Visuals of fans singing, dancing, and clapping during the screenings took over our social media feed. This is significant at a time when our favourite topic of conversation about contemporary, mainstream Hindi cinema is its poor performance at the box office.

Amitabh Bachchan just turned 80 and a film retrospective was organised by the Film Heritage Foundation across the country to commemorate this event. A lot of people including those that we personally know turned up to see these films screened at a select multiplex. Footage from the screenings of some of Bachchan’s popular films, like Deewar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Don, Kala Patthar amongst others, was shared several times on social media. Jaya Bachchan, the lead actor of Mili and Bachchan’s spouse, went to a special screening in Mumbai. Visuals of fans thronging the theatre, singing, dancing, and clapping during the screenings took over our social media feed. These were expressions of unabashed joy and Hindi cinema fan behaviour at the movies that we haven’t witnessed in recent times. A film viewer said the experience blurred the lines between single-screen and multiplex film viewing — at the latter, fans are deemed to behave with greater “sophistication”.

I think of this as significant, especially at a time when our favourite topic of conversation about contemporary, mainstream Hindi cinema is its poor performance at the box office. If audiences are averse to going to theatres to watch films, how or why did they make an exception for Bachchan’s old films? Many of them went to the theatres to watch films that they must have watched before, perhaps several times on television. I also read tweets and Facebook posts by younger people who perhaps went to the theatre to see many of these films which they have not seen on the big screen or only heard of as part of Hindi cinema film lore. Many of these films have also gained significance as iconic texts of Hindi cinema in film studies discourse. For the young and the old alike, was it akin to reliving history? Or was it just an act of indulging nostalgia?

A friend also said that these films document a time in the country’s history that is long gone. The “Angry Young Man” Amitabh Bachchan is now old. There’s not much to talk about in his recent screen appearances, including his most recent release, Goodbye which didn’t make any box office or critical dent. Today’s India is also very different from the country which gave rise to the “Angry Young Man”. Are we then commemorating a hero who is long dead? Or do the younger generations associate him with the spirit of resistance that was on display in various protests held in the country in recent times?

I hear that the Film Heritage Foundation has plans to organise more such events in the future. A festival of Dilip Kumar films is up next. The historical impulse of such events cannot be overlooked. They create awareness, but any kind of uncritical veneration should be handled with caution. My point is that the screening of old films at multiplexes is a very interesting phenomenon.

I, of course, mean “old” in terms of the release date, not in terms of the aesthetics or contemporary relevance. For instance, is Guru Dutt old or contemporary? I do not know if this will help to bring audiences back to the theatres but at a time when mainstream Hindi cinema leaves a lot to be desired, perhaps these yesteryear films can help to counter the narrative advanced by a breed of new films focussed on resurrecting India’s lost glory through mythological topics and biopics. For the youth, this practice might give them the opportunity to compare the Hindi films of today with those made in the past and assess why and how Hindi cinema has changed, whether for the better or for the worse.

- Kunal Ray, Assistant Professor – English Literature