New Books In Dance

Bombay Talkies

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Synopsis

Debashree Mukherjee talks about the pioneering film studio founded in 1934 in the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) by Himansu Rai and Devika Rani. Its cast and crew of diverse global origins and training, offer new ways of writing the history of labor in Indian Cinema. In the accompanying B-Side episode, she focuses on her new book Bombay Talkies: An Unseen History of Indian Cinema, which features rare behind-the-scenes photographs from the personal archive of cinematographer Josef Wirsching. Wirsching brought the influence of German Expressionism to Indian cinema, and was responsible for the cinematic stylings of groundbreaking films like Achhyut Kanya (1936), Mahal (1949), and Pakeezah (1972). Debashree Mukherjee is Associate Professor of film and media in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University. Her first book, Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City (2020), approaches film history as an ecology of material practices and practitioners. Her secon