Theatre
Amongst the many irrational fears of early childhood – being invited to play dates at friends’ houses, not being invited to play dates at friends’ houses, using the bathroom anywhere other than in my own home, broad beans cooked with potatoes – going to the movie theatre held a special place of terror in my mind. I was a timid child – loud sounds, fistfights and drama frightened me then as much as they entranced the adult me.
I liked Laurel and Hardy with the non stop laughter track and the jolly music. That was the limit to my cinematic choices. Some Disney movies were also bearable. Unfortunately, these movies were rarely on offer in movie theatres in small town Kerala of the seventies. There was possibly only one cinema that showed the rare English or Hindi movies. So any movie release from B- or H- wood was much anticipated by the non- Malayalam speaking inhabitants of Ernakulum.
My mother and brother were ardent movie buffs. They excitedly discussed each movie for weeks before it finally released, trashing the heroine’s wardrobe, ruining the hero’s reputation and gossiping about the director’s latest moll. The actual movie might last only three magical hours but provided enough material post-viewing for the conversation to carry on for the next few weeks. In an era when entertainment meant talking to each other, playing board games and endless hours of radio, music and movie magazines, the rare outing to the cinema was a highlight that was totally worth the wait.
The only dampener to the movie outing was a hysterical, irrational child – me. The mere mention of an outing to the theatre to watch a hindi movie was enough to set me off. I would weep and wail, refuse to listen to reason. I was not going to see a hindi movie. To be fair, each movie turned out to be a rehash of the same formula -plenty of fistfights, embarassing song sequences, and noise levels that hurt my ears. Mummy would cajole, brother would threaten but I remained obdurate – I was NOT going to see another movie. Ever. The two movie maniacs would grind their teeth in helpless frustration. There was nowhere to leave me, no babysitting. Either I went along or they didn’t see the movie.
Did I mention I was also a gullible child? As the excitement mounted with the news of a new movie release, the plans were laid out in hushed secretive conclaves from which I was excluded. Then the tall tales would be spun. THIS movie was supposed to be so funny. THIS movie had NO fights. THIS movie had no wailing mothers, or frightening villains. No, no, this was a movie made for little girls. Just like good old Laurel and Hardy. Only in hindi. And so on and on until I was completely taken in.
With pounding heart and trusting to the deity I still believed in, I would creep into the dark cavernous space. Immediately, all the fears would come rushing back. The sound of hundreds of smelly strangers – human and rodent – rustling and whispering in the fetid blackness that fell as the house lights dimmed. A packet of popcorn and a cold drink thrust into my clammy hands were no match for the interesting odours wafted my way by the ceiling fans whirring overhead. My family would settle down excitedly, making sotto voce bets over my head – how many dance numbers? how many fight sequences before the interval? I would cling to their false assurances, waiting for, if not Laurel and Hardy themselves, then at least Lajjo and Hiralal.
Ha!
The movie would turn out to have Amjad Khan or Ranjeet at their most villainous, Nirupa Roy weeping her eyes out over faithless sons and nasty in-laws and ‘Tight Pants’ Mithun Chakroborty or ‘Twinkle Toes’ Jeetendra romancing a truly frightening Reena Roy or Rekha, dolled up in gobs of pancake makeup and enough sequins to make the head spin. By the interval, even I’d have given up waiting for the simple slapstick.
As my mother and brother, only slightly shame-faced, plied me with fresh bribes in the form of cream cones and samosas, I would struggle between the urge to give Nirupaben a run for her money with the histrionics or to stoically accept my fate. Cream cones always helped stop the blubbering.
The first date I went on was also the first movie I saw without my family. It was a date only in that a classmate offered to give me a ride to the movie theatre where our entire class of thirty 10-year olds were to watch the morning show of The Jungle Book. Confronted on a Sunday morning by a belligerent 10 year old, my dad chose to play the affronted father, providing himself with enough amusement to make him chuckle even forty years later at the memory, frightening a little boy out of his wits and offering me the first of many opportunities to wish my family to perdition.
The conversation went something like this:
I have come to take your daughter for a movie. (Arms akimbo, much in the style of the pudgy local heroes of tinsel town)
My daughter? Which movie? Who are you? Which theatre? (Rising from his easy chair, brows starting to beetle)
I am ___________. I, I don’t know the name of the theatre. (His dad, waiting patiently in the car, presumably knew.)
