‘The retro turn in Bombay cinema’

‘The retro turn in Bombay cinema’

Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

cordially invites you to the

 Seminar

Title:  ‘The retro turn in Bombay cinema’

Speaker: Dr. Ranjani Mazumdar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Date: Thursday, 28 February 2013 

Time: 3:00 p.m

Venue: Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti House, New Delhi.   

Abstract:

Indian cities in the last two decades have witnessed major transformations. The rise of innovative architectural designs, new forms of infrastructure and the ubiquitous presence of technological gadgets have marked this moment as globalization. This transformation has created a dense visual and aural landscape in which the sound of the cell phone follows us everywhere along with new surfaces and objects that pervade the city. The intoxicating sensorium generated by urban renewal, shop signage, and the power of light is making the ruins of the old industrial city slowly fade away. It is this juncture that has triggered off a cinematic re-visiting of Bombay’s pre-globalized urban form. Mani Ratnam’s Guru (2007), Milan Luthria’s Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010), Chandan Arora’s Striker (2010), and Mahesh Manjrekar's City of Gold (2010) are examples of films that have created vivid images of Bombay before the advent of globalization. The narratives of these 21^st century films are located at different moments of the last sixty years. The films draw on perceived notions of the recent past to specifically design a city devoid of the signs of the present. These urban 'sets' created by production and costume designers contain familiar and antiquated material. The sets are either constructed in studios or generated through a transformation of real locations, to adapt to the time of the films. Production designers work with a material memory of the past – magazines, films, photographs, memoirs, paintings, architectural manuals, and music. There is a fascination with outmoded or obsolete technology, older forms of home decor, fashion and accessories. The retro past is always a recent past, a nostalgic admiration for a world that has just passed us by. The act of revisiting draws from both high and low forms and is consumed by aesthetic tensions. This paper engages with the material, cultural and historical transactions involved in the recreation of India’s best known city before the entry of globalization.  

Speaker:

Dr. Ranjani Mazumdar is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her publications focus on urban cultures, popular cinema, gender and the cinematic city. She is the author of Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City (2007) and co-author with Nitin Govil of the forthcoming The Indian Film Industry (2013). She has also worked as a documentary filmmaker and her productions include Delhi Diary 2001 and The Power of the Image (Co-Directed). Her current research focuses on globalization and film culture, the visual culture of film posters and the intersection of technology, travel and design in 1960s Bombay Cinema.