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House Full: Indian Cinema and the Active Audience

Online ISBN:
9780226361734
Print ISBN:
9780226361420
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

House Full: Indian Cinema and the Active Audience

Lakshmi Srinivas
Lakshmi Srinivas
University of Massachusetts, Boston
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Published online:
18 May 2017
Published in print:
31 August 2016
Online ISBN:
9780226361734
Print ISBN:
9780226361420
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

Popular Indian cinema provides entertainment for people from all walks of life but equally importantly, cinema provides collective experience and a common referent in a country of mind-boggling diversities. Drawing on in-depth, multi-year ethnography in the South Indian city of Bangalore and involving participant observation on film sets, watching films in stratified cinema halls, accompanying habituated audiences to the cinema and conversations with moviegoers, exhibitors, distributors, ushers, fans and filmmakers, House Full makes a case for a total perspective on cinema film. It argues that the magic of motion pictures in India cannot be understood without addressing the liveness of cinema, its social existence and cultural ramifications, and most importantly, its audiences. Indeed by exploring the concept of cinema as a participatory and collaborative making that includes audiences and their aesthetic and social practices, the book offers new analytical approaches and new ways to think about cinema film.

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