Review: Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay, by Samhita Sunya

Abstract

Book Review| June 01 2023 Review: Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay, by Samhita Sunya Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay, by Samhita Sunya Swapna Gopinath Swapna Gopinath SWAPNA GOPINATH is an associate professor of film and cultural studies at Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune. She is a Fulbright fellow and is a coeditor of Historicizing Myths in Contemporary India (Routledge), a book on popular Hindi cinema. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar BOOK DATA Samhita Sunya, Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2022. $34.95 paper. 270 pages. Film Quarterly (2023) 76 (4): 106–107. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2023.76.4.106 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Swapna Gopinath; Review: Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay, by Samhita Sunya. Film Quarterly 1 June 2023; 76 (4): 106–107. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2023.76.4.106 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search BOOK DATA Samhita Sunya, Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2022. $34.95 paper. 270 pages. In her new book Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema via Bombay, Samhita Sunya examines “public debates over gender, excess, cinephilia and the world via Bombay … over a ‘long’ 1960s period” (4). A fitting addition to the Cinema Cultures in Contact series, Sunya’s book considers the role of popular Hindi cinema in the nation’s embrace of modernity, but moves away from national allegorical approaches to explore the transnational visibility and circulation of popular Hindi films of the 1960s. More provocatively, Sunya’s case studies are not purely Bombay productions; rather, they are transnational coproductions or remakes of Madras productions, thereby enabling the reader to see beyond the hegemonic patterns of production and reception of Bombay cinema. This well-researched work lies at the intersections of film studies and... You do not currently have access to this content.