Looking at cinema from a different perspective

A group of writers and social scientists — many of them based in Madurai — have launched a full-fledged research journal, ‘Kaatchi Pizhai' in Tamil. A bimonthly, the first edition is on the stands carrying articles penned by renowned film theorists Venkatesh Chakravarthy, Sundar Kaali and Rajan Krishnan who have widely dealt on various theoretical aspects of films in the last two decades. The journal was introduced at The American College here on Thursday by writers N. Jayamohan and Stalin Rajangam; contributors Sundar Kaali, Professor in Tamil, Gandhigram Rural University; Rajan Krishnan, Film Studies, Columbia University; and R. Prabhakar, Department of Visual Communication, The American College. “There is a crisis of academic criticism as we do not have separate disciplines such as cultural studies or film studies as in the West, and even if it is there, it is in a nascent stage.” Citing an example of the West's contribution to film theory and literature, he talked about how Italian neo-realism films, which though hardly about a dozen could generate close to 400 books dealing about the various theoretical and technical aspects. Mr. Kaali also talked about the evolution of Indian film research scenario and reminded about the contributions of major social scientists such as Ashis Nandy, Ravi Vasudevan, Karthigesu Sivathamby, Theodore Baskaran, MSS Pandian and Venkatesh Chakravarthy and promised that the journal would be looking at various aspects of cinema using major tools of criticism from popular culture and social sciences.