The pandemic-led financial uncertainty has played a major role, but could it be that the general decline in cinema-going is also the long-term impact of making the theatre an exclusive space?(Photo: Hrithik Roshan/Instagram)
Twenty-five years after the single-screen theatre was abandoned, the popular film is not willing to let go of the memory of the less sanitised, less exclusive experience. What had become undesirable is now being missed — only too late perhaps
Written by Aakshi Magazine
October 7, 2022 5:12:30 pm
Two nostalgic moments occurred recently. Multiplexes across the country saw huge crowds after announcing Rs 75 tickets on “National cinema day”. And a cop-and-gangster film romanced the stardom of Hrithik Roshan. Both invoke memories of the older single-screen experience. And are linked to a development from 25 years ago, though its effects are being fully recognised only now.
When the multiplex first came to India in 1997, its technological promise went hand in hand with its exclusivity. If you picked one, you also picked the other. The exorbitant ticket price was accepted because for a certain class of people, the future looked promising in liberalised India. This was the logic of the times and those who could not afford it would have to move on. Only, the price of tickets never stopped increasing. Neither did the cost of cinema hall popcorn. Gradually both became luxuries.
Twenty-five years later, the multiplex theatre is struggling. The pandemic-led financial uncertainty has played a major role, but could it be that the general decline in cinema-going is also the long-term impact of making the theatre an exclusive space? Multiplex culture didn’t nurture cinema going – to be fair, it had never really promised to. OTT added to this, no doubt. But when film watching in a theatre no longer remained an everyday, affordable pastime, this was only waiting to happen. We walked into this trap.
Perhaps it was inevitable then that the crores notwithstanding, even the biggest hits would be watched by a smaller number now. Worldwide, the box office is struggling, but in India’s case, the decline in numbers marks a huge change in the history of the medium, one that had begun much earlier than the current pandemic.
One of the staples of that earlier cinema experience – the relationship between the star and a very vocal audience – gradually got lost too. While female stardom has found a way to innovate and evolve, Hindi film male stardom often appears stuck in an unimaginative place. Over the years, it has lost its sincerity. Some of it is just time taking its toll. If the popular Bollywood film tries to be more creative, it can let go of this limiting idea. But when it looks for a replacement for the earlier male superstar, no one seems to fit the bill (Ranveer Singh probably comes close, but he appears to mimic stardom rather than embody it). The earlier stars were a product of their times, the current lot often appear all style without context. A part of the Bollywood box office crisis then is an inevitable crisis of big-budget male stardom, and the competition with films from the “south” too is part of a strictly male-star discourse.
It is no surprise that Vikram Vedha, with its inoffensive celebration of masculinity, is inviting praise. Pushkar-Gayathri’s remake of their Tamil film, Vikram Vedha is a stylish upgrade on the single-screen style film. It appeals to an urban sentiment but is devoid of the ironic style of Hollywood. I watched it in a Monday evening show at a local multiplex, which was relatively empty perhaps because of the show’s timing. During one of its Hrithik Roshan sequences, tailor-made to invite whistles and awe, the silence at this show was haunting. In other multiplexes, people are happily (and nostalgically) reporting cheers and claps.
This is not the first time a film is doing this, but something about the absent whistles made the film feel out of sync. Twenty-five years later, it seems like the popular film is not willing to let go of the memory of the less sanitised, less exclusive cinema theatre experience. It wants to rely on it to attract audiences to the theatre. What had become undesirable is now being missed. Only, it’s too late perhaps because the working class is no longer in the picture. And without that democratic promise, however illusory it may have been, is it any surprise that the cinema hall feels empty?
Aakshi Magazine, a writer based in Delhi, teaches film studies at Ashoka University and has recently co-edited ReFocus:The Films of Zoya Akhtar. The views expressed above are those of the writer alone and do not reflect those of Ashoka University
Source: Indian Express