Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (47 page)

FIGURE 27
Security guard in the lobby of Cinemax Versova, 2006. Photo by the author.

FIGURE 28
Advertising the seating in the Red Lounge, the Cinemax chain’s exclusive and ultra-premium auditorium, 2006. Photo by the author.

All of the amenities and luxury of the multiplex come with a hefty price tag; the ticket rates at multiplexes are significantly higher than those at single-screen cinemas. Between 2007 and 2010, the average
ticket prices at the main national chains ranged from 110 to 130 rupees, compared with 20 to 60 rupees at single-screen cinemas.
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In a high-cost city like Bombay, average ticket prices in 2009 at both types of theaters were even higher—ranging from 175 to 300 rupees at multiplexes and 50 to 110 rupees for single-screens.
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The practice of assigned seating, which marks the Indian film-going experience, is maintained in multiplexes, and the differential pricing of tickets is taken to a new level, with completely elastic or demand-sensitive pricing. Ticket prices can vary by film, time of day, day of week, seat location, choice of screen, and week of a film’s run.

While the architectural distinctions between balcony, dress circle, and stalls (orchestra level) that segment the physical space of the monumentally large single-screen theaters—thus providing the basis for the differential ticket rates—do not exist in the much smaller individual auditoria of multiplexes, distance from the screen still serves as a form of distinction for
ticket prices
. Most multiplexes have two or three rates of admission, based on seat location even in theaters with seating capacities as low as 150. Unlike the standardized single-screen categorization of “stalls, upper stalls, dress circle, and balcony,” however, the language used by multiplexes to describe their different classes of seating varies across chains and conveys a sense of luxury and top-quality treatment. For example, Fame Cinemas classifies its seating using terms like “premier,” “silver,” “royal,” “gold,” “executive,” and “jubilee,” where the ticket rates— rather than the designations—reveal the internal spatial hierarchies of the theaters. Many multiplexes escalate their level of luxury and exclusivity by offering premium seating, such as single or double—referred to as “couples”—leather recliners at the very back of the auditorium, along with pillows and blankets to ward off the chill of the air conditioning. In the case of the large urban centers of Bombay, Delhi, or Calcutta, the scale of exclusivity is boosted further with the creation of entirely separate, ultra-upscale auditoriums with even smaller seating capacities and attendant premium amenities such as leather loveseats, seat-side food and beverage service, and separate waiting or lounge areas. The description on Fame Cinema’s website of one of their multiplexes in Calcutta (Kolkata) communicates the extent to which cinema-going, specifically the multiplex version of it, is envisioned, packaged, and marketed as a highly elite and privileged experience: “The palace is built; the butlers are ready. Your Throne is waiting. Welcome to Fame South City: the first 6-screen ultra-luxurious multiplex in Kolkata. Far removed from the ordinary, with elegance and opulence tastefully made for Kolkata’s supreme appe
tite. The Gold Class Screen is one of the six screens luxuriously spaced out. . . with [only] 74 lavish fitted recliners that stretch to 150 degrees at the press of a button. Butlers serve you at your seat in the screen and at the attached Gold Lounge, exclusively for Gold Class patrons.”
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The references to gold, thrones, palaces, and butlers reveal how the marketing aphorism “the customer is king” is realized literally in the space of this particular multiplex. The cost for such a cinematic experience was 400 rupees per ticket ($29.80—PPP) for an evening or night show time in 2010. Since cinema-going is a deeply social experience in India, however, usually involving large groups of people who are frequently kin, the price of one ticket does not adequately convey the expenses incurred in seeing a film; therefore, when estimating the average expense involved in seeing a movie at a multiplex, it would be necessary to multiply the ticket cost at least four to five times, resulting in a considerable outlay of money.

Citing the high cost of admission, during my research visits to Bombay in 2005 and 2006 I asked the owners of multiplexes whether cinema-going was being transformed into an exclusively elite pastime. Many pointed to the existence of single-screen theaters as evidence that cinema-going was still affordable, not acknowledging the pressures facing single-screens: either to close down or convert into multiplexes. Shravan Shroff, the managing director of Fame Cinemas, argued that cinema-going was generally an expensive proposition anywhere in the world. Reminding me that, as a New York City resident, I definitely should understand that cinema-going is not a cheap enterprise, he focused on the necessity of recovering the investment in constructing multiplexes:

In terms of the expenses in building a multiplex, the land itself is usually leased rather than bought, and the costs of the structure are calculated either in terms of a per-seat cost or a per-screen cost. In 2009, the average
cost was 70,000 rupees per seat or 20 million rupees per screen. Shroff stated that a “really nice, fancy facility” cost about a 100,000 rupees per seat. With regard to their cost and location, multiplexes are obviously identified with and cater to the “classes” segment of the film industry’s audience binary.

