The first edited collection of essays dedicated to Shyam Benegal's career and films Offers in-depth scholarship on Indian parallel, or new wave, cinema Provides cultural contexts for Benegal's films, including representations of gender, class, and caste Can be used in academic courses dealing with Bollywood, gender politics, subaltern studies, media studies, adaptation, and postcolonialism 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.

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.

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, University of California Los Angeles



Book Information
ISBN 9781474452861
Author Sneha Kar Chaudhuri
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press