The Last Glow of a Fading Screen
The single-screen theatre has been the emotional centre of Indian urban life for decades. It was the place where families sat down to watch Diwali blockbusters, where lovers had their first dates, and where whole neighborhoods came together under a single roof to drink in light and song and story. These spacious halls that were painted by hand, had ticket counters behind iron grilles and balconies in which the hero always entered, were not merely entertainment areas; they were social memory machines. These buildings today are closed or turned into malls, marriage halls, warehouses, and multiplex chains. The death of the single screen is not just a change of technology but a cultural disintegration, a gradual loss of community watching, communal identity, and the affective scaffoldings that previously knit Indian cities together.
The loss of these spaces is not sudden but is strangely silent. Whenever a theatre is closed, a part of the city's memory is lost, the type that is not recorded in any redevelopment plan. The single screen used to be a symbol of aspiration, a symbol of community, and now it is a relic, an architectural specter, reminding us that culture is not merely maintained by art but also by the spaces within which art is seen.
From Grand Halls to Glass Multiplexes: A Cultural Displacement
The architectural difference between single screens and modern multiplexes encapsulates how drastically India’s cultural experiences have transformed. Single screens were built like miniature opera houses — high ceilings, velvet curtains, chandeliers, echoing corridors, and wooden seats worn by decades of audiences. The architecture encouraged collectivity; balcony whistles, unified laughter and gasps, the synchronized clapping at interval moments created an atmosphere that was less about the film and more about being part of something greater.
By comparison, multiplexes, which had come to the fore very forcefully following the economic boom of the early 2000s, had transformed the cinema into a consumer experience, a packaged, sanitized one. Every hall appears to be the same, with recliner chairs, computerized ticket sales, and uniform interiors, which erodes regional identity. This change is not accidental but follows the mallification of urban India. According to the analysis of the exhibition culture provided by scholar Ira Bhaskar (Delhi University, 2019), multiplexes provide the so-called privatized spectatorship, when cinema is not a community ritual, but an individual activity. The shifting of communal halls to corporate boxes is an even greater cultural shift: from the collective social life to the individualized urban life.
An example of such emotional displacement is the shutdown of the legendary Edward Theatre in Mumbai in 2020. The theatre had been almost the same all through the years; the price of its tickets was still cheap, the reels were changed manually, and the smell of warm celluloid still lingered in its projector room. By the time the hall closed down, the theatre staff reported that it was not the business that was lost, but it was the culture of sitting down in the cinema with strangers and making them feel like family. It was symbolic that the closure was considered the loss of a heartbeat of a city.
Cinema as Social Memory: What We Lose When Screens Die
Individual screens were strong since they were stores of feelings. They recalled not only the film they had seen, but also who they were out with, what they sat in, and what the hall smelled like when the projector was heating up. Such theatres were turned into reservoirs of shared nostalgia — where generations continued to go to refresh their memories.
Cultural historians claim that the cinema halls are the sites of collective memory like markets, railway stations, and public squares. They are the locations where individual feelings intersect social realms. India is not only transforming its film-watching habits when it moves to multiplexes, but it is also transforming its memory of films. Multiplexes are effective but forgetful; the same structure eliminates locality.
The case of Shanti Theatre in Chennai, which was once owned by an actor, Sivaji Ganesan, is a good example. At the time of its closure in 2016, residents told reporters that they felt like a relative had died. Theatre had also been used to host weddings, political meetings, as well as literary events and community celebrations, other than cinema. The shutting down was thus not only a deprivation of a building, but of a collective emotional history.
Economics of Decline: The Market That Turned Against Memory
While nostalgia is profound, the decline of single screens is also tied to economic pressure. Rising property taxes, decreasing footfall, expensive maintenance, and the dominance of multiplex chains create structural disadvantages. According to the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report (2023), India has lost nearly 60% of its single screens since 2009, with an average of two screens shutting every week.
The terms of distribution negotiated by multiplexes are favorable, so the small theatres are left with the delayed release and reduction of revenues. The digital projection technology is efficient, but it needs an investment that small owners cannot afford. COVID-19 just capitalized on a downward trend that was already underway.
This economic difficulty can be traced in the tale of the legendary West End Theatre in Pune. The property had a high historical value, but its deteriorating footfalls forced the owners to sell it. People took to the streets, architects offered plans of adaptive reuse, and film societies declared it a heritage landmark, but economic forces overwhelmed emotion. The closure of the theatre brought out an ugly reality that cultural memory may not be able to compete with commercial value all the time.
Changing Audiences: From Collectivity to Curated Consumption
In India, a new type of viewer has been formed: one that is made by OTT services, content in small formats, algorithmic suggestions, and divided attention. The present-day viewers are comfort-seeking, control-seeking, and content-seeking. This shift impacts exhibition spaces directly.
Sociologists at Jadavpur University (2022) describe this as “attention privatization,” where individuals experience culture through personal devices and tailored timelines. Single screens demanded surrender — you sat for three hours, watched a film as the director intended, felt the reactions of hundreds around you. Modern cinema-viewing removes unpredictability, creating an insulated, almost solitary form of cultural consumption.
A Delhi-based film enthusiast described his experience after the closure of Regal Cinema: “I can still watch movies anywhere, but I can no longer feel them the same way.” His statement captures the deeper truth: the loss is not entertainment but atmosphere, the emotional electricity of collectivity.
Conclusion: What the Death of Single Screens Reveals About India Today
The single-screen theatres are not merely being architecturally stripped away, but it is a cultural diagnosis. It brings out a country that is changing the communal patterns in favor of individualized consumption, community spaces into commercial ones, and emotionally colored environments into homogeneous experiences. Their losses are minor, but far-reaching: collective pleasure, collective wonder, the democratic pleasure of watching movies with strangers, the urban heritage of the poster-constructed city, the poster lines, and reverberating halls.
It is not realistic to save all the screens, yet it is necessary to remember what they symbolize. They were not merely movie theatres, they were memory houses, social schools, emotional strongholds. With India heading in the right direction, it is not whether or not cinema will perish, but what kind of cultural unity we are ready to drag along with us.
And perhaps the final irony is this: even as single screens die, the stories watched inside them remain immortal. What fades is not cinema, but the communal heartbeat that once made it a lived experience.