Critique

The Cinema of Tapan Sinha — Literary Synthesis and Cinematic Demarcation

During...

The City, Crime and Middle Class Vulnerability in Tapan Sinha’s Films

Through...

Director’s Chair, ‘Sui Generis’: A Book in a Class of Its Own

...

Book Review: Amitabh Bachchan as the Other

In her latest book...

Naagin… No Longer Naagin? The Evolution of India’s Naagin Encapsulated

The...

Through the Lens, Brightly: Women in Cinema, Women at Work

Through...

Why Stories Work: Indepth Analysis and Insights into the Extraordinary Power of Stories

Why...

Are We Accepting Ourselves Better Now Than Ever?

Audiences have...

Rituparno Ghosh: On/And Film — Book Review

There is much food for thought...

Yeh Un Dinoñ Ki Baat Hai – In Conversation with Yasir Abbasi

Yeh...

Tathyachitra: Itihas, Tattwa O Bishleshan – A Review

Subha Das...

ArunaRaje: Song of Freedom

Films Through Women's...

Ganashatru – An Adaptation of An Enemy of the People

Satyajit...

From Apurba Kumar Roy to Manomohan Mitra: Ray’s Shifting World-view

How...

Satyajit, Ritwik – and the Renegade ‘Father’ Figure

In a brief critique,...

Jyotiprasad, Joymoti, Indramalati and Beyond: History of Assamese Cinema: Parthajit Baruah’s New Book

Parthajit...

Film Memorabilia Transitions from a Collector’s Passion to an Investor’s Eye

Amitabh...

Tapan Sinha and the Triumvirate of Bengali Cinema

Amitava Nag’s...

Stories You Don’t See: Hindi Cinema and Its Stories In Credits

Credits...

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam: A Classical Work of Art

When Guru Dutt picked up Bimal...

Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Mando Meyer Upakhyan: A Deconstructive Reading

Buddhadeb...

Dancing with Ray… An Unparalleled Celluloid Experience

Challenging the conventional songs...

Murmurs: Silent Steals with Soumitra Chatterjee – Two Reviews

Murmurs...

Tawaifs and Baijis, Wenches and Whores…

In...

Woman at the Window

The Material Universe of Rabindranath...

The State and Indian Cinema: The Case of Sudhir Mishra’s Is Raat ki Subah Nahin

Indian...

From Awara to Shree 420 – Relevance of Raj Kapoor’s Post-Independence Cinema in 2020

In...

Devdas – Fired by Love Sublime

Devdas handles not just love but...

Bimal Roy and Ashok Kumar on the sets of Parineeta

Bimal Roy: The Man Who Spoke in Pictures

Bimal Roy: The...

IPR and Indian Cinema: A Scenario of Violation

When...

Guide, The Film: Perspectives – A Very Well-Crafted Treasure of a Book

A...

Of Shared Legacies and New Sensibilities: Looking at Kannada Cinema

Two...

The People’s Library

And this is the real meaning of collections....

From BIG DATA to Small Cinema? Challenges & Opportunities of Cinema in New Media

With...

Reconsidering Real and Metaphorical Gendered Spaces

This article,...

Women in Hindi Cinema in Post-Colonial India

Exploring the...

Space and Time in Films

Science fiction in films has evolved...

Gender, Politics, Power and the World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee: Part III

In...

Gender, Politics, Power and the World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee: Part II

While...

Gender, Politics, Power and the World Of Hrishikesh Mukherjee: Part I

The beauty...

A Cyberpunk Chorus

Mrinal Sen made Chorus in 1974. His...

For the Connoisseur and the Dilettante: Incomparable Sachin Dev Burman

Renowned...

The Filmic Journey of Mrinal Sen

Mrinal Sen is one of the...

From BIG DATA to Small Cinema? Challenges & Opportunities of Cinema in New Media

With the expanse of digital...

Knifing the Body – Depiction of Maiming in Cinema

Filmmakers have often...

Guide: A Spiritual Odyssey

Dev Anand’s creative effort reached...

Vertigo (1958): A Question of Identity Sixty Years Later

"Vertigo is a classic example...

From Margins to Centre Stage

Ever since the initiation of the...

14 Minutes of Tsai Ming Liang and the Collision with the Spectacles

Taiwanese film-maker Tsai Ming Liang’s...

In the Wink of an Eye

A particular film has often achieved an iconic...

The Seventh Art – Pioneer Female Auteurs of Hindi Films and Hollywood (1920s-1950s)

On the occasion of International Women’s...

