Movies and Memories
The Guardian, reviewing Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation [1] says that “he likes looking under the bonnet and pulling at the fabric, showing how a film was put together. As a critic, it transpires, Tarantino writes exactly as he speaks, in a torrent of information and opinions; fuelled by breathless enthusiasm and unexplained grudges, rhetorical questions and full-throttle digressions. He’s frequently at loggerheads with the films that he loves. Tarantino’s celebration of Taxi Driver, is very nearly a roast. Having convincingly established the film as essentially a “paraphrased remake” of John Ford’s “The Searchers”, he can’t resist slamming what he regards as its compromised racial politics and accusing Martin Scorsese of hypocrisy for his pious stance on screen violence.
My transition from a boy who lapped up movies indiscriminately to a discerning cineaste started when I was in the high school, thanks to a very persistent motivator; Appu, our driver who was madly in love with Hollywood. Every Sunday morning was a time for the morning show and the local Star theatre would have arranged for a western or a romance. Appu had no particular preference, as he would sit immersed in the happenings on the screen. He did not understand a single word of what was being spoken and once confessed to me that what he liked was the overall ambience and style and the goings about and that he was not concerned with the theme or the story. I am convinced that he would have done very well as a Bollywood movie producer.
Another providential happening that conspired to keep me glued to the silver screen was my being sent to Trivandrum to study for my pre-university degree. The theatre in Trivandrum specializing in English movies was Sreekumar in Thampanoor. The owner of Sreekumar theatre was an ardent devotee of M. S. Subbalakshmi, a fact that he advertised to the world by ensuring that the song in praise of Murugan, “njanapazhathe pizhunthu” was the only song played before the movies started and during the interval. Since this was the only song in the Sreekumar repertoire, it got played at least a hundred times. We joked the owner was a perfectionist and was making MS sing the song until she got it right.
Sreekumar theatre would faithfully bring a new movie every week. My earlier acquaintance with the Hollywood staples got vigorously renewed. The selection ranged from dishum-dishum westerns like the Lone Ranger to classics like Gone with the Wind. There were great movies like Gary Cooper’s High Noon and the unforgettable Casablanca. I also remember admiring Disney’s Vanishing Prairie and other nature movies.
My acquaintance with Hitchcock started during this period. Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and Vertigo were all appreciated. Vertigo stars Jimmy Stewart as a private detective with a fear of heights and involved in a spiraling, self-consuming web of obsession with a mysterious blonde (Kim Novak). It’s now regarded as one of Hitchcock’s great movies. Stewart abandoned his characteristic easy-going all-American persona to portray a man driven to the edge of insanity by his obsession with a woman he fears he can never have. Novak is the epitome of Hitchcock’s icy blonde. Vertigo is thought to be Hitchcock’s most personal film, with the story as a metaphor for his obsession with his leading ladies. Vertigo is also noted for its innovative camera techniques to simulate the sensation of vertigo.
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect romance than William Wyler’s sad and sweet story of a night starring Audrey Hepburn playing a princess and Gregory Peck, a journalist she encounters during a night’s adventure. Co-written by blacklisted screenwriter Donald Trumbo, Roman Holiday saw Hepburn winning the Oscar for Best Actress. It’s perhaps the crown jewel of the star’s storied Hollywood legacy. Occasionally Salim theatre in Pattom was also favoured for movies like Picnic, Joshua Logan’s classic with William Holden, Rosalind Russel and Kim Novak, the smouldering Czech beauty.
Four years later, another phase of my movie-going started when I joined the Union Christian College at Alway for my postgraduate studies. The Sunday rendezvous was now with the Star Theatre in Cochin, a one-hour trip by bus. The theatre somehow got my name and address and they would send a postcard on additional attractions, which made me feel somehow obliged to go. This was also the time of my transformation to a cineaste, genuinely admiring the art and craft of movies. I also got interested in the technology of movie-making and started my collection of books on movie craft. I learned about the difference between Cinemascope, Vistavision and Todd-AO and the magic of the green screen technique.
I read about the technical aspects of a movie presentation, how the credits appear, etc. The animated spirals of Saul Bass’s title designs in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” nudge you to an effect of dizziness. Much later Dan Perri’s design of the text “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.…” crawling away at the beginning of Star Wars sets you up on a “Hero’s Journey” as interpreted by Joseph Campbell. To meet some unexplained urge, I started making a database of movies, like the names of the director, screenplay writer etc. written and rewritten many times originally in a small notebook and later transferred to library indexing cards. This interest in databases spread later to other types of information, like books and DVD collection.
The next stop was Kothamangalam where I did a two-year stint as a lecturer. The second year of my stay at Kothamangalam also coincided with Prof. M. P. Varghese taking over as the principal of the college. He asked me to set up a film club. I went to the RCA offices in Trivandrum to negotiate for the purchase of a 16-mm movie projector. We found a distributor in Cochin and the film club started to the great joy of students.
When I went to Ahmedabad in the early seventies, the first thing I checked out was the movie situation and was relieved to note that a few theatres like Natraj were regularly showing English movies. McKenna’s Gold and the French Connection were movies I still remember. Ahmedabad had a great choice in movie houses, including India’s first drive-in theatre.
In the eighties, the western side of Ahmedabad began an explosive growth, with shopping malls and multiplexes springing up everywhere. By this time, I had built a house in Bopal, further to the west. Proximity bred affection and our afternoons became a celebration of movie going.
On trips abroad to attend scientific conferences, I have continued to feed the movie addiction. I remember that on my first trip to Los Angeles; I went to a theatre in Westwood, which was premiering George Redford’s movie, The Sting, starring Paul Newman. What I found touching was the audience standing up at the end of the movie and clapping in appreciation. Another memory was sitting in a theatre in Gothenburg, where we had gone to attend the International Conference in Plasma Physics and seeing ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ with a Swedish soundtrack on a rainy afternoon. Another memory is that of standing outside a theatre in Soho, waiting to buy a ticket to see ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ and being told by a stranger to watch for the scene where Amrish Puri, a thuggee leader, lounges at Harrison Ford brandishing a sword and Ford shoots him dead. Ever a Tarzan fan, I remember seeing Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes starring Christopher Lambert as Tarzan and the comely Andie MacDowell as Jane.
Another surge of movie-going happened when I spent close to a year in Vienna. Haydn Kino is a theatre on Mariahilferstrasse which brought a new English movie every week and is conveniently connected to where I lived by the subway.
After returning to Kottayam, I discovered the delight of watching recent movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime in the pleasant confines of my study. I discovered sites like [www.xmovies8.com](https://www.xmovies8.com) and [www.gomovies.com](https://www.gomovies.com) where old Hollywood classics are available for free viewing.
Movies, like books, broaden one’s mind, allow one to explore all possible and even impossible worlds and allow one to go on vicarious journeys of exploration, quest and conquest. Movies allow us to explore our minds to escape reality and to experience and feel things denied to us in the real world. It’s not every day you’re going to be caught up in a car chase down a military runway or fly a bicycle with an alien.
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