Cinema
Unit 6. Covers History of cinema; Production process and genres; Cinema and social change.
About this unit
Cinema is both an art form and a mass medium. This unit traces the history of film, from the first public screenings by the Lumière brothers to the documentary pioneers and the birth of Indian cinema with Dadasaheb Phalke. It explains how feature films and documentaries are produced, introduces genre theory, and looks at India's parallel cinema and its role in social change, with Shyam Benegal's Manthan as a key example.
Key ideas
- The Lumière brothers held one of the first public film screenings for a paying audience in Paris in 1895.
- Robert Flaherty and John Grierson shaped the documentary tradition.
- Dadasaheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra (1913), the first full-length Indian feature film.
- Film production: pre-production, production, post-production, then distribution and exhibition.
- Genres group films by shared themes, settings and conventions.
- Parallel cinema focused on realism and social issues.
How to prepare
Memorise names, films and years of the pioneers. Learn the stages of production and a few genres with their conventions. Know why Manthan is special: it was funded by dairy farmers themselves.
Topics in this chapter
History of cinema
Lumière brothers, John Grierson, Robert Flaherty and Dadasaheb Phalke.
5 questionsProduction process and genres
Stages of film and documentary production; genre theory.
5 questionsCinema and social change
India’s parallel cinema and Shyam Benegal’s Manthan.
5 questions