Movie Magic

AUGUST 2001 - We grew up on the movies and the cinemas that played them. In those darkened halls we lived out our fantasies, movie after movie, on the big screens in glorious Technicolor. In small towns or large cities, the cinemas drew crowds like filings to a magnet and it was a world of magic where the lights went down and the dark, heavy velvet curtains parted to show an absolutely ghost like white screen only for the briefest of seconds before flickering projection lights sent you cart wheeling into another dimension.

When Kim Novak swayed down the wooden steps in Picnic as William Holden, sleeves half rolled with that unruly lock of hair stared open mouthed at the vision that tantalizingly and slowly came towards him, we held our collective breath and died a few hundred times in the few steps that she took before Holden recovered and became the cool hero that he was. As she swayed into his arms, so did we all. This was cinema at its magical best and it was interactive long before the term became the password in today’s world. Picnic one recalls because it was the kind of film that, at the time, represented all that was brilliant about Hollywood cinema – a great story, a small town up in smoke, a scandal that shocks everyone and an absolutely delectable girl from the back of beyond who throws caution to the wind and all the value systems she was brought up with and in an edgy end sequence makes it to the train and her love. There were so many films that reached out to us and touched us in ways that linger on in the inner most recesses of the mind, the images fresh and poignant and the emotions they evoked, vibrant and true, decades later.

That was the cinema as it was – no digital sound, no surround systems, no Panavision, no special effects, no great stunts and no digital imaging. Without all these stunning aids, cinema was still a powerful force, changing and shaping lives of millions of cinemagoers all over the world. It was magic at its most incredible and nothing quite said it as eloquently as the sight of the blank, white screen when the credits had stopped rolling and The End had finally registered its presence on the 400 odd accolytes who had watched another world unfolding. Then, still reeling from the experience, we would shuffle out into the hot summer nights or cold winter evenings, mostly silent or constantly flitting from scene to scene, the comments, the critique and the praise flowing fast and free. For all of us who had been bitten by the bug, the cinema was real and it was life. There were no two ways about it. Many of us can recall the first Cinemascope film and the totally new dimension it presented. Suddenly the white screens had become larger and wider and sitting up close posed complicated problems. When Victor Mature’s Sitting Bull opened in all its Cinemascope glory, we had to follow the actors as they made their way across the screen. Left to right was now a big journey and if a door opened at the right edge, everyone craned their necks that way to catch whoever was coming in, then following his or her progress across the screen till the actor stopped or left by the door on the other side. Of course the fights were complicated to follow unless you were way at the back from which vantage point, things looked fantastic.

Though the cinemas of that period were not lavishly appointed, they were in fairly good condition all things considered. It is true that when a friend, who owned two cinemas in my hometown was persuaded against his better business sense, to run Lawrence of Arabia (because we wanted to see it without paying for it), there were torn seats after the patience of the crowd ran out three hours after seeing Peter O’Toole on the screen in Arab garb. Hercules Unchained was quickly brought in the same week and sanity was restored amongst the diehard cinemagoers. Projection was pretty reliable, though the incidents of film snapping or worse, power failure were not uncommon. At this point, the lower stalls would erupt in a frenzy of catcalls, whistles and choice expletives for the wretched film operator. For some reason, the abuse was always hurled at ‘Baana’ who was the projectionist in one of the cinemas but who was roundly abused in every cinema, years after he was dead and gone. He had become generic long before his time was up!

As the years rolled on, the quality of the cinema halls began to deteriorate and in that sad decline, the cinema going public dwindled. No longer was it fashionable to be seen in The Plaza at the double staircase, particularly after the evening or night shows were over and the pretty girls, firmly escorted by protective parents and embarrassed brothers, made fleeting appearances before climbing into their Morris, Austin or Fiat cars. Gradually, the great Hollywood classics and the popular British comedies started to fade, replaced by offerings from Golden Harvest, Hong Kong. Karate arrived and things were never quite the same. Before long, the halls fell victims to neglect. Paint started to peel, the grand curtains gave way to tacky, glitzy gauze or cheap satin, the air conditioning disappeared, smoking began in earnest, the sound quality fell, replaced by volumes strong enough to blow people out of their seats and every marketing malpractice flourished. No longer was it possible for any romantic scene to unfold without the populace going berserk and it took no more than a few seconds for the mob to start shouting, were action replaced briefly by dialogue. A new age had taken over everything. All that was left to give cinemas the coup de grace was the arrival of television. Suddenly, The Forsythe Saga and Star Trek had viewers riveted to their 14 inch black and white TV sets with bad sound thrown in. The magical world of the cinema had been simply eliminated. A new breed of cine goers emerged and dutifully, appropriate films were mass-produced to satiate their hunger for vulgarity and violence. So when Neeli gyrated on the screen, so did a few hundred men in the lower stalls and quite regularly, the upper ones as well, a truly democratic way of being. Groping hands rose high till they were in line with the projection lights and another kind of interactive cinema came into its own, as Neeli was caressed, molested and probed by dozens of searching hands.

The Titanic changed the balance again and suddenly the crowds surged back. In Lahore, for instance, they were astonished to find a modern auditorium, comfortable seats, rich carpeting, clean bathrooms and great sound and picture quality. As the word spread, families that had abandoned cinema halls began to return, slowly and uncertainly, still scared of what the mobs would say or worse still, do. Now cineclubs are beginning to come up and it is a bold beginning, but it promises standards that are available at any good theatre in any good city abroad but which have been absent from our country for well over thirty years. The new venture is pricey but going to the movies abroad costs a packet and proportionately the price tag is acceptable. The true cinema fan is prepared to give his heart again but afraid that it might be broken once more. There is no denying however, that the lure of the big screen is hard to resist for long, whatever the consequences.