The PR machine formerly known as Mira Nair says fast and cheap is where it’s at (via India Uncut):
When you have a big budget, like a Harry Potter, you have that many more people to answer to. You are simply one part of the machine that takes it over. It’s actually the freedom, the creative freedom, that is imperative for me. It comes only when the stakes are really low financially. That’s why I had total freedom to make a Salaam Bombay, or to make a Monsoon Wedding or to make a Namesake… If you have a big budget, you have that many more men in suits to deal with…I like to do things unobtrusively and quietly, without much fanfare. People often don’t know what we are up to until it’s over. And that’s the secret.
She whips out her population and lays it on the table:
Let’s just face facts: our Indian cinema audience is now bigger than the Hollywood audience. So it’s not about wanting to be what they are, it’s about them opening their eyes to us…
On desi provincialism:
The extraordinary irony in making Mississippi Masala was that the African-American community and the Indian community were remarkably similar — in their love for family, in their communal sort of way for operating, in religion even, in that sort of emphasis on family bond and God for instance. But would an Indian ever cross the track into an African-American family? No way.
I still wish she had made Hari Puttar. I understand her impulse to be a big fish in a small pond, but there are times when, to make an impact, you suck it up and work with the system. Look at the last film – a good director could make that system work for them. To be part of the lives of hundreds of millions of children worldwide, that’s not an opportunity that comes along every day. Maybe I’m just annoyed at Vanity Fair (feh).
It’s not about big fish / small pond, it’s about enjoying your work. Working at a Microsoft-sized company can have massive impact too, but you’re usually just a cog.
She was offered the opportunity to direct (high impact) on a single film (low commitment) that would be seen by many many people (high impact).
You can run your own detective agency or come in and reform the FBI and then leave again.
Part of this is that I’m not so impressed by her solo products – her best recent film was Monsoon Wedding, but in that case somebody else wrote the script. She’s actually better when she delegates.
Low commitment? You spend 6-12 months of your life on a big-budget, special effects film, another 6 months on post-production and a few more months on promotion.
Look at the opportunity cost. These people pay their pounds of flesh. Might as well do something you love.
First off, I tip my hat to the Indian Express for publishing a full transcript of the interview. Too often, people can be quoted out of context, or the interviewerÂ’s questions are phrased in such a way as to elicit a certain response. Fareed Zakaria was on the money when he called Shekhar Gupta IndiaÂ’s best journalist.
I agree with Ennis – Nair can’t write a script (Kama Sutra is Exhbit A). The realistic Indian and black dialogue from Mississippi Masala goes to Sooni Taraporevala. However, this film worked not because of the similarities between Indians and AAs, but that the characters had to deal with such differences, rather than simply hope for a “Love will conquer all” strategy. Two major differences – AA’s tend to be far more focused on individualism than Indians. Washington’s character could see little harm in asking out Choudhury – after, all the Indians in the neighborhood knew him as the hard-working small businessman, just like them. Unfortunately, Indians tend to be a bit more group oriented, to a regrettably exclusionary degree. Secondly, pre-marital sex is no big deal in the U.S., but (like it or not), is still a very big deal among Indian families – particularly the pre-marital behavior of their daughters. If anything, Nair falls prey to the “people of color” nonsense, and fails to distinguish the genuine differences that can exist between such people.
Where Nair goes a bit over the top was her comments about AmericaÂ’s politics. Comatose after BushÂ’s re-election? I can only imagine what her reaction was when Musharaff announced he was going to stay on as head of the army and president of Pakistan. Not to mention the plight of Iranian liberals who were disqualified from running in that countryÂ’s recent elections. Or, are Muslim authoritarians exempt from NairÂ’s sharply-focused lens?
Perhaps NairÂ’s conversion to Islam has made her memory of the Gita a bit fuzzy, but it does not say to beware the fruits of oneÂ’s action, but rather to avoid become enslaved to their pursuit. Just as one needs food, one should not consume so much as to lead to gluttony. Of course, such misinterpretation was used by higher castes to deny lower castes a decent wage. But it might be bad form on my part to suggest that Nair benefited from caste discrimination in India when she was growing up in the 50Â’s and 60Â’s. IÂ’m sure plenty of low-caste girls went to Harvard.
And once again, Nair repeats the tired falsehood of rampant Islamophobia in the US. When someone says that Islam has to move into the modern age, that is not anti-Islam. If anything, it assumes that Islam has such an ability to modernize and does not need to behead its critics to get their point across.
As for all her movies being hits, the big-budget “Vanity Fair” was DOA at the American box office. And she conveniently leaves out the stinker “The Perez Family”
One year max for a HP movie. None of the others took longer, and didn’t the LOTR movies, which were majority special effect take only 1 year per? Rodriguez makes special effects movies in around 6 months.
She’s being disingenuous by acting as if she wants complete control to preserve quality. Her best movies are those where she sets the overall tone and gets out of the way. The dialogue of Monsoon Wedding was written by somebody else. She had only one month to film it, and so most of the details were happenstance. She’s not a micromanager, she does well in constrained situations. She would also do well in a big movie where she had control of the overall vision, but delegated the details to others.
I think this is something else – she doesn’t want to make a big grossing film, she just doesn’t want the stress. She could always negotiate more control, but the stress comes with the territory.
Hey! Nice to see the term “tufani entrepreneur”. Jai! ~Tufani