Abstract
Ramavarma Appan Thampuran’s unsuccessful attempt to make a film in Malayalam from his novel Bhootarayar (1929) has left behind sketches of scenes and characters by himself and an unknown local artist, now preserved at the Appan Thampuran Library of the Kerala Sahitya Academy. They illustrate Thampuran’s bid to depict an imagined past and compose an ethnohistory of communities, and are significant for the history of visual arts and cinema in the region. The sketches evoke studio and photo-graphic portraiture, visual typologies and the cinematic close-up, and seem to negotiate the complex exchange between linguistic narrative, cinematic spectacle, and imaginary histories.
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