Films as things in colonial India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2525-3123.gis.2020.171664Keywords:
Visual anthropology;, India;, Colonial filmAbstract
This paper argues that the visual is also material, in the sense that visual objects (even digital ones) can circulate through a variety of different spaces and, depending on the context, may acquire or express very different properties. This paper draws upon research conducted by the author in film archives in both India and the UK, aiming to show that non-fiction films (and lengths of film footage) shot by British colonial officials and visitors to India in the first half of the 20th century form visual “documents” that draw upon earlier film and photographic conventions.Concurrently, the nascent Indian fiction film gets underway, with the pioneering work of D. G. Phalke. Both cinemas use the same materials – even possibly the same kinds of camera – yet never intersect. The films of this period, and subsequently,have to be considered so one can understand visual relations between Indian subjects and British colonisers.
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