| A Very Old Machine: The Many Origins of the Cinema in India Contributor(s): Mahadevan, Sudhir (Author) |
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ISBN: 1438458290 ISBN-13: 9781438458298 Publisher: State University of New York Press OUR PRICE: $90.25 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: November 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Performing Arts | Film - History & Criticism - History | Asia - India & South Asia |
| Dewey: 791.430 |
| LCCN: 2014045586 |
| Series: Suny Series, Horizons of Cinema |
| Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6.2" W x 9.3" (0.95 lbs) 256 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Indian |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In A Very Old Machine, Sudhir Mahadevan shows how Indian cinema's many origins in the technologies and practices of the nineteenth century continue to play a vital and broad function in its twenty-first-century present. He proposes that there has never been a singular cinema in India; rather, Indian cinema has been a multifaceted phenomenon that was (and is) understood, experienced, and present in everyday life in myriad ways. Employing methods of media archaeology, close textual analysis, archival research, and cultural theory, Mahadevan digs into the history of photography, print media, practices of piracy and showmanship, and contemporary everyday imaginations of the cinema to offer an understanding of how the cinema came to be such a dominant force of culture in India. The result is an open-ended and innovative account of Indian cinema's "many origins." |