What?? Which movie are you taking my daughter to see? (Towering over a by now cowed young lad)
I, I don’t remember…(wits fast fleeing).
My classmate, the poor chap, has never forgotten his ordeal. I am yet to forgive Dad for the cheap laughs at daughter’s expense. Still, Jungle Book was lovely and King Louie and the Beatlesque Vultures remain some of my favourite animated characters.
And slowly, I began to get over my fear of movie theatres. The factor that helped was always the soundtrack. Not so much the de riguer roller coaster of songs in hindi or tamil movies of the 1980s, relentless and without much point. But the music of the big ticket, mostly Hollywood movies, composed, calculated and cunning, so that the heart raced, the tears fell or the adrenaline surged as the movie unfolded.
Those first notes of a Star Wars movie. Do you remember the feeling when The Phantom Menace released? The original trilogy was long past, many of us had been too young when those movies released or only got to see the movies on scratchy videotapes. The Phantom Menace, may it rest in peace, was our first movie theatre experience of the famous yellow text scrolling away into deep space. What a moment. To hear the wind section strike up that clarion call as the sound system was cranked up in every movie theatre around the world.
Or the absolute suspense of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme, strangely titled Thus Spake Zarathustra. The few bars of music that the aliens used as a signal in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The lush romantic music of Flashdance or Footloose or An Officer and a Gentleman. The music was what I remembered best and enjoyed the most in any movie.
As I got older, I began to appreciate the collective experience of the movie theatre. Here is a captive audience. Here is the screen on which another human being will attempt to seduce us all with his version of life for approximately 110 minutes. Here we are, all eyes forward, waiting to give in to our senses, eager to give up free thought in return for fantasy and deep space, improbable cinderella stories and Middle Earth. Here, always, is the marvellous music. Hero from Boyhood, as the teenager drives away from home and into life. Immigrant Song from Thor Ragnarok – eerie and so convincing – surely the Norse Gods, horned helmets askew and blond braids flying, headbanged to just such a sound at Valhalla orgies? That AC/DC track you hear in every other action movie. You know which one I mean. What? You don’t? I’m thunder! thunder! THUNDERSTRUCK!! The entire soundtrack of Deadpool: damned if I wasn’t teary eyed as much from the amazing script and crazed humour as from Cher belting out the final credits track.
Hobbiton unfolding, a magical world, as we hear for the first time, the unforgettable theme to the Lord of the Rings. The beautiful sound of that flute, playing an enchanted melody, assured us sceptical fans of the Tolkein books that for once, the movie was not going to let us down.
Star Wars. LOTR. Pirates. All great movies with even better music. John Williams, Howard Shore and Ennio Morricone are rock stars in my book. The fabulous title songs from the spaghetti westerns. The rousing themes of Indiana Jones and James Bond. The only Linkin’ Park song I really love? What I’ve Done – from the first Transformers movie soundtrack.
Movies about the music. So many, so subjective. Three come to mind: Pirate Radio (especially as the crew sings Elenore to the bride), Rock of Ages (Don’t Stop Believing must be the most used and abused song in media) and School of Rock. I know the music movue buffs will dismiss my choices as too mainstream and popular but hey, you have Spinal Tap and The Last Waltz.
The popcorn, the bhelpuri, the faint miasma of disinfectant wafting from the washrooms. I miss these. But mostly I miss the loud boom of dolby surround sound, as that soundtrack kicks in. The music in the movies – without its magic, I’d still be the frightened kid in a hot, smelly movie theatre in Ernakulum, watching Surakksha, a B-grade action movie starring the gyrations of a wannabe dancing karate kid, when I’d been promised a laugh riot by the traitorous and enthralled movie buffs sitting on either side of me.
As we head into the last months of 2020, the movie theatre experience seems a distant dream. Will we ever sit again in camaraderie with hundreds of like-minded strangers, in a dark space lit up by dreams? Will the same smile break out on all our faces as the familiar theme tune begins to play? Will we all sit a little forward in our seats as the action unfolds? Will we collectively sigh as the credits roll? I sure hope so. I miss the theatre, the movies and most of all, the soundtracks booming out of that Dolby sound system.