Refocus: the films of Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal, a trailblazing auteur who successfully redefined the contours of non-commercial Hindi language cinema, is widely perceived as one of the most influential Indian filmmakers. And 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 and shows how the auteur, 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 book attempts to be as representative as possible in its scope by choosing to examine his ‘major’ as well as his ‘minor’ cinematic ventures.

The thirteen essays in this volume explore how Benegal’s films articulate his concerns about caste, class, gender, religion, and other allied social, economic, and political problems characterizing the Indian subcontinent. They offer nuanced critiques of the way Benegal’s parallel cinema upholds the value of meaningful cinema as a means to create social awareness in the minds of the audience. This collection also includes a full-length interview with Shyam Benegal, which investigates his perspectives on the art of film-making and provides an analysis of his own films.

This book will interest scholars and academics studying Indian cinema, Bollywood cinema, subaltern studies, media studies, gender politics, adaptation and postcolonial studies.


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