This book focuses on the cinema of the 1950s in India and analyzes the work of seven filmmakers from mainstream Hindi cinema and how they responded to the independent Indian nation after 1947. The selection of key filmmakers instead of cinema in general shows individual trajectories within cinema. The book examines the change in preoccupations or representations in the work of a single filmmaker, followed by an interpretation about the meaning of those representations. The filmmakers were very prolific and their work was commercially successful. Each chapter studies five or six selected films of each filmmaker and also include some relevant biographical details. The book demonstrates that each filmmaker uses their own strategies to address independent India of the 1950s and how Hindu cinema interrogated the nation-state. A novel contribution to Indian cinema, especially Hindi cinema, during formative years of the 1950s, this book will be of interest to researchers in Film Studies, Gender Studies, Political Science, and History, as well as South Asian society and culture.

独立直後の熱狂と混迷に揺れる一九五〇年代のインド。本書は、七人の巨匠たちの眼差しを通じ、銀幕がいかに新生国家という巨大な幻想と対峙し、それを解体・再構築してきたかを鮮烈に描き出す批評的叙事詩です。単なる映画史の記録に留まらず、商業映画の華やかさの裏に潜む政治的、社会的な問いかけを、作家個人の魂の軌跡として捉え直す視座の鋭さには圧倒されます。 各章で紐解かれる表現の変遷は、ジェンダーや階級といった深層的なテーマを浮き彫りにし、大衆娯楽が国家のアイデンティティを問う力強いメディアであったことを証明しています。当時の作家たちが抱いた情熱と苦悩が、著者の緻密な分析によって現代に蘇る。これは映画という鏡に映し出された、知られざるインド近代史の深奥に触れるための、必読の導引書といえるでしょう。