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Dark Fear, Eerie Cities analyzes a film form that began to emerge in Hindi cinema in early 21st century. The author locates the new cinematic development in a much broader context of cultural change in contemporary India, and traces the roots of imagining India darkly.
List of contents
- Acknowledgement
- Introduction
- 1. Understanding Cinematic Tranformations and Neoliberal Culture in India
- 2. Objects in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear: Imagination and the Other
- 3. Haunting and Uncanny Cities of Neoliberal India
- 4. Film Noir and the Dark Spaces of New Hindi Cinema
- 5. Screening Masculine Anxiety: Men, Women, and Violence
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
About the author
Sarunas Paunksnis teaches Philosophy at Kaunas University of Technology in Kaunas, Lithuania. His main research areas include but are not limited to Indian cinema, media philosophy, postcolonial theory, globalization and cultural theory. He has recently edited a book titled, Dislocating Globality: Deterritorialization, Difference and Resistance (Brill, 2016).
Summary
Dark Fear, Eerie Cities analyzes a film form that began to emerge in Hindi cinema in early 21st century - a form that is marked by realism, by focusing on urban life and culture of the new middle class, as well as pessimism, violence, fear and the presence of the 'other' in many forms. The author locates new cinematic developments in a much broader context of sociocultural change in contemporary India, and traces the roots of imagining India 'darkly'. The book looks at the new Hindi cinema from different angles and through analysis of crime thrillers and horror films aims to answer some fundamental questions, Why is there so much of pessimism?; What impact does neoliberalism have on the city and cinematic representations?; Why does the darkness, actual and metaphorical, proliferate?; What haunts the city, and why?; Why is the city so dark and eerie?; And what is the relationship between fear and violence on screen and the actual "dark side" of urban life, crime, insecurity one may feel while living in a metropolis, physical insecurity as well as a psychological, one of competition, a desire to succeed and to belong to 'global India'.
