JONATHAN TORGOVNIK
In the court yard of "Roopam" cinema in Chennai (Madras). A boy stretching his hand, trying to touch the lips of a painted larger than life image of his favorite actress film star.
Like in the trains that have special compartments for ladies, there are also separate box office counters for women. This comes from social norm that women should not need to come in close proximity with men who are strangers.
Cinema billboard advertising the film “Pukkar” and an elephant merging with rush hour traffic on Juhu Beach Road, Mumbai (Bombay).
A crew member of Amar’s touring cinema rewinding film reels between shows, on the river bank where the cinema camped in the village of Palli.
Amar Touring Cinema camped in the village of Palli, with Kisan the projector operator sitting on the truck.
Bollywood dreams
Masala cinema - a popular formula blending action, romanticism, violence, music, dance and moral - has a daily audience in India of fourteen million. Jonathan Torgovnik (Tel Aviv, Israel, 1969), who has been struck by this phenomenon says, “In India cinema is just like a religion. In the same way as people go to the temple to worship the gods they go to the cinema to worship movie stars who kill scores of people with one blow and fall in love with beautiful heroines”. Torgovnik wanted to look beyond the usual Western irony of the clichés about this popular-national cinema that is both predictable and implausible, to sensitively and tactfully draw together all aspects of this phenomenon.
All images © Jonathan Torgovnik
| FACT SHEET | |
| number of works | 40 color photographs |
| print sizes | 50x60 cm |
| frames | 60x80 cm, aluminium with glass |
| catalogue | Jonathan Torgovnik, Bollywood Dreams, Phaidon Edition, 2003, English, 122 pages |
| curator | Enrica Viganò |