ReFocus: The Films of Shyam Benegal

by Sneha Kar Chaudhuri (Editor), Ramit Samaddar (Editor)

Overview

Shyam Benegal is widely perceived as one of the most influential Indian filmmakers, yet his voluminous body of work remains relatively under-studied in contemporary film scholarship. To help fill this critical lacuna, ReFocus: The Films of Shyam Benegal undertakes a closer look at Benegal’s films, a trailblazing auteur who successfully redefined the contours of non-commercial Hindi language cinema. This addition to ReFocus: The International Directors Series will consider how Benegal, over the course of his forty year career, used cinema as a potent medium to narrate the story of a nation in continuous transition. The 13 essays in the volume will explore how Benegal’s films articulate his concerns over caste, class, gender, religion, and other allied social, economic and political problems characterizing the Indian subcontinent. This collection also includes a full-length interview with Shyam Benegal that investigates his perspectives on the art of film-making.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474452878
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2024
Series:	ReFocus: The International Directors Series
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Dr Sneha Kar Chaudhuri is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at West Bengal State University. She received her BA (Hons), MA and PhD degrees in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. She is the Editorial Board member of the international peer-reviewed journal, Neo-Victorian Studies (Swansea University, UK). Her recent publications include a chapter on Tagore’s adaptations in Tagore’s Drama in the Perspective of Indian Theatre (2020). Her co-edited volume is entitled Tagore’s Ideas of the New Woman: The Making and Unmaking of Female Subjectivity (2017). Her areas of specialization are Neo-Victorian Studies, historical fiction and cinema, Adaptation Studies and Gender Studies.

Dr Ramit Samaddar is Assistant Professor of English at Jadavpur University. His areas of interest are Romanticism, Victorian studies, travel writing, Bollywood cinema, and Hindi literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Sneha Kar Chaudhuri and Ramit Samaddar

1. Ankur: Multiple Narratives of Protest - Sarani Ghosal
2. Nishant and the New Dawn: Towards a Sacredotal-Secular Modernity? - Nikhila H
3. Churning Out Change: A Moment of Reading Manthan - Ritu Sen Chaudhuri
4. Where Labour is Performed: The Public/Private Dichotomy and the Politics of Stigma in Bhumika and Mandi - Suchitra Mathur
5. Adaptation and Epistemic Redress: The Indian Uprising in Junoon - Ana Cristina Mendes
6. Cause and Kin: Knowledge and Nationhood in Kalyug - Somak Mukherjee
7. The Ascent in Arohan - Parthapratim Sen and Arunima Ray (Chowdhury)
8. From Fidelity to Creativity: Benegal and Suraj Ka Satvan Ghora - Sudha Shastri
9. Mammo and Projections of the Muslim Woman: Indian Parallel Cinema, Partition and Belonging - Omar Ahmed
10. Adapting Gandhi/Kasturba in The Making of the Mahatma - Vivek Sachdeva
11. In Search of Zubeidaa - Ramit Samaddar
12. Subversive Heroism and the Politics of Biopic Adaptation in Bose: The Forgotten Hero - Sneha Kar Chaudhuri
13. The Rural in the Glocal Intersection: Representation of Space in Welcome toSajjanpur and Well Done Abba - Aysha Iqbal and Sayanty Chatterjee
14. Interview with Shyam Benegal - Anuradha Dingwaney Needham

Editorial Reviews

ReFocus: The Films of Shyam Benegal, offers a comprehensive and critical introduction to the vast body of work by a filmmaker who has been committed to studying Indian society and history through cinema. The essays in this volume provide in-depth analysis of the varied and intersecting forces including caste, gender, class, religion and conflicting histories — that shape modern Indian experiences. The book productively expands understandings of India’s multifaceted, parallel cinema and brings needed attention to the oeuvre of a lesser-studied filmmaker.

Aparna Sharma

Re-Focus: The Films of Shyam Benegal (2022), edited by Sneha Kar Chaudhuri and Ramit Samaddar, comes as a refreshing contribution to this fledgling area of Shyam Benegal studies. The merit of this volume lies in its scope, as it devotes as much critical attention to Benegal’s canonical films as it does to his lesser-known recently released films. This volume, pertinently, situates Benegal within an evolving cultural context inhabited by the criss-crossing of multiple discourses and the metamorphosis of the Indian nation from the Nehruvian to the neoliberal era. It will be of immense value for the academicians and researchers who work in the field of Benegal studies in particular and film studies in general.

Studies in South Asian Film & Media - Subham Dutta

Re-Focus: The Films of Shyam Benegal (2022), edited by Sneha Kar Chaudhuri and Ramit Samaddar, comes as a refreshing contribution to this fledgling area of Shyam Benegal studies. The merit of this volume lies in its scope, as it devotes as much critical attention to Benegal’s canonical films as it does to his lesser-known recently released films. This volume, pertinently, situates Benegal within an evolving cultural context inhabited by the criss-crossing of multiple discourses and the metamorphosis of the Indian nation from the Nehruvian to the neoliberal era. It will be of immense value for the academicians and researchers who work in the field of Benegal studies in particular and film studies in general.

Subham Dutta - Studies in South Asian Film & Media

Featuring chapters on many of Shyam Benegal's most important productions (and an informative interview with the filmmaker), this fascinating book is not only a definitive work on Benegal's career, but also an important contribution to scholarship on parallel cinema and post-1970s Indian film more broadly.

Noel Brown