Living Pictures. Perspectives on the Film Posters in India

Living Pictures is the first publication to collect and analyse a representative body of film posters produced in India from 1947, the year of Independence, to the present day. This charming book offers the uninitiated a window into the sub-continent's famously over-the-top movie industry and, for those who know it well, there is a wide selection of classic and little-known material. Street photographs show the art in situ, while essays addressing it from anthropological, sociological and design perspectives put it in broader context as a visually charismatic key to the politics, history and beliefs of India.

This visually alluring book provides an examination of Indian movie posters in a wide cultural context, as well as their relationship to the films they represent. Cultural signs specific to the promotional language of Indian cinema are decoded and analysed through textural contributions by design historians, sociologists and visual anthropologists to reveal links with religious iconography, devotional and ritual practices, technological developments in reprographics and social change. In celebrating poster imagery from the whole Indian subcontinent, this book challenges the primacy of Bollywood styles. Lesser-known material from film industries such as those in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is given equal recognition alongside more familiar work from Bombay. Obscure and crudely produced contemporary designs are presented on the same terms as archetypal images for classics from the golden age of Indian cinema. An innovative editorial strategy of conducting a dialogue on deep-rooted cultural issues through the frame of a disposable art form is complemented by the book's design: pages of posters presented in chronological order are punctuated by photographs of everyday street life, reflecting the experience of encountering the images in India's cities.