For many in India, their first movie wasn’t in an air-conditioned, terraced, multiplex, or on a TV screen hooked up to a VCR. It was shown to them by a travelling cinema, a truck with multiple aging film projectors bolted to its floor, and a team of projectionists who lived in it.
This was the opposite of a drive-in theater; instead of driving to the screen and watching from your car, the film came to you, but stayed in its vehicle.
Shashwati fondly remembers her experiences with this dying breed of entrepreneurs:
These companies were commercial ventures with ancient 35 mm projectors, they would go to where the audience was, set up a screen and show a movie. When I was in school, that is how films used to be shown to us. Mr. Movie Man (we actually called him that) would come with a projector and usually an ancient Tarzan movie. We would re-arrange our chairs, and take down the partition between the classrooms …Once, by mistake, Mr. Movie Man put in a French film, it was fading and probably from 1960. It wasn’t anything special. A woman in a long coat and sunglasses walked into a beach cabin. She sat there, and then a man came in. And he kissed her, on the mouth! After that first kiss, there was either deadly silence or a collective gasp, then the lady took off her clothes, not all of them, but enough for the film to be stopped and reel yanked out. Then we were back to seeing “savages” and a full grown man leaping through trees, something much more salubrious for our tender psyches. [Shashwati]
A few years later, the film projector was gone and replaced with a VCR, and by that time I was gone from the lovely grade school I had attended into the Convent. And that is how I first saw the “The Evil Dead,” on the feast day of the patron saint of our house. [Shashwati]
Photographer Jonathan Trogovnik captures some of the lyrical images associated with these travelling salemen of dreams: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. If you like these pictures, he has a whole book of photos related to India and the popular culture of the cinema [Thumbnails of selected images]. I’m quite fond of this homage to Gandhi and his spinning wheel, myself.
this story is so touching. i know i’m going to get clobbered for publicly saying so, but i think ideas like this are so precious. it almost makes me sad that as India becomes more modern, these celluloid caravans will become obsolete. yes, yes, i want everyone to live in a lovely, advanced world, with every advantage that i have…but there’s something haunting about those faces at the gate, anticipating magic.
when my parents went to the movies 40+ years ago, it was a big deal. they still haven’t forgotten how special it felt. meanwhile, half a world away from trucks that transport thrills and reels to remote villages, my two-year old godson is an old-hand with the DVD player. he’s blase as he gazes at the screen. there’s just less stuff to get excited over, and the the way the young men’s faces looked drove that home for me.
(i’d add the link to the picture i was so captivated by, but i can’t connect to the journalist’s site for some reason…i’ll edit this later)
The story of Mohamad Salim and his 107-year film projector is even more touching.
Link1 Link2 Link3
i agree w/ you anna, while its great to see india improving astronomically each yr, there’s always something special about the old ways in which India operated, so unique, so personal. This is why I get really upset when Bollywood movies try so hard to be Hollywood types, shooting movies outside of india on a constant basis, racier, sex-driven movies….I loved the old days of movies (by old days i mean 70s/80s) where the concept of a love story/spaghetti western/musical/comedy all rolled into one was so unique and utterly “desi”