ReFocus: The Films of Shyam Benegal: (ReFocus: The International Directors Series)

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.

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

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.

Review :
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. 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. 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. 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.