Funky Bollywood: A Conversation With The Author

On Tuesday, June 23rd, at 3:30 pm, San Francisco Public Library will host a conversation with the author of Funky Bollywood, Todd Stadtman in Koret Auditorium.

Todd Stadtman, a San Francisco-based musician and hardcore cinephile with a special interest in popular cinema. In his book, Stadtman has focused his lens on Hindi popular films of the 70s, a watershed moment that ushered in the era of the Angry Young Man with the defining rise of superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

The Hindi cinema of 70s was influenced by a variety of internal social and political factors coupled by outside pressures from the Rambo type violence-laced movies and Hong Kong karate block busters. Instead of focusing on any single superstar of the era, Todd looks at the various tropes the of 70s Hindi cinema, exploring the domain of hard fighting he-men stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Feroz Khan and badass, whip-wielding heroines played by the likes of the gorgeous Zeenat Aman, Hema Malini, and Rekha, supported by disco dancers, karate killers, femme fatales, space age lairs, bombshells and booby traps.

All Library programs are free and open to the public.

Those wishing to watch popular Hindi films on DVD, search our catalog by call number - Hindi DVD.


For further reading, we also recommend:

Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change by K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake (Sterling, 2004).

King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema by Anupama Chopra (Warner Books, 2007).

Fingerprinting Popular Culture: The Mythic and the Iconic in Indian Cinema, edited by Vinay Lal (FAB Press, 2015).

The Kapoors: the First Family of Indian Cinema by Madhu Jain (Viking, Penguin Books India, 2005).

Once Upon a Time in Bollywood: The Global Swing in Hindi Cinema by edited by Gurbir Jolly, Zenia Wad (TSAR, 2007).

Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity, edited by Rachel Moseley (BFI Pub., 2005).

Fashioning Bollywood: The Making and Meaning of Hindi Film Costume by Clare M. Wilkinson-Weber (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).

100 Bollywood Films by Rachel Dwyer (BFI, 2005).

Yash Chopra by Rachel Dwyer (BFI Pub., 2002).

Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City by Ranjani Mazumdar (University of Minnesota Press, 2007).