This book analyses the pivotal visual and narrative conventions employed in popular Hindi films through the combined prism of film studies and classical Indian philosophy and ritualism. A culturally sensitive reading of popular Hindi films, the interpretations put forward are also applicable to the Western context. The book is of interest to scholars in the fields of Indology, modern Indian studies, film, media and cultural studies.

Ronie Parciack is a Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research interests include vernacular religion in South Asian visual media and popular culture, the vernacular planes of political theology in India, and Indo-Islamic culture.

Introduction: Reading Hindi Cinema 1. Efficacy on the Screen: The Unseen and the Workings of Gaze and Sound 2. Aesthetic Structures: Framing, Layering, Fleshing out a Subject 3. Debating the Visual - Reflections on the Ontology of Cinema in the Hindu Context 4. Constructing an Exalted Aesthetic Experience: Revisiting Rasa in Hindi Films 5. Questioning the Soteriological in the Visual Landscapes of Hindi film 6. Winds of change in the Age of New Media