While Shravan Shroff cited the costs of building and maintaining multiplexes as a reason for their high rates, his father, Shyam Shroff, focused on the quality of the entire viewing experience
at
multiplexes. He criticized the longstanding view in India that films were the cheapest form of entertainment: “See, unfortunately we’ve been taking our movies, treating them as dirt. We thought it’s our birthright to see movies at whatever price we want to pay—that was wrong, after all it’s a business.” Shroff argued that multiplexes were able to charge higher rates because of a superior quality of service, as a result of the class and education levels of its employees and the willingness of customers to pay:

Shroff likened the distinction between watching a film in a multiplex versus a single-screen as similar to the different classes of train travel— first class, second class, and third class—that exist in India, wherein the multiplex was like the first-class compartment of a train and the singlescreen was akin to the second-and third-class areas of a train. Just as passengers pay more to travel first-class with the expectation of a more comfortable and pleasurable journey, audiences pay for a more pleasant viewing experience in a multiplex. Part of that pleasant viewing (or traveling) experience is based on the absence of working-class audiences, whose mode of inhabiting the space are represented as abhorrent to more elite patrons. “If I’m watching a good movie, like a well-educated guy, well-established, I don’t want the taxi-driver or the
rikshaw-wallah
[rickshaw driver] to come and sit next to me, chewing
paan
[betel leaf] and spitting. I want a better atmosphere, so what will I do? I’ll spend
more and go to a better outlet” (Shyam Shroff, interview, January 2005). Shroff’s statements are similar to
Film Information
editor Komal Nahta’s observations about prohibitively expensive ticket rates in the balcony sections of single-screen theaters producing a better viewing experience for social elites.
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In the case of single-screens, however, while wealthier viewers were assured that members of a lower socio-economic stratum would not be sitting next to them, their presence was still perceptible within the larger space of the theater. Multiplexes ensure that a “better atmosphere” for socially elite viewers involves the complete erasure of poorer and working-class viewers from the space of the movie theater.
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While the multiplexes have been praised for their amenities, customer service, and material comforts, some members of the film industry have not been as sanguine about the larger social impact of the multiplex. Although a minority perspective, it is worth noting because it speaks to the larger social experience of cinema. Screenwriter Anjum Rajabali was ambivalent about the emergence and growth of multiplexes in India. Acknowledging that multiplexes had expanded the possibilities of more unconventional filmmaking, Rajabali nevertheless was critical of their overall impact: “What is it doing in the long run according to me? It has somehow taken the charm of democratic viewing away—I mean rubbing shoulders, within an Indian community: it was a microcosm. You attack any theater and you would find such a nice cross-section of people enjoying the same fare, maybe with different kind of rigor and different kind of externalization, but it was there and you related to that.
Arre, is baar seeti
bajayenge, aah, maza aayega
[Hey, this time we’ll whistle; and yeah, it’ll be fun]. It’s gone, you know? And that is my personal grouse” (Rajabali, interview, May 2006). Aditya Khanna, the manager of the Chanakya Cinema— a stalwart single-screen cinema located in an affluent part of New Delhi—made a similar point in an op-ed piece he wrote for the Englishlanguage daily
Indian Express
as a part of its feature commemorating the tenth anniversary of Delhi’s first multiplex: “From a business standpoint, it’s not rocket science: running a multiplex in India is a far better economic proposition than a single-screen cinema, but from the cinematic standpoint. . . a movie watched at a multiplex cannot be compared to one watched in a single-screen theatre. That is because cinema itself is a community experience. It’s about watching a film with many other people in a given ambience” (Khanna 2007). Distinct from the discourses of comfort, service, and class segregation outlined by Shroff, Khanna defined viewing pleasure in terms of the presence of large numbers of people who hail from diverse class backgrounds:

The large seating capacities of single-screens, which allow for varied audiences sand the community experience that Khanna celebrates, is the very feature that has been heavily criticized by most quarters of the film industry and the Indian press. By contrast, the smaller seating capacities of multiplexes that Khanna criticizes are hailed as the impetus for a cinematic revolution.