Producing Bollywood

"""This is the first book on Bollywood to combine a deep knowledge of the dynamics of script, song, stars, and style in this cinematic world with an equally keen sense of the unique nature of the politics, finance, and cultural prejudices of the film industry. It will be an indispensable benchmark for all future studies of Bollywood and of similar cinematic industries worldwide, and it will be of interest to media scholars, anthropologists, sociologists of culture, and the curious general reader."" Arjun Appadurai, New York University ""Tejaswini Ganti mines her extensive contacts in an industry generally closed-off to most outsiders to provide us with in-depth analyses of the sensibilities, compulsions, and desires of important figures in the film industry and the social practices of film production. Producing Bollywood provides unique insights into the forces that shape the production of films in one of the largest film industries in the world. By going beyond the hype surrounding 'Bollywood' and by eschewing simplistic dismissals about escapism and the profit-making drive of Bollywood film-makers, this book enables us to understand the cultural logics that shape the production of Bollywood film. Based on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in multiple sites of film production, Producing Bollywood is truly a trailblazing piece of work."" Purnima Mankekar, author of Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood, and Nation in Postcolonial India"