Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

All of us have a feminine side that helps us embrace diversity and complexity, which is what tolerance is all about

Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

HUMANIST POSITION Shekar Kapur: ‘Elizabeth was able to embrace her feminine nature, which has nothing to do with her being a woman’

“‘The Golden Age’ deals with a woman who has declared herself divine but is still human enough to fall in love, who wants to have sex, and bear children. We see this happen all the time. Look at Lady Diana — she was deified thanks to the media and then suddenly it is very difficult to accept her as a woman in an intimate relationship with a man.”

Kapur says: “The film on one level deals with the question of how can a queen have a relationship with a man which also goes to mean sharing of power. And on another level is an epic battle between fundamentalism and tolerance.”

Kapur sees something very “Hindu” in the dilemma. “Philip II, the Spanish king who launched the Armada is rather like Ravan.” Making the very Catholic Philip II the villain of the piece is enough to have Catholics world over furious with the 61-year old director.

“‘The Golden Age’ does not make Catholics the villains. What is villainous is interpretation. In fact, my Philip is a very mild person. It is just that he believes he is right. His God is the right one. His way of worship is correct and the only way. Fundamentalism is all about purity isn’t it? When you think that your way is the only way.”

Kapur elaborates: “The Catholics are upset because Elizabeth is portrayed as a sympathetic character against Philip. But the fact is that Elizabeth was able to embrace her feminine nature, which has nothing to do with her being a woman. All of us have a feminine side that helps us embrace diversity and complexity, which is what tolerance is all about. Elizabeth did not sign the order for execution of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots for the longest time and we cannot pretend the Inquisition never happened.”

While Kapur uses historical fact to back his vision, there have been quite a few voices of dissent at the liberties he has taken with history in the film — from the Elizabeth’s age to her address to the troops before the Armada.

Questions of historical accuracy seems to be the cue for Kapur to go ballistic. “What accuracy are you talking about? The Elizabethans bathed once a year because they felt they would get pneumonia if they washed more often! They stank, had bad teeth and their hair was falling out! I should have gone down that way to show historical accuracy! The age of chivalry? Everyone was killing everybody else! And to all who say that I have shown the wrong speech, how many people could have logically heard that speech without a microphone? Twenty? Thirty? And did these thirty people write down what she said? You see how easily history turns into myth?”

What about the story of Walter Raleigh putting down his cloak for Elizabeth so that she does not dirty her feet? “Try doing that to George Bush now,” Kapur says with a laugh. “But I have used that because it suits my story, which is also a triangular love story between Elizabeth, Walter Raleigh and her favourite lady in waiting Bess, who represents the physical side of the queen.”

Ask him about why the movie is coming almost ten years after the first and Kapur says: “We were all doing different things and I also feel now is the right time. The world is witnessing yet another conflict between Islam and Christianity. The Western world does not like to be reminded that just a few centuries ago, they were as intolerant as today’s fundamentalist.”

Kapur says the third part of the trilogy will look at “how a person who believes herself to be divine deals with mortality. There is this apocryphal story of how Elizabeth stood by a window for 12 hours because she thought that if she were to lie down and sleep, she would die.”

Kapur who made super entertainers like “Masoom” and “Mr. India” before leaving for foreign shores, wants to make his next film in India.

“I have been wanting to make ‘Paani’ for the longest time. Here I am sitting in the Marriot facing a wonderful blue pool all the while knowing there are people who do not have water to drink. After a point of time the pool would be guarded by people with machine guns. Only the top five percent will survive because they can afford it. Why are we not questioning bottling water?”

“I hold the media to blame. While Nandigram is burning, we have the media obsessed with Shah Rukh Khan’s six pack abs! How is it that these very people who would tell us to make responsible cinema are now coming up to me and saying ‘Shekharji kuch ek byte deejiye’?”

“However, since the medium is cinema, ‘Paani’ is also going to be a love story,” Kapur says in a milder tone.

“Enough of American pop culture colonising our conscience. It has had its time. Now it is our time and I want to make a film that will make a billion dollars around the world. Enough of Tom Cruise, it is time Shah Rukh Khan and Hritik Roshan ruled the world.”

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail