Something slippery: A speculative history of Calcutta cinemas through court-room documents

This article refers to legal documents, of the Calcutta High Court, to show how the history of cinema is entangled with matters of land, property, and labour issues, in which the subject of gender plays a decisive role. On one hand, much of the readings of the celluloid-era and single-screen cinemas are smeared with tints of nostalgia and are laced with mourning of sorts; on the other, more thorough studies of cinemas, cinema-going and viewership often consider technological shifts as a dominant reason for the so-called ‘death of cinema’. Legal documents, however, demonstrate in what ways transfer of property, monetary disputes, complicated contracts, losses, tax-evasion, unpaid bills, loans, labour rights’ movement – the question of Capital and more – led to the closure of many cinemas across India, and formation of new commercial spaces. The legal papers also illustrate in what way neighbourhoods of Calcutta, like the North and Centre, were dotted with manifold industrial networks including those of the Bazaar, cinema, and sex-work. It is within such disputed and dis-reputed contexts that the cinemas became a site of longing and belonging, and a range of para-legal activities. This article addresses the hydra-headed nature of the cinematic in the city, and elsewhere, and stitches multiple narratives via a single keyword, the ‘cinema’, to underscore how cinemas became a historical ‘alibi’ – a place to be.