Based on a novel written
by a French Canadian and directed by a Taiwanese American, it is a story about the
fantastical pairing of a French-named Indian boy and a Bengal tiger with a
British moniker, lost at sea upon the sinking of their ship – a Japanese vessel
headed for North America. This Indian child’s ability to commune with animals
occurs in international terrain rather than being confined to Rudyard Kipling’s
colonial wilderness. Is Life of Pi
simply Jungle Book for the
globalization era? Scrutinizing the Oscar nods of this and past years, in their
connection to India and multiculturalism, helps pick up the crumbs on the trail
to cinema’s globalization.
The filmic adaptation of
Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, chosen out of a slew of books by South Asians that
are unlikely to make the leap to screen, generated award buzz almost
immediately upon its release, not least because of its director. In recent
years, Ang Lee’s name has become a fixture with the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences. On February 24, 2013, Life
of Pi will vie for 11 Academy Awards, including Lee’s nomination in the
category of Best Director.
The Taiwan-born filmmaker
has proven himself to be a cultural broker, whose offerings seem to push the
boundaries of what mainstream American audiences watch. It is also not the
first time that Lee has had a film that involves a tiger, symbolic or
otherwise, in the Oscar contest. In 2001, Lee’s Chinese period piece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took the
prize for Best Foreign Language Film. However, it was to be an American story about
a love affair between two Caucasian cowboys which would win the transnational Asian
American an Oscar for Best Director in 2006. Controversially, despite Lee’s
win, Brokeback Mountain lost out in
the Best Picture race to Crash. That
film was directed by Paul Haggis, a white Canadian who also wrote the screenplay
which deals with racial fault lines and intersections in Los Angeles.
The irony that the two
films, both about minorities, should contend against one another is telling.
Even as Lee, an ethnic minority, won for his representation of sexual
minorities, the award for direction arguably allowed the conservative Academy
to allay contention while still appearing to be mindful of diversity, both by
honouring Lee and Crash but not Brokeback Mountain directly. At the same
time the controversy still eschews the possibility that minorities can be both queer and of colour. Such issues of
diversity in film, or the lack thereof, are further compounded by the current
moment of globalization wherein commerce and technology blur international
boundaries as quickly as the cuts between locations in movies.
Nonetheless, though awards
like the Oscars, to some extent, measure the growing diversity of what
Americans watch, a more critical eye needs to be turned to how diversity is
being recognized and to what end. Note that while Life of Pi has 11 nominations this year, not one of them is for the
South Asian actors. Similarly, in 2009, Slumdog
Millionaire which gathered eight of the ten awards it was up for saw none
of those prizes go to its actors, for the simple reason that the film had no
acting nominees. The pattern of exclusion extends to Lee’s other tiger: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had
additionally been nominated for Best Film, which it did not win. None of its
actors received nominations, either.
The previously mentioned
Asian-themed pictures have had Academy recognition of the musicians who
contributed to their soundtracks, it should be said. Of the South Asian-centric
films, A. R. Rahman famously won two Oscars for the music of Slumdog Millionaire and this year Bombay
Jayashri has been nominated for the song “Pi’s Lullaby.” Yet, it almost goes
without saying that in an award show about the movies, the absence of
nominations for actors is extremely conspicuous. Historically, it is true for Best
Picture nominees that they tend to collect cast nominations in their sweep. It
is striking, therefore, that it has been not the actors but the non-South Asian
directors, who have garnered Oscar attention alongside their India-based films
- Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire
victory a case in point.
In the meantime, most of
the South Asian creative labour associated with these high profile Oscar films
has been relegated to a supporting role. Well known Indian actor Anupam Kher, who
plays a doctor in Silver Linings Playbook,
up for eight Oscars this year, had this to say to the Indian press upon the
Academy’s announcement: “As an Indian actor, I feel rewarded for my 30 years of
contribution to cinema.