A Quick Lesson from Mira Nair

I love Mira Nair. I admit, I don't know her work well at all. I've only seen Monsoon Wedding (which she directed and produced) and Vanity Fair (which she directed and I saw when it came out and I didn't like it). But my love comes all from Monsoon Wedding. It is one of my favorite movies (and there really aren't really many things I will right out call "favorites," I'm too loving to name names and too indecisive to commit) and I adore it whole heartedly. (Note to self: Put Mira Nair movies to top of Netflix list. Hurry and go see Amelia.)

Here is a quick lesson from Mira Nair, via Third World Girl over at Three Hole Punched, who attended the IFP's Independent Film Conference in New York where Mira Nair spoke (Bobby said, that Sally said, the Jimmy said... Yes, my through the grapevine/telephone game paraphrase lesson from Mira Nair). I looked for a direct quote on the internet for a couple minutes and came up with nothing helpful. So here is the he said/she said version of it. Thanks Third World Girl.

Don't "anthropoligize" or explain too much culturally. If you watch Monsoon Wedding you'll see how much you're thrust into the action. There's no expositional dialogue about why we dress this way or wear this henna, or sing this song. There's no outsider leading you through the action and the work is all the richer and more authentic for it.

This is a good tip even if you aren't making Indian movies that will eventually be seen by an international audience. The point is to steep your audience in the environment, don't explain it, just bring the audience with you. That's important, the "bringing with you." Don't leave your audience behind, wondering where you've gone. You can still show an audience something that is personally foreign to them (isn't that one reason people read books/watch films? To experience something they haven't?) while still making things clear enough, marking a trail behind you that won't find your audience lost.

People who've watched sci-fi where every single thing is explained to them know what I'm talking about. That's a good example. It's a foreign environment to anyone, most sci-fi settings, and I personally HATE HATE when I'm constantly being explained to like I can't gather that a button made the hologram appear and that the hologram isn't really a transparent ghost person. In Alien, almost nothing was explained to you! There was just these weird titles and machines and duties and worlds and you went along with it and loved it! Cause you were there, in it!

This applies whether you're in Whatever-year, Andromeda Galaxy, Small Town, Tennessee, Seoul, South Korea, or in 17th century Luxembourg. Be smart about it and the people will get it.

By the way, I finished The Lovely Bones, both in novel and screenplay format, and I'll post my thoughts tomorrow.