Art cinema and India’s forgotten futures
film and history in the postcolony

Rochona Majumdar examines key works of Indian art cinema to demonstrate how film emerged as a mode of doing history and that, in so doing, it anticipated some of the most influential insights of postcolonial thought. She analyzes the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak as well as a host of film society publications.

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Part I: The History of Art Cinema -- 1. Art Cinema: The Indian Career of a Global Category -- 2. The "New" Indian Cinema: Journeys of the Art Film -- 3. Debating Radical Cinema: A History of the Film Society Movement -- Part II: Art Films as History -- 4. Ritwik Ghatak and the Overcoming of History -- 5. "Anger and After": History, Political Cinema, and Mrinal Sen -- 6. The Untimely Filmmaker: Ray's City Trilogy and a Crisis of Historicism -- Epilogue: Art Cinema and Our Present -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index.