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The
Eagle Theatre—Bollywood in Jackson Heights
By Wade Nacinovich
They come in smallish American cars, taxis
and car service vehicles filled with their extended families of
Indian, Pakistani and Bengali cinephiles (not to mention a few loyal
members of the West Indian diaspora), who unload in front of the
Eagle Theater in Jackson Heights, Queens just before showtime to
see the latest Bollywood
hit coming out of Bombay. The Eagle Theater is the obvious destination
of their outing as they no sooner have left the back seat of the
car, untangling themselves from their grandmother or siblings, than
they cross the street to get a better look at the marquis and posters
hanging in the entrance. Not only is this day's feature, Hamara
Dil Aapke Paas Hai (Where the Heart Is) the object of their excitement,
but coming soon to the Eagle Theatre is, Karobaar (The Business
of Love) and Beti No. 1 (Beti No. 1).
The posters in the lobby are small and
surprisingly discreet being that they advertise features renown
for over-the-top melodrama. A few steps in from the chaotic street
life of Jackson Heights, the environment changes and the theater
has the smalltown feel of movie houses in towns surrounded by lots
and lots of open spaces, except for everyone's ethnicity and the
tubs of samosas that sit warming next to nachos at the concession
stand. Over the entranceway there is a very small LCD screen announcing,
"Welcome to the Eagle Theater." It's the kind of place that charges
eight dollars for a ticket (which simply says, "Keep This Coupon")
but will discount the price so that the total enables the ticket
guy to give back a large bill to the purchaser when he doesn't have
enough small bills for change.
The inside of the theater is split into
a front section and a section behind it that rises from floor level
and functions as a quasi-balcony. It is here where mostly everyone
sits, unless you arrive late and find it hard to seat your large
family, whereupon you are exiled to the front of the theater. Before
the film starts, the action is already starting on a video projection
machine that shows an array of elaborately choreographed videos
of Indian popular music. The love scenes from these videos, as well
as other Bollywood films I have seen, are similar to soft pornography
except that in soft porn the erotic currency is exposed flesh and
in the former it's melodrama. Both videos and films show how prurient
melodrama really can be.
After the videos, advertisements for
local businesses are played. An advertisement for a computer training
institute follows the ad for Resham Silk, a sari store. Resham Silk
offers the finest silks and saris and Access Computer Training,
ten percent Early Bird Discounts and H-1 visas. Another trailer
announces the opening of a concert film that shows a complete concert
of famed Sufi Qawwali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. For further information,
one can  go
to what has to be one of the longest website addresses on record:
www.rahatnusratfatehalikhan.com.
Directly after this ad, in colors that make even the palette of
Hindu religious iconography look bland, the ultimate South Asian
web site appears on screen: www.chaitime.com.
The ad promises that there, web surfers will "meet the girl of your
parents' dreams."
After about a half-hour of this, I doubted
that I would have the necessary endurance to survive melodrama's
staple medium, the plentiful, spontaneous, and heart-felt explanatory
song and dance numbers of love or woe. On the day I  attended,
"Where the Heart Is" was playing, a Boney Kapoor production
directed by Satish Kaushik. Like the films of Robert Bresson, seeing
the films of Boney Kapoor and Satish Kaushik on the big screen is
a must. But even knowing this, I only survived until the intermission
(the lights came up and just when I thought I had endured to the
end, I saw the word, "Intermission" flashed up on the screen).
Even though I didn't see the film through
to its end, I did learn a number of things about Indian culture
according to the Bollywood standard. If you are a man and want to
vent your anger, thereby displaying your machismo, you simply confront
your enemy and slap him several times across the face. If you really
are pissed, you go to his wedding, slap him the obligatory few times,
(to get things underway properly), push him to the ground and kick
him.
Also, there is an amusement park in India
that looks vaguely like Disneyland in the nineteen-seventies and
also which functions as a strange enclave of American culture. In
one song and dance sequence alone, I saw ads for Wrigleys Chewing
gum on a choo-choo train ride, Fuji Film on a log flume and McDonalds
which the happy family ate as a mid-afternoon snack, that followed
a lunch of chicken tikka. There was even a ride called the "Breakdance."
And although the film was not in English, the characters had a penchant
for English idiom. There was obvious cache in knowing how to say,
"Excuse me," "Thanks," "Apple juice," "Okay folks," "That's my house,"
"That's good news," "What a bloody shame," "Don't be silly," "What
I mean to say," "No use crying over spilt milk," "Oh my God!" "nightwatchman,"
and "prostitute." And even in the audience there was a women exclaiming
now and then in accented English, "Oh my god," when surprised, and
"That's right!" in response to especially dramatic speeches.
Salmon Rushdie writes in Midnight's Children
of life's capacity to imitate bad art and perhaps in Jackson Heights
in the Eagle Theater there is hope in seeing a glimmer of his literary
insight in action.
For the latest shows at Eagle Theater,
call 718 205-2800
For a map to Eagle Theater, click here.
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