Cinemas outside texts: The mise-en-scene in publicity images and theaters of spectacle

Abstract

This working note comments on a range of immensely important archival material found as glass negatives, which are primarily publicity material of the 1950s and 1960s. What at the outset appeared like abstract black and white images, emerged as posters, brochures and lobby cards or advertisements for the display in the cinema halls. This finding set off a number of queries, connected to the problems of technology, industry, film cultures and aesthetics. Studying the specific uses of glass negatives for publicity purposes and micro-narratives of cinemas, this note argues for new methods to analyse the complex relationships between Hindi melodramas, film technologies, industries and Bazaar art, and the ways in which their paths cross in the theatre lobbies. The aim here is to find new approaches to write film histories by looking into the thick terrain that lies outside the cinematic text.