Mira Nair: Conversing about cultural crossings
Luke Niebler
Issue date: 2/28/07 Section: Diversions
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Indian-born, New York-based filmmaker Mira Nair has been well-received all over the world. Her first film, "Salaam Bombay!" was nominated for an Oscar and nearly all of her films have been decorated with awards from Venice and Cannes to the Golden Globes. Nair has displayed an incredible sensitivity in a broad range of films, from "Monsoon Wedding" to her recent adaptation of "Vanity Fair." Although often classified as a "crossover" filmmaker, Nair's treatment of alienation and humanity has won her a large and diverse audience across the globe.
Phoenix: How involved was Jhumpa Lahiri in the production of the film?
Mira Nair: Not really involved. I shared with her the shooting script just to see if she had any objections or any suggestions, so there was a lot of interaction like that. And also, [I] spent a weekend with her parents early on. She's channeled her mom for Ashima, for sure. So their house in Rhode Island was definitely very important in what we were trying to recreate.
Similarly, this is her story, and I actually ended up casting Jhumpa, her baby, as baby Sonia, and her parents and her whole extended family is the Bengali family of Bengali life in New York, and her [family] in Calcutta are the Calcutta family.
Phoenix: What really strikes you about making movies based on novels, and do you think it's more difficult than starting with an original script?
MN: I have to say that I really enjoy original screenplays. It's not that I look at novels to look for movies. But this thing, "The Namesake," I happened to read it arbitrarily on the plane. Really, I had already contracted to do two movies that were in the works, financed and everything. But when I read "The Namesake" I was in this period of terrible mourning. I had just lost my mother-in-law who was like a mother to me. I had never encountered the death of someone I loved in a country that was not fully home, for her, especially.
So I happened to read this novel in that period of mourning and felt like a bolt, like there was someone out there who completely understood what I was going through. It was like a fever from that point on. I knew I had to make this story.
Phoenix: How involved was Jhumpa Lahiri in the production of the film?
Mira Nair: Not really involved. I shared with her the shooting script just to see if she had any objections or any suggestions, so there was a lot of interaction like that. And also, [I] spent a weekend with her parents early on. She's channeled her mom for Ashima, for sure. So their house in Rhode Island was definitely very important in what we were trying to recreate.
Similarly, this is her story, and I actually ended up casting Jhumpa, her baby, as baby Sonia, and her parents and her whole extended family is the Bengali family of Bengali life in New York, and her [family] in Calcutta are the Calcutta family.
Phoenix: What really strikes you about making movies based on novels, and do you think it's more difficult than starting with an original script?
MN: I have to say that I really enjoy original screenplays. It's not that I look at novels to look for movies. But this thing, "The Namesake," I happened to read it arbitrarily on the plane. Really, I had already contracted to do two movies that were in the works, financed and everything. But when I read "The Namesake" I was in this period of terrible mourning. I had just lost my mother-in-law who was like a mother to me. I had never encountered the death of someone I loved in a country that was not fully home, for her, especially.
So I happened to read this novel in that period of mourning and felt like a bolt, like there was someone out there who completely understood what I was going through. It was like a fever from that point on. I knew I had to make this story.