[ecrea] CFP Indian Studio Era Special Issue of Wide Screen

    Call for Papers: Wide Screen 8.1


    Interrogating the Indian Studio Era: Histories, Networks, Spaces

Guest Editor: Hrishikesh Ingle

Film production in pre-independence India was defined by important 
studios located across geographies, in cities like Bombay, Calcutta, 
Kolhapur, Pune, Lahore and Madras. Apart from exercising a certain 
industrial regimentation, the studios were spaces that shaped the Indian 
film form. The period between 1920s-1950s was marked by the active 
interconnection of studio personnel, artists, and technologies across 
regional, linguistic or religious divisions. Studios like New Theatres, 
Prabhat Film Company, Bombay Talkies, Imperial Film Company, Huns 
Studios, Sagar Movietone, etc. not only produced important and landmark 
films, but were instrumental for artists  like V Shantaram, Devika Rani, 
Himanshu Rai, Durga Khote, Guru Dutt, etc. to become influential figures 
of the film industry. The histories of Indian studios, and studio 
filmmaking have either been the subject of anecdotal recollections, or 
researched to exemplify a certain cultural/historical tendency. 
Scholarship often attributes the emergence of sound in the 1930s for the 
industrial re-alignment of Indian studios thus comparing them to the 
Hollywood studio system. However, recent research points to the complex 
interconnections of the Indian studios, that can be conceptualized as a 
wider socio-cultural network marking not just filmmaking, and film 
genres, but also the spatial spread of the cinema as a modern cultural 
practice. Such a formulation can be explored to pose crucial questions 
for Indian film historiography: What were the implications of studio 
personnel transitioning from various artistic traditions into the 
nascent film industry? How did technological exchanges contribute to the 
artistic achievements of certain studios? What specific filmmaking 
practices strengthen or collapse social, gender, or feudal hierarchies? 
What is the role of capital and economics that inform the industrial 
formation of Indian cinema in this period? Through such an 
interrogation, the studio era assumes a wider significance than being a 
proto-formation for a national film culture. With the adoption of 
digital archival research and the growing importance of ethnographic 
methods of discovering nuances of Indian cinema, the studio era seems 
poised for renewed historical inquiry. It especially needs a thorough 
understanding beyond the constructs of national, regional, or linguistic 
alignments, and more in terms of the then prevalent practices of 
filmmaking, film exhibition, production details, social spaces and the 
role of studios in shaping Indian cinema.

             This special issue of Wide Screen, calls for original 
research papers that focus on unexplored areas of the Indian Studio Era 
(1920s – 1950s). We are particularly interested in research that 
considers the networks arising from intra and inter studio exchanges, 
such as: technologies, aesthetic strategies, filmmaking practices, 
artists, personnel, and distribution and exhibition of films. Apart from 
this, we are also interested in new archival research that studies 
studio economics, the geo-social spaces of particular studios, and the 
roles of specific personnel in shaping the filmmaking trajectory. 
Researchers are also encouraged to problematize and argue the 
assimilation and emergence of a sound-culture after the arrival of the 
talkie. The overlap of silent and talkie films produced by the studios 
can be of potential significance for historical inquiries. We are thus 
interested in research that goes beyond textual analysis or generic 
tendencies of representative films. The aim of this issue is to bring 
together studies of the Indian studio era presented from the vantage 
point of current developments in film historical research. Some of the 
potential themes for full length papers are listed below. However, more 
topics are welcome:

 1. Studio filmmaking and personnel
 2. Studio space and regional, local aesthetic forms
 3. Exchanges between studios
 4. Role of technology in shaping studio productions
 5. Film exhibition and the studio system
 6. Internal studio economics
 7. Publicity and markets of studio films
 8. International and transnational exchanges
 9. Film studios and social spaces
10. Provincial connections of studio personnel
11. Studios and stardom
12. Female stars of studios
13. The courtesan and the respectable in studio spaces
14. Multilingual films to regional cinema
15. Artisanal culture of studios
16. Film studio as the intermediary of the /bazaar/
17. Music, aurality and the singing actors
18. Imbricated talkie: silent films after sound
19. Vernacular modernism and Indian film studios
20. Studios and the shaping of cinema culture
21. Post-independence studios
22. Closure of studios: continuities and discontinuities
23. Studio system and the cinematic network


600 word abstracts are due by April 30, 2017. Send them to: 
(widescreenjournal /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(widescreenjournal /at/ gmail.com)>


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Wide Screen
http://widescreenjournal.org/index.php/journal/index


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