A Proposal for a Visiting Resident Fellowship at the Virginia Commonwealth University of Virginia, U.S.A.

I: Introduction

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, the twelfth century mystic, says in a poem with which I often begin my recitals:

I am neither Christian nor Jew nor Magian nor Musalman, I am not of any one country : India, China, Bulgaria, Scyte..

My place is placeless My trace is traceless It is neither body nor soul It is all the life of my Beloved.

This proposal is about a seeker, an explorer of the soul through poetry and acting, with entertainment as second nature, by getting into the skin of men, women and children as actors do – in addition to a desire that seeks to understand and interact with others.

Sufism expounds on simple living, sharing and forsaking for others. The good food and vine need not be consumed, but the spicier, crustier and more divine it is when given away, carries it farther with wings of the soul. That man by the Church who cannot walk as you do, who is asking for alms is doing what he does, but you need him more than he needs your cents. These viewpoints are inspired from Sufi thought but the anecdotes are my own assimilation from Italy this summer.

This proposal is on the cutting edge for the Department of Film and Photography at the Virginia Commonwealth University. This is a proposal by a writer/actor who wants to carve out dreams by enactment and words in the mediums of photography and film. The venture evolved over years in a process of merging art with life and romance. The experience of being Artist in Residence is what I need intensely from America to be enriched in my work, along with a few things which hopefully I can give to students: in workshops and demonstration, class room discussions on film and recitation.

Henry Miller made an observation which inspires my approach/treatment:
Art teaches nothing except the significance of life.

II:

Research Proposal for Film: Is Home still Relevant?

My intent in research is to document through photographs and film, the life style and values in homes, old and new, which reflect family values, family history and traditions, and most significantly, the relationships which are changing as values are in radical transformation. Aspects of the home include the architecture and interiors, décor, food culture and family meetings, apparel and demeanor, interest in literature and movies, collections and interest in art, sports and social life. Each of these aspects form part of exploring the essence and character of homes and families.

The family home is my target. Family festivities, the breakups, the traumas, eccentricities, ageing and illness with support by the family system – I would hope that some of these can be documented. Every family is bound by collective activity and responsibilities; yet it is also characterized by individual streaks. This is what makes each family unique in itself.

Families and homes from different communities and professions will be my focus. I would like to explore seven homes/families in the film. These may include one white American family home in the US; an Indian family; an African- American family; a family of Asian lineage with mixed marriage; a family of Italian, Spanish or Polish descent; a divided family; a family of same gender.

This travel through old homes and new, in cities and the countryside, beside summer homes, twisting in the wind through autumn leaves and the piano in winter – brings across different life styles and different music creating the character of homes.

From India my focus would be on five homes/families from Calcutta, Udaipur, Delhi, Srinagar and Goa, with the same approach and cutting across different communities. Families in both countries will be integrated into a one hour film which hopes to reveal shared affinities, and differences in ethos and patterns in relationships.

The home is the family; the two were integral to each other until recent times, giving the assurance and security offered by the home. Enduring ties built up a sensitivity and appreciation of humanitarian values. When the family disintegrates for a variety of reasons, so does the home. With the absence of home, values can change and also, the shared concern for humanity. III:
Films on Family Values: The Framework

Hollywood Films:

Hollywood films which fascinate me such as Scent of a Woman and Taxi Driver carry in their absence the importance of family, as the protagonists live without them. Certain films depict a subversive reality when they relate to the home and family.

In Michael Cimino’s 1978 classic, The Deer Hunter, Nick (Christopher Walken) is tragically taken away from his fiancée Linda (Meryl Streep) and she ends with Michael Vronsky (Robert De Niro), who has coveted her from the start. It picked up the award for the best film, and De Niro’s performance recognized as one of the finest in the 1970’s as personally he too was against the war. Another great film on the war that broke up families as part of my study may be The Pianist.

Falling in Love, Guilty by Suspicion, Carlito’s Way, Once upon a time in America, The Godfather, 1900, Revolution, Mystic River, Forest Gump, Blue Valentine, The Panic in Needle Park, The Revolution Road, Blue Velvet, A Streetcar named Desire, The Departed, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Shining, Cape Fear, Scarface and Good Fellows - -- some of these are unsettling films and some are anti-establishment -- where work, passion, lust, treachery, ghosts, betrayal, crime, greed, death, disability and notoriety upset the utopia of home and the family. One exception is Taxi Driver (1976) of course.

