Sentimental Songs, Melodrama and Filmic Narrative in Bollywood’s Golden Age (1951-1963) (Anthem Film and Culture, 1)

The considerably large critical literature on Bollywood cinema is marked by an absence as it has not engaged fully with the ways in which songs lead to the memorial construction of films and how a spectator connects with films through their songs.The studies tended to deflect the emotional dimension of songs, their internal lyrical structure and their intertextual connections in favour of readings that treat songs as subsidiary to other formal elements.Consequently, there was little understanding of songs and their complex relationship with the narrative of the film.To address this absence, this book begins by taking a look at the prior history of Bollywood songs since the arrival of talkies with the film Alam Ara (1931).The chapter takes the reader through the journey of film songs from synchronous singing and music during production to non-diegetic music and the playback singer.In addition, the somewhat disparate filmic milieu of history, emotion and ethics, much of which are drawn f