Cinema Through Rasa : A Tryst with Masterpieces in the Light of Rasa Siddhanta

With black and white photographs, Cinema Through Rasa discusses the important works of the world cinema in the light of Rasa Siddhanta of the Indian classical aesthetics. Rasa Siddhanta was first mentioned in Bharata Muni’s Na?yasastra – the ancient treatise on dramaturgy. This book catalogues the major cinematic works in the light of Abhinavabharati – a tenth-century commentary on the Na?yasastra by the great Kashmiri Saivite philosopher Abhinavagupta. Further, it outlines the links between puru?artha, the cultural value system of life pursuits in Indian tradition, and aesthetics while citing examples from the works of major directors such as Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alfred Hitchcock, Carl Dreyer, Charlie Chaplin, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Bresson and Satyajit Ray. Using contemporary scholars’ interpretation of non-dualistic Kashmir Saivism tradition, Cinema Through Rasa aims to serve as a tribute to Abhinavagupta’s genius, a commentary on important ideas such as rasa, nature of emotions, cinema and beauty along with a tryst with the masterpieces of the world cinema.