House Full

Film studies have traditionally focused on texts, meanings, techniques, and appreciation/criticism. Now, we have in House Full an ethnography of movie-going and movie-goers, in India of all places (Bangalore), where the focus has been shifted away from the movie-as-product to the study of patterns of social behavior in production, marketing, and consumption of film. India is a place of surprises, and that goes for movie theatres and film patronage: House Full presents a raucous, multi-ethnic, multi-class tableau. You would guess the audience is Srinivas's focus, and that is accurate, because in India they have a role in choosing, buying tickets for, and sitting through and reacting to movies (participating loudly and interactively) that differs from what North Americans are used to. Srinivas's interviews with audience members (across ethnic and class lines), distributors, movie theater managers, and also the actors, directors, writers, and other production crew make for fascinating comparisons to what we in the west are used to. The interactional character of her study places it firmly in the tradition of the Chicago School of sociology. Lest we forget, meanwhile, India is the largest producer of feature films worldwide, with the largest market in terms of films produced and audiences reached (selling 4 billion tickets annually).