminent Hindi film scholar Rachel Dwyer looks at Bollywood films since 1991, the year of India’s economic liberalization, and explains how the films have corresponded to – and in some cases, birthed – India’s changing dreams and hopes, fears and anxieties. From DDLJ to Dabangg and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Kahaani, Rachel shows how escapism and entertainment function in Bollywood, revealing the ways in which Hindi films have imagined and portrayed modern India – what its people believe and feel; their views on religion, caste and politics; and theirs aspirations and hopes – and will continue to do so. Kyonki, picture abhi baaki hai.




That Thing about Bollywood


Book Description

Bollywood takes over in this contemporary, magical middle grade novel about an Indian American girl whose world turns upside down when she involuntarily starts bursting into glamorous song-and-dance routines during everyday life. You know how in Bollywood when people are in love, they sing and dance from the mountaintops? Eleven-year-old Sonali wonders if they do the same when they’re breaking up. The truth is, Sonali’s parents don’t get along, and it looks like they might be separating. Sonali’s little brother, Ronak, is not taking the news well, constantly crying. Sonali would never do that. It’s embarrassing to let out so many feelings, to show the world how not okay you are. But then something strange happens, something magical, maybe. When Sonali gets upset during a field trip, she can’t bury her feelings like usual—instead, she suddenly bursts into a Bollywood song-and-dance routine about why she’s upset! The next morning, much to her dismay, Sonali’s reality has shifted. Things seem brighter, almost too bright. Her parents have had Bollywood makeovers. Her friends are also breaking out into song and dance. And somehow, everyone is acting as if this is totally normal. Sonali knows something has gone wrong, and she suspects it has something to do with her own mismanaged emotions. Can she figure it out before it’s too late?




Pure Evil


Book Description

Sholay (1975): Gabbar chops off Thakur's arms with a sword in each hand. Karz (1980): Kamini murders her husband by ramming him repeatedly with a jeep. Mr. India (1987): Mogambo kills hundreds of innocent citizens. No, you don't want to meet these Bollywood baddies in a dark alley; you may not escape with your life if you do. In Pure Evil, Balaji Vittal examines, in delicious detail, the misdeeds of the gangster, the sly relative, the corrupt policeman, the psychopathic killer... A rollercoaster ride, looking at the changing face of the Hindi film villain.




Bollywood and Globalization


Book Description

This book is a collection of incisive articles on the interactions between Indian Popular Cinema and the political and cultural ideologies of a new post-Global India.




Bollywood in Britain


Book Description

Bollywood in Britain provides the most extensive survey to date of the various manifestations and facets of the Bollywood phenomenon in Britain. The book analyzes the role of Hindi films in the British film market, it shows how audiences engage with Bollywood cinema and it discusses the ways the image of Bollywood in Britain has been shaped. In contrast to most of the existing books on the subject, which tend to approach Bollywood as something that is made by Asians for Asians, the book also focuses on how Bollywood has been adapted for non-Asian Britons. An analysis of Bollywood as an unofficial brand is combined with in-depth readings of texts like film reviews, the TV show Bollywood Star (2004) and novels and plays with references to the Bombay film industry. On this basis Bollywood in Britain demonstrates that the presentation of Bollywood for British mainstream culture oscillates between moments of approximation and distancing, with a clear dominance of the latter. Despite its alleged transculturality, Bollywood in Britain thus emerges as a phenomenon of difference, distance and Othering.