Popular Culture: Small Theatres Lining Bombay Roads
Duration: 00:12:04; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 351.209; Saturation: 0.043; Lightness: 0.206; Volume: 0.472; Cuts per Minute: 13.916; Words per Minute: 36.363
Summary: There are, in many areas of Bombay, small shop sized theatres that provide the communal experience of viewing cinema at cheap rates. Men from working class backgrounds frequent these small theatres.
The video projection is not just of old films, or B grade films or pornographic content, but also relatively recent super hits. There is a licensing system and a semi- regularization of these theatres. In a way it harks back to the early day of cinemas, when cinema was a form of mass entertainments, and the Nickelodeon charged five cents for a ticket. A rough and ready seating arrangement is made in these theatres, on benches. There are exhaust fans for ventilation. There are multiple shows, often of different films.
Interviewer: How many theatres are there hereabouts?
Man: There are more ahead, more behind.That way, in Maharashtra there are many, in different places
Unclear for a long bit
Interviewer: You people keep changing
Starts with the word 'Dhoom' written on a poster. From a poster of that very new film, camera pans across to where on another board, are multiple posters of an older film, Jeevan ki Shatranj. Daylight hits the road just beyond. The camera goes to where a woman interviewer and a man, with a bunch of tickets on the bench before him, sit talking before yet another row of posters of different films. A Sai Baba poster marks the entrance of the door to the theatre. A calendar hangs over the posters. A young man stands his arms crossed behind him, watching the two talking, Their sound is very unclear, because of traffic noise. The opening bars of the popular song from Dhoom are heard as we come closer to them.
The young man standing by the side, is framed under a poster of a woman in a short dress, bent over, looking naughtily out of the poster. The young man has his hand, with red thread on it, which is a auspicious thread, on his hip.
afternoon
dhoom
gamble of life
jackie shroff
mithun chakravorty
naughty
posters
roadside
sai baba
song from dhoom
tickets
young man
Western suburbs, Bombay
cheap
cinema
entertainment
mass
neighbourhood
small
theatre
ventilation
Film character: So what if the thieves were not caught? Their booty is in our custody.
Character 2- there is the bike, sir. This will tell us why they left so fast.
Character 3- What a marvel of engineering and the main thing is this, look, nitrous oxide cylinder that they have fixed. If one button on this is pressed, the bike will become a rocket. And this..
Character 1 interrupts: good, very good. Jai, what will our next step be?
Jai: the next step will be taken by them
Character: Sir, phone for you
Jai: Hallo
Tight close up of mouth: I have not called to say hallo, hi.
Jai; Who's this?
Villain in long shot: If I don't tell you anything what will you do? How will you give such a good interview to television?
Jai: Oh, then you must have heard that I don't talk to criminals.
Villain it is not in my destiny to go to prison
Villain: You have good luck, good brains too. Something is shady. Well, since you have taken the trouble to call (unclear)
Even though this time you have been a bit too confident.
Beyond a pan and snack sellers shop, we see the interviewer and the man being interviewed sitting before a large drum. Tickets on the bench before the man. A ladder which is the stairway to the interior of the theatre. Camera climbs the stairs, in the darkness, the sound of the film, very clear sound.
Camera zooms in and out of image in a dark hall, audience heads and one exhaust fan in silhouette playing next to the screen.
Sections of complete blackness as the camera pans, door opens a bit.
Sequence on screen winds up with a split screen shot of hero and villain, followed by a series of split screens between the cop and the event that is being set up by the thieves. Finally, Jai escorts a blind man across a room.
bike
dark
exhaust fan
jai
music
paan shop
projection
screen
silhouetted heads
spilt screen
stairs
villain
Cameraman: Just open the door a bit
Onscreen sound
Jai: Do one thing- give me your address, I shall send the bike and the money over.
Villain: Whatever you might say, you won't be able to catch me.
Offscreen woman's voice: Your projection room?
Onscreen
Villain: You will pass by me and won't be able to recognize me
Jai: Just come before me once, you won't be fit to be recognized.
Villain: I will come before you, I will even tell you where the next theft is going to be. Will you ever find such a thief?
Jai: A thief is found only in prison
After middle section
Jai: where are you going? Come, I will drop you
Blind man: No, your time will get wasted
Jai: Time is never wasted in helping someone.
Blind man: people like you are rarely found these days.
Jai: No, it is not like that.
Two women standing between them, on a poster, the head of Pran, the actor. One woman smiles, she is the interviewer. The women in jeans, stand out among the men whoa re hovering about. Camera moves back, the entire façade is seen, it is a shelter of tarpaulin laid between two wooden boards on which posters are placed. On the ground, a head tray with earthen pots for sale secured with ropes. Camera goes back still further, we see the board of the adjacent shop, which says 'Royal, quality snacks'
Loud sounds of traffic, horns..
earthern pots
gun
jeans
men
pistol
poster
pran
sounds
tarpaulin
women
ear ring
A man steps away from a board which has the poster of Gadar, a love story.
Camera at where a man is selling tickets, beyond is another man, peering out of an inside room. Probably a lottery centre.
Camera picks up detail of a board on which it says- super hit film, Friday, 9.30 pm.
Camera pans to man peering out and drinking tea, pans to Amrish Puri's face in a poster, wielding a pistol. Film music can be heard.
One of the jeans clad women taps the other, they leave the frame. People begin to clear out of the frame, the bearded photographer from the magazine is seen. Starting from a bleach out, camera settles onto the face, on a poster of a young desperate looking Sanjay Dutt, holding a pistol. The pistol seems to be pointing at the young man who is staring into camera. One young man wears a small silver ear ring. A man tells them to get to a side
Man at counter: They will have it
Offscreen photographer: She is the editor of the magazine, I am the photographer
Man at counter: So they will have a card
Offscreen photographer: This the the magazine.
Time Out Mumbai
Man peering out: Time out.
Man at counter: There is no card? It is not registered yet? This is all?
Those people don't have a card?
Offscreen photographer: They might have one, ask them.
Man peering: Enough, enough, what are you showing?
Offscreen new voice: They are showing the computer, shall I show it?
amrish puri
card
computer
gadar
identity
lottery
night
quality snacks
rajendra kumar
registered card
sanjay dutt
super hit
tickets
Tall apartment buildings, residential . Traffic moves in extreme foreground. A man enters a roadside theatre,behind a vendor selling vegetable.
Next to them, a man repairs an auto.
Camera freeze.
People crowding around a roadside theatre facade. Poster of Dhoom,.
apartments
repairs
traffic
vendor
Kodak photoshop board, a motorcycle parked next to the Dhoom poster, which also features a mobike. A bucket catches the sun at one corner of the poster. A sheet of wood seperates the shop from the next one. Unclear conversation about cameras between the photographer and the videographer.
A man buys a ticket for the film.
audience
camera-talk
pockets
tickets
The ticket counter in low light. A man enters frame, his hand in his pocket.
A crow caws above the Dhoom poster.
caw
crow
poster
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