Indian Films :

Indian films and their impact is growing worldwide. Our actors are now doing films with the big names in the West.

As a mimic, I can create situations to stir the classrooms to contrast with very intense workshops of poetry and enactments in films. Certain juxtapositions of actors and situations from here and there, will stimulate the classroom. I have been a standup comedian who has worked well in India and the short films I have made on absurd humor beginning from 1997 have been acclaimed as ‘many years before their time’.

I have to be an entertainer as well as play the role of the filmmaker and the scholar -- all at one time. Thus my lecture could showcase storytelling of films in this fashion, through humor, even dancing, mimicry and juxtapositioning of images from the east and the west.
The legend of Amitabh Bachchan has finally arrived in the West -- now teaming up with mega star Leonardo Di Carpio and Anil Kapoor with Tom Cruise. This is not the reason why I want to delve into Indian films. My background of growing up in a filmmaking family in the flux of Mumbai has etched resonances that are not only rich but far reaching.

I would like to explore the issue of ‘home’ and ‘family’ in some of the films e.g. Pati Patni aur Woh, Souten, Arth, Is Raat ki Subah Nahin (the film I started out as an actor, which is a pioneering film for the resurgence of alternate cinema and the mafia genre), Agar Tum Na Hotay, Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Khuda Gawah, Kabhi Kabhi, Silsila, Dilwale Dulania Ley Jayengay, Monsoon Wedding, Satya, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam, Mr and Mrs 55, Darr and the exception here being Devdaas.

Hindi films has been riding smoothly on the love triangle since the fifties till date, but it seems that only now, since cinema has become global, that like the West, our films are taking a realistic turn, where like the west relationships, home and family are broken up, because of the aforementioned multiple reasons. In Hindi films it always was the perfect happy ending of responsibilities of the husband and wife reunited, for the family cannot be disintegrated in the Indian ethos. The other woman clearly lost out, after she has been used for romance, songs, spice and drama.

I will also be referencing regional Indian films, which will further expand on this ideology/formula.

The Treatment:
Every aspect of the film to be made on homes will be laced with music and poetry. Soft rock, folk and the guitar in India and America and rhythm of dance are a part of our lives for the past fifty years; and this would whisper soul when the film is assembled.

IV:
Rationale and Purpose

Writers and poets like Walt Whitman, Patti Smith, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams, Mario Puzo, Robert Pirsig and Henry Miller are inspiration for me, with images they evoke. The fact that I went to the US early in life and again in the impressionable year of eighteen creates a familiarity and the urge to explore further.

The purpose of this experience is to explore the strength and weaknesses that exist today in family ties. My interest in families has grown precisely because of the breakup in my own, and the dispersal of members to different parts of the world. To return to Rumi’s verse quoted at the beginning, I have found myself to be placeless. I do not belong to one community. Hence my concern to search for the relevance of homes, and the need for being rooted.

For fifteen years I have been an avid photographer, with particular interest in people, places and architecture. For one and a half years I was a travel writer for the Financial Chronicle (2009-2010) with my articles/ photos published every Friday under the title ‘One Place at a Time”. From Ladakh to Benares to Vrindavan to New York to Paris – each spelt out a mood for me. However, I was looking then at these places as a traveler. Now I would look at them anew, in terms of homes, havelis and families.

Because of the absence of family, my interest has grown into an obsession of collecting old family photographs. I inherit this trait from my mother, Dr Geeti Sen, an acclaimed at historian and a pioneer of sorts. My father is a well known film maker in India who made classics such as Umrao Jaan on the life of a courtesan. From my teens I was inspired to join the film industry, which I did for ten years, and I have acted under the direction of film makers of the caliber of Shyam Benegal, Yash Chopra, Sudhir Mishra and Tigmanshu Dhulia.

I left Bombay five years ago to reinvent myself and make my own films.

Murad Ali New Delhi, India.

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