Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines cinematic practices in Bollywood as narratives that assist in shaping the imagination of the age, especially in contemporary India. It examines historical films released in India since the new millennium and analyses cinema as a reflection of the changing socio-political and economic conditions at any given period. The chapters in Historicizing Myths in Contemporary India: Cinematic Representations and Nationalist Agendas in Hindi Cinemas also illuminate different perspectives on how cinematic historical representations follow political patterns and market compulsions, giving precedence to a certain past over the other, creating a narrative suited for the dominant narrative of the present. From Mughal-e-Azam to Padmaavat, and Bajirao Mastani to Raazi, the chapters show how creating history out of myths validate hegemonic identities in a rapidly evolving Indian society.
The volume will be of interest to scholars of
Table of Contents
Foreword. 1. Of War and Intrigue: ‘Medieval’ as Represented on Indian Screen b2. Humayun and Mughal-e- Azam: History and the Contemporary 3. Re-texturing the Past: The Digital Image and the Contemporary Bollywood Historical 4. The Gender of War: National Masculinities and Hindutva in Bollywood War Cinema 5. “The Surgical Strike that Shook the Mughal Empire”: Evacuation and distortion of histories in contemporary Hindi screen cultures 6. Raazi (2018): Spying for the Nation 7. Title: History into Myth: Popular Hindi Cinema and the Politics of “True Stories” 8. Bahujan Legend, Brahmanical telling: Decoding the lens of Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior 9. How Hindutva’s ‘other’ views ‘otherification’: Pakistani response to Bollywood’s Saffron myth making 10. “A Great Republic of Hurt Sentiments”: Counter-histories, Nationalism, and the Controversy of the Historical
