In Focus 2022 Follow up blog

This post was written by Erica Jones and Lydia Creech, Project Film Specialists in the Moving Image Department. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services: Grant #MA-245614-OMS-20. Visit www.imls.gov. Learn more about the grant in our previous post: Cinema Refugees: Conserving and Preserving South Asian Film.

Thank you to everyone who attended our In Focus presentation on Aug 5th! If you missed it, please see the presentation embedded below:

As we are finished processing all the Indian films in the South Asian Cinema Collection, we wanted to reflect on our experiences during the course of this project. One of the most enjoyable things about getting to work on this collection was the way it sparked interest in seeing these Indian films and new releases outside of those in the collection, which only goes up to the year 2013. We decided to seek out the very newest Indian films in theaters around Rochester, as sort of a followup to the actors and franchises we have in the collection.

One of the most memorable moments was when a film started and we realized we knew those production companies, directors, and actors. It felt like we were really able to judge good and bad films as well as acting!

Major Indian film releases tend to come out over major holidays, much like blockbusters in America tend to come out on long weekends and federal bank holidays. For Diwali 2021, the next big thing was a Rohit Shetty directed action film starring Akshay Kumar called Sooryavanshi.

While Erica and Lydia seem to always enjoy Akshay Kumar films along with millions of his fans worldwide, his films are not always appreciated.

“UUGH, Akshay Kumar is horrible.” — Ruhi Khan, Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

“AHHH isn’t he the one with bad teeth!” — Nancy Kauffman, Stills, Posters, and Paper Archivist

However, we enjoy these films even though they are often considered “Time Pass” films characterized by big casts, complicated plots, and many cameos.

Sooryavanshi was the latest in the franchise of films all directed by Rohit Shetty referred to as the Cop Cinematic Universe. This franchise, including TV shows and web series, consists of media which focuses on police officers. We are lucky to have the first film Singham from 2011 in our collection.

In really good shape, this film stars popular actor Ajay Degvn, as a good cop fighting corruption in the police force…while falling in love, singing and dancing, and beating the bad guys with a light post. (We suggest watching this film on Netflix.) Enjoy some images from our inspection.

We did not necessarily know what a huge success this series was when we picked Sooryavanshi to see in the theater and were not fully prepared for the experience!

“IS this how it is in India?” — Jeff Stoiber, Assistant Curator of The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation

To describe the experience:

The theater was packed with families representing whole generations of grandparents, parents with kids, young couples, and rowdy friend groups (This included our small continuent from GEM!!!). Before, during and after the lights went down, little kids were running up and down the aisles and playing Nintendo Switch while their parents got into the film.

There were three moments which really stick out for all of us which illustrate these films relate together and speak across generations and how audiences experience these films

1. Title and opening credits

When the film got going and into the first action sequence, the first appearance of Akshay Kumar when he steps off the police helicopter backed up by his loyal police posse to his own theme song (complete with trumpets), the crowd went WILD. He as an actor and as a character were literally greeted by cheers and whistling. American movies can have bombastic entrances, but audiences are generally quiet, even in something like a Marvel movie. This level of enthusiasm continued throughout the entire 3 hour film.

2. Song and Dance

Song and dances are extremely important to most Bollywood films. They emphasize the changing relationship between characters and provide background for different important storylines. The main romantic song and dance sequence’s opening melody, between Akshay Kumar and leading lady Katrina Kaif, caused instant recognition from the crowd, who screamed/sang along. Lydia was surprised because it was a brand new film’s opening weekend. How could the audience know all the lyrics already? However, in India the songs of films are released early to create buzz for the film and allow audiences to speculate about the costumes, choreography, and visual elements of the song. Unfortunately most often American audiences use these moments as bathroom breaks as most American theaters don’t pause for the intermission.

3. Cameos

The reason these series of films constitute a cinematic universe is that the characters from one show up in one another’s films, often to help out in a fight. Because the franchise is so big, each time one of these stars appears, they ALSO get a hero’s introduction and are greeted by cheers from the audience. The climactic fight has special cameo appearances from Ajay Devgn from Singham (2011) and Singham Returns (2014) and Ranveer Singh from Simmba (2018).

Lydia thought it was funny how the actors almost kept one-upping each other. Lots of ego and machismo on display!

Inspired by our theater experiences at Sooryavanshi, we also asked our interviewees if they had any good stories or memories of going to see Indian films in theaters, either in India or abroad. Some of their answers corroborated the experience we had, while others talked about the different types of theaters in India. Most of all, they emphasized how theater going is truly a communal experience for Indian audiences, from the way the narratives are structured to invite audience participation to the norms of crowd behavior.

Please enjoy the following edited material that we did not have time to include in the In Focus. If you enjoyed our interviewees, hear about their own personal theater experiences here.