Turn of the Star: Satyan's Lifetime and Malayalam Cinema

The Malayalam-language film industry consolidated itself in the 1950s and 60s. The actor-star Satyan, active between 1951 and 1971, embodied the aesthetic energies of the industry in that period. He continues to be admired as one of the early lodestars of Malayalam cinema. Before becoming a film actor, Satyan dabbled in amateur theatre, and worked as a school teacher, a soldier in the British Indian army and a policeman in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore. Turn of the Star is a biography of Satyan or Manuel Sathyanesan, who grew up in a 'lower caste' Nadar Christian family, interwoven with theoretical and historiographical reflections. While narrating Satyan's life-story alongside an account of the establishment of the Malayalam film industry and the formation of the linguistic state of Kerala, the book opens new terrains to analyse stardom, caste, mobility and masculinity.