Mira Nair: Cultural Profile - Research Paper Example

?Cultural aspect of Mira Nair Introduction Renowned New York based Indian filmmaker Mira Nair is known for portrayal of immigrant life away from their traditional culture. His major work consists of tales regarding families and characters struggling to find out their identities in a western world. Significantly, Mira Nair is known for depiction of struggle between two cultures; and as Mira Nair belongs to India, an anciently rooted culture, she comes out with very clear stratum between aspects of life as an immigrant or non-native Indian in U.S.A. During recent times, her movies had been appreciated all around the world and she has developed a distinct reputation as a filmmaker of her own genre. Mira Nair is especially known for her excellence in understanding the cultural difference which creates an invisible layer for non-natives and natives to reach to each other’s strata and to allow an environment that may bring up a harmony between them. In this paper, we are to explore various key-points and aspects of Mira Nair’s work which helps her bring out the internal agonies, cultural nostalgia, quest for self-identity and feeling of strangeness among non-natives. Major issues and conflicts Since very ancient times, world had been devised in two major sections consisting grand differences in their cultures and lifestyles: the division of East and West. Egyptian, Indian, Chinese and other eastern cultures are not developed over the Latin roots which are foundation for most of the western culture. In fact, Indian and Egyptian cultures are most archaic of all cultures. On the other hand, Europeans have their distinct heritage that grows over Latin roots. There are major differences in their axiology that provide an ethical background. For example Indians have a very traditional mentality towards marriage. In India, most of the marriages are still arranged by the parents of groom and bride. This concept comes out of belief that a bride does not belong only to the groom but she becomes a member of a new family. Subsequently, whole the family bears the responsibility of bride as well as they had for groom. It does not mean they do not allow a boy to choose a girl of her choice, rather they believe in family-system with such firm structure that they do not limit marriage as a contract between two people but they take it as a relationship between two families. Dating and even pre-marital meetings are considered ethically wrong until family is aware of couple’s interest in each other and allows them to go on with meetings for making a better understanding. Most of the Indian movies still do not have a kissing scene upfront; movies consisting of such scenes are repudiated by family audiences. When Indian families continue to follow their cultural and ethical structure in a western environment they often face very bitter questions from their kids who cannot understand the significance of their parents in preventing them from dating and making friend in opposite gender. On the other hand, Indians are very sensitive about making relationship in other cultures. This phenomenon is more prevalent in Muslims as compared to Hindus. When those families try to raise their children with their traditional cultural background, they find out that uncontrolled freedom and decentralized family structure of west gets involve in taking their kids away from their families and traditional roots. Nair often picks up issues that dwells somewhere around this difference of culture which evolves with many distinct problems for families of immigrants. As asserts Mukherjee: For Mira Nair, life in exile—voluntary or imposed—is always good material for cinema. In her next film, The Namesake, filmed in Calcutta and New York, she doesn’t stop at examining the theme of emigration, loss and a longing for home, but also explores the emergent dynamics within the Indian immigrant community in the United States. Choice of stories and characters Nair’s stories mostly take place in two types of environment: native cultural based places and the modern western world. For example, in Namesake, she deals with old Kolkata & New York and Mississippi Masala is grounded in Brooklyn & Kampala. As her movies often deal with culture clashes, this setback is quite necessary for her: a twofold environment which clears out the differences between cultures. Nair’s excellence in inherited in the fact that she does not just compares the cultures to take a biased stand in support or oppose of some ideological doctrine, rather she opts for a comparative critical analyses of the issue which comes out through the actions and dialogs of the characters as well as through the witty cutting which provides a reciprocal view of the same scenario seen from multiple stands. Choice of characters in Nair’s work is also relevant to her themes. In Missisipi Masala she chooses two characters from different native places. Both are immigrants but belonging to African-American and Indian-American spatiality. In Namesake she chooses Character of Gogol who is looking to find out his identity having heredity of Bengali culture and a nurturing of United States. In Vanity Fair she chooses to change a character from its original version which comes out of Thackeray (1847). Nair moulds female protagonist to depict somehow her feministic heroine. Nair’s tending to feminism is also a regular aspect of her work which comes out in Vanity Fair at its clearest depiction. Nair’s reading of Becky Sharp offers the twenty-first-century audience a refreshing representation of the emblematic nineteenth-century character. Becky Sharp, who had been demonized because of her masculine ambition and desire for power and pushed from the centre to the margins of Victorian society, is nowadays rescued by Mira Nair’s production to be enjoyed and admired. Postmodern understandings of subjectivity (individual and social) as multiple, and of representation as inherent to reality (or at least to our knowledge of reality) as well as of the politics inherent in representation allow for a re-visioning of this character alongside