The film exposes the evils of real estate dealers and multi-millionaire promoters - Tarneja (Pankaj Kapur) and Ahuja (Om Puri)

Looking Back at Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro

A 1983 film made on a shoe-string...

Of Father, Brothers and an Unholy Hunger – Looking at Kaaka Muttai and Sahaj Pather Gappo

Manas...

Why are Sarat Chandra’s Works So Popular Among Filmmakers?

A Nostalgic Journey...

Women at the Centre: Four Sensitive Films

Four contemporary films handle adeptly the perennial...

Celebration of Moral Decay in Contemporary Bollywood Films: A Critique of Raees and Kaabil

Bollywood films and films in general...

Satyajit Ray and Ravi Shankar during one of the many sessions composing the music of Ray’s The Apu Trilogy.

Ray’s Ravi Shankar – A Blueprint for Posterity

An Unfilmed Visual...

Of Traditional Tyranny and Feminine Revolt

Two gut-wrenching films...

‘Tapan Sinha Deserved More’

Abesh Das has written a Bengali book on Tapan...

Maurits Cornelis Escher’s ‘The Eye’ looks straight in my eyes

I’s Eyes: Exploring Use of Eyes in Films

The recently concluded Kolkata International...

Jamie Fox plays Rhythm and Blues musician Ray Charles in the biopic Ray (2004)

The ‘Biopic’ Teaser

Biopic films have more often than not run into...

Hindi Films 1950s – 2000 and the Emerging Trends – A Sociological Perspective

An...

Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome - an Indian Nouvelle Vague experience

Re-claiming Indian Parallel Cinema

The Indian Parallel cinema has been...

The cover of The Pather Panchali Sketchbook, Harper Collins India, 2016

The Pather Panchali Sketchbook – An Intricately Delicate Entry into a Master’s Creative Mind

This was no traditional screenplay....

Soumitra Chattopadhyay in Benarasi, produced by Ruma Guha Thakurta, directed by Arup Guha Thakurta.

Book Review: Beyond Apu Brings Out the Versatility of Soumitra Chatterjee

The...

Uttam Kumar in Satyajit Ray's Chiriakhana

An Open Letter to Byomkesh Bakshi

There have been a flurry...

Bimal Roy’s Madhumati – Untold Stories from Behind the Scenes

Bimal...

The Incandescence of Smita Patil

Smita Patil, the book, is a detailed...

Thousands of feet of celluloid stripped of silver

India’s Vanishing Films Need Urgent Policies to Avoid a Bleak Future

Destroyed by nitrate fires, stripped...

Prosenjit as Anthony Phiringi in Jatishwar

Unmitigated Agonies and Unheard voices: Exploration of Madness in Srijit Mukherji’s Baishey Shrabon and Jatishwar

In...

Silhouette Invites Book Reviews and Books for Review

Got a...

The Idea of Apu

On reading Pather Panchali one cannot help...

Pramathesh Barua, Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee: A Brief Insight into Concepts of Masculinities

Indian...

The Many Faces of Byomkesh Bakshi

Indian cinema and television has...

The Wind Will Carry Us
Cast: Behzad Dorani, Bahman Ghobadi
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
[Blu-ray available on Amazon]

Landscape & Kiarostami – Taste of Cherry & The Wind Will Carry Us

Kiarostami has been a tireless composer...

The Mind Twisters (8 Movies No One Can Watch Just Once)

The best aspect of this genre is the faith the...

Sahir Ludhianvi: The People’s Poet

Sahir Ludhianvi is probably the...

Performativity and Politics: Ray and Ghatak

Ray, in his characteristic...

Nutan essayed the role of Kalyani in Bimal Roy's Bandini

She Smiles Everytime Letters Marry Silver Screen

Literature and cinema...

Eternal Dialogues Of Bollywood Movies

If you are a true Bollywood movie...

First-nighters posing for the camera outside the Warners' Theatre before the premiere of Don Juan with John Barrymore.
Pic Courtesy: National Archives and Records Administration, Wikimedia Commons

Silent Film Studies: The Curious Absence of Film Sound in Film Theory

Works...

The City in Cinema, and Cinemas in the City: South City Mall and Locations of Display

Somewhat...

The Certain and Uncertain Tendencies in Today’s Bollywood Cinema

What...

Locating the Muslim Identity in Popular Hindi Cinema

The Muslim...

Bollywood – Wacckopedia

Bollywood signed a $12.79 million deal...

