The Legacy of the Empire: A New Historicist Study of the Colonial and Postcolonial Agenda in Selected Indian and Western Cinema
Date
2020
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Central University of Punjab
Abstract
The term Empire refers to an expansion of territory by including other countries or
other continents under the rule of a powerful state. The concept of Empire Cinema
is focused on the agenda of using some specific kind of films for propagating and
justifying the existence of colonial forces on the colonised land. Empire Cinema
fulfils this need for the imperial powers. New Historicist analysis of the films helps to
analyse, to relate and to reinterpret the focussed colonial issues in the selected films
with respect to the Postcolonial period. The study of these films helps to have a
glimpse into the colonial socio-cultural as well as political encounter between
colonial powers and the colonised subjects. The analysis of the empire films also
exhibits the politics of film censorship.The films are becoming a vital and interesting
medium for describing the events of the past. The selected films offer representation
from both colonial and colonised perspectives while at the same time dealing with
the representation of colonial and postcolonial issues like the thugi cult, sati, the
communal violence in colonial era, the Indian- British individual interactions, the
dilemma of Anglo-Indians and Indian resistance to the British Empire. The New
Historicist study highlights the dual role of cinema; as an art form and as medium to
propagate a specific ideology by targeting a particular kind of audience, at a specific
point of time. The selected films can be analysed to represent the colonial nostalgia
in the postcolonial era and remain a useful medium of revisiting the colonial history
of a nation.
Description
Keywords
Empire, Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism, Censorship, New Historicism
Citation
Singh, Jagdish & Saini, Alpana (2020) The Legacy of the Empire: A New Historicist Study of the Colonial and Postcolonial Agenda in Selected Indian and Western Cinema.