Western twenty-first-century notions of gender identity. Becky’s sharp masculine ends are flattened in this adaptation: her desire for personal fulfillment is reconciled with her role as mother; her ambition and wish to climb the social ladder are reconciled with her tenderness, her beauty is reconciled with her wit. All in all, Becky undergoes a process of feminisation and is rescued by Nair from Thackeray’s construction of her as a monstrous female masculine. Other than those twofold themes, Nair has also worked on solely Indian theme in Salaam Bombay which is often considered her best movie so far. However, As Nair has a special flair to portray alienation of being away from home, she has shown a very similar theme in Salam Bombay where she doesn’t work out on immigrants of a nation; instead, she picks out a small town boy in a very big city Bombay that confronts him to face the problems of synchronizing with the culture, almost similar to the troubles that immigrants face in a distinct country. Monsoon Wedding had been probably her most successful movie. However, looking closely, it rarely consists of those deeper concepts of alienation, nostalgia etc. Instead, Monsoon wedding shows up the effects of Indian film industry (Called Bollywood natively), which has a clear charm for family based movies often circulating around weddings and marriages. It consists of dances and songs which are very symptom of Indian Hindi movies. Also the stories are layered in sub-plots which are frequently used in Hindi movies to support the main plot of the story. Even if it takes place in a western surrounding it rarely deals with the struggle of natives rather it is more indulged in the internal environment of Cultural aspects of India. Anyway, main focus that Monsoon Wedding drags is the conflict of values which entails how freedom oriented bride has either to surrender to her family’s aspirations or to choose for her own will. The dilemma comes out as a presentation of the dilemma of a whole generation which has to decide if it wants to go with the traditional culture of his parental land or to indulge in fast racing upcoming world. This conflict of ‘values verses trends’ is probably best depicted in English movies by Mira Nair only. Directorial and cinematic treatment Special attention that Nair has got in international circle is also due to her specific treatment of cinematic substance. As shows out in Monsoon Wedding and her other works, Mira Nair has significant effects of Indian tradition of filmmaking which has a heritage of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak along with some renowned Hindi filmmakers like Gurudatt, Chetan Anand and Vimal Roy. Over its golden period, earlier Indian movies had been based in sentimental and values-based issues that were taken very deeply by masters like Ghatak and Ray. Mostly they had used long static shots and continuous movement along with rhythmic cutting to portray a whole scene into. Rapid cutting, excessive music and undue dialogs entered Indian movies after the age of commercialization. Mira Nair consists of the essence which comes ahead from the older Indian traditions. She also seeks for taking long pauses and static shots to sustain over close and mid areas. Her cutting also belongs to rhythms that crate synchronization among all the shots. Unlike modern Indian cinema she hasn’t fallen in escape of rapid cutting over many locations to rescue from the heavy work that requires building a scene on a grand level. Even in Hollywood, when some masters of modern cinema, like David Fincher, have derived new techniques through rapid cutting to introduce innovative cinematic experience, Nair is quite comfortable with her traditional scenario-development based in art directions and actors. Her technique had been successful in bringing out her cinematic imagination to the screen which is a big core behind her frequently succeeding movies around the world. Conclusion Mira Nair is among the filmmakers who create very personal movies. Although Nair do not indulge in creating self-portraits but her movies almost always concerns for the issues which has somehow made impact of her own mind in her earlier days. Her movies contains message but she does not preach anything directly rather she likes to put it in front of the audiences to let them be provoked to think over the issue that she considers important. From a very earlier time She had been trying hard to bring her movies to a larger audience to reach out to masses with her message and it took time. Pais (2009) asserts about her attempts: Nair confessed that she wanted her films to reach an audience. She was making documentaries in an era much before documentaries such as Shooting at Columbine had started showing in movie theatres. Even her own family had a difficult time watching her documentary work, she said. Though she has continued making documentaries such as The Laughing Club, she sought out larger audiences through her feature films including Salaam Bombay! and The Namesake. Now, when Mira Nair has reached to a stage where world is interested in her movies, she is quite more contemplated to bring out the deeper cores of her ideas and opinions over the topics which she like to explore and portray in her art. Works Cited Mississippi Masala. Dir. Mira Nair. Perf. Dangle Washington, Sarita Chaudhaury. MGM, 1991. Film Monsoon Wedding. Dir. Mira Nair. Perf. Naseeruddin Shah, Vashundhara Das. Mirabai Films, 2001. Film. Moya, Ana. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies. 32.2 (December 2010): 73–87 Mukherjee, Krittivas. Mira Nair’s Namesake: Blends Two Worlds. Web Sources. span.state.gov/wwwfspjulaug057.pd Namesake. Dir. Mira Nair. Perf. Irfan Khan, Tabbu. Fox Searchlights Pictures & Mirabai Films, 2006. Film. Pais, Arthur J. Mira Nair, Abraham Verghese in conversation. February 12, 2009. Web. Salam Bombay. Dir. Mira Nair. Perf. Tara lasrado, Hansa Vithal. Cinecom Pictures, 1988. Film. Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair. Punch Magazine, 1847. Print. Vanity Fair. Dir. Mira Nair. Perf. Reese Witherspoon. Focus Features, 2004. Film. Read More