In Gulaal’s heavily masculine world of politics, inheritance, and parochialism, Kiran, starts from a point of disadvantage on account of her gender and pedigree, to battle her way in a bid to acquire power on her own rules.

Sex And The Second Sex In Anurag Kashyap’s World Of Films

And although Kashyap’s woman is often the...

Satyajit Ray's Sonar Kella, the first of the two films he made on the Feluda series

Why Feluda Works

When we talk of re-birth of Feluda on screen with...

Filming Dreams: Desire As Power In Gitanjali Rao’s Animation Movies

Gitanjali...

Who can forget Madhubala’s naughty flouncing of skirts to the sensuous yet charming tunes of ‘Aiyee Mehrbaan' (Howrah Bridge, 1958)
(Pic: Youtube)

Critiquing Sexuality: Tracing the Changing Sensuality of the Popular Hindi Film Heroine (1950s-2000s)

The late 1960s in turn...

The Emergence Of SFX (Special Effects) In Movies

Often several different...

What Is Acting

Michael Chekhov, a great Russian...

Alex looking straight at the camera with the eyeballs slightly above centre
(Pic: Amazon)

The Need For A Visual Syntax

The quest to create strong, powerful and...

Tapan Sinha's Khudito Pashan
(Pic: Youtube)

Cinematic Adaptations Of Rabindranath

Since Tagore’s...

Masculin, féminin
Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Chantal Goya
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
(Pic: Amazon)

Space Sound Color: Giving Life To An Art Film

Since its nascent beginnings, the so-called art film...

Dialogue in a way authenticates the speaker as a real person rather than a mere imaginary character of the filmic tale.

Visible Voice And Imaginary Appearance: Let Her Absence Speak For Herself

When...

The whole of scene of the film The Draughtsman’s Contract is set in 1694 in the vast estate, were young and modern painter Mr. Nevill signed a contract with Mrs. Herbert about 12 drawing of her husband’s estate.
(Pic: Youtube)

The Relationship Between Film And Other Art Forms

Peter...

New York: Capturing The Essence

New York is much more than a studio...

Screening Delhi

Films that deal with Delhi as a city largely...

Taylor and Van Johnson find romantic fulfillment in The Last Time I Saw Paris

City and Cinema: The Cinematic City of Paris

Cinema is a powerful signifying...

A Nazi City – Berlin in the Films

Interestingly, the film makers trying...

LSD And The Great Indian Middle Class In The Films Of Dibakar Banerjee

One of...

Cinema & Sexuality: On the Death of the Desiring Woman

Why is...

Where Defeat is Victory – Anachronism is History

The quick paced...

Europe and Hollywood: Depiction of Second World War in Movies

Movies...

Metal Gear Solid 4 and Postcolonial History

Metal Gear Solid...

Videos To Voice

Community Video is a unique...

Three Movies of the Digital Age

The DVC phenomenon shows that...

Neocolonialism and Videogame Culture

Videogame culture offers...

Displaced Nationalism: Popular Indian Film’s Disconnect with the Nation

In...

The Colour of Aesthetics

In the works of Ray himself we will...

Inhabiting Passionate Spaces: Reframing of Intimacy in 50’s Bengali ‘Romantic Films’

Throughout...

Demystifying The Popular Item Number Trend: Indian Cinema

Since...

Movies and the Quest for Collective Identity in the Indian Diaspora

Many...

Anuradha Warrier on Khaniker Atithi and Zindagi Zindagi: Two Sides of One Coin
I guess (sobering thought!) Bengali directors thought Hindi-speaking audiences lacked the subtlety to appreciate nuances. I wonder whether that was...
Dustedoff on Khaniker Atithi and Zindagi Zindagi: Two Sides of One Coin
Thank you so much, Anu, for your kind words! And yes, I totally agree with that bit about why everything had to be so emphasized, so dramatic, in Hind...
Anuradha Warrier on Khaniker Atithi and Zindagi Zindagi: Two Sides of One Coin
I haven't watched Zindagi Zindagi, but have viewed - and loved - Khaniker Atithi but I loved how you compared the two, and how the latter, even if dir...
Anuradha Warrier on Kabuliwala Champions a Humanity That Transcends Superficial Differences
Thank you, Madhu. It means much, coming from you. I laughed when I read your comment about my blog; I know our writing is pretty similar, but this i...
dustedoff on Kabuliwala Champions a Humanity That Transcends Superficial Differences
What a fabulous piece of writing this is, Anu. I echo Monica Kar in saying "may your pen never run dry". BTW, another compliment I must pass on to y...

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