Aasita Bali
Assistant Professor
Department of Media Studies
CHRIST (Deemed to be University)
Bangalore, India

 

Background Study

 

Every society has a way of torturing its women, whether by binding their feet or by sticking them into whalebone corsets. What contemporary American culture has come up with is designer jeans. —Joel Yager

 

Indian cinema began its journey much before Dada Saheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra1. After Lumiere brothers exposed the British as well as Indian elite to moving images, the experience left them spell bound. The screening at Watson hotel in then Bombay inspired many film makers to produce films. The early cinema was silent and used orchestra to support the image through live background score. Also these films were primarily from America and Europe. The content of these films were mostly non-fiction or reportage. They dealt with issues like arrival of important people to procession to games or any other event of national or international importance. These films were basically news reels with „no actors or actress?.

 

Year of Publication: June 2013
ISBN 978-93-82305-23-1
Working paper: Vol 8 (2013-14)
Pages: vii, 18
Price: available on request
Funded by Centre for Research-Projects-CHRIST (Deemed to be University)