A reel I watched recently ended with the question, ‘how do you feel about there being so few 70mm IMAX theatres?’
I don’t. Not really. I live in a place where I did not even have to Google if we had one. I already knew we didn’t. That does not fill me with considerable grief because I truly could not care less. You might be thinking, ‘well perhaps you don’t care about films or Nolan’s direction enough?’
Partly yes. I do love watching movies and logging them on my Letterboxd but why should I lament not being able to experience Nolan’s movies ‘the way Nolan intended’ if Nolan’s intention never had me in mind?
However this has created a certain amount of uproar among viewers, with a lot of reels talking about how art is less accessible for the poor which is ultimately translating to many realising how everything is less accessible for the poor.
But the ‘poor’ people in question HERE are not objectively poor people. The concentration of 70mm Imax theatres is in the US. The few others are scattered across Canada and Europe. The criteria considered in the reel I saw for being included in the phrase ‘poor people’ is literally either not have a 70mm Imax theatre or not even be able to travel to one. That is a big chunk of the population considering only about 41 Imax theatres equipped with 70mm screens exist.
So let me tell you this, if you are not being able to have an authentic experience, you are not automatically poor. The people who have been able to view the Odyssey (in its not-so-ideal ratio) in the first few weeks in many places but especially in India (where I’m from) mostly cannot be considered poor. Tickets that are skyrocketing to 2-3k each in the metro cities are definitely not something that the average Indian income can afford. As a resident of a Tier 2 city in India, I had to pay about 500rs in order to watch the movie, which is honestly expensive. All of these prices are without theatres equipped with the ideal screen to even watch the movie.
Why then are people so bothered by the ratio and what it robs people of? A large part of this sudden awakening of the consciousness to the fact that poor people have less access seems to be because this time it is a question of availability rather than affordability. And unavailability is inconvenience. Unavailability requires systematic reforms not individual wealth.
The reason I talked about the viewers financial status in these first few weeks of release is because it explains the uproar. Who does this ‘Nolan intended’ viewing experience exclude? People who have mostly never been excluded from such experiences. It excludes the European countries that have always held privileges, residents of countries with such theatres who still do not have it available anywhere near them and privileged, financially well-off people from other countries who usually are able to partake in the consumption of art as intended because they can afford it. However, affordability cannot compensate for availability.
Lastly, the reason I wrote this entire article. This sudden realisation of the fact that poor people have less access feels like an insult when it has been repeated and stressed continuously without yielding much response from the same people previously.
There are literal wars, protests and genocides happening but if you were moved only by a luxury experience excluding you, that’s just sad. If we cannot contemplate suffering unless we identify with it, unless we are affected by it, what good does empathy do? If this viewing experience included audience in the American and European continents whilst excluding ‘the global south', no such uproar would happen.
This questioning of Nolan’s direction does not arise out of a conversation about how art is progressively getting less accessible for the poor, it is born out of the inconvenience of the affluent who thought they were on the ‘right side’ of the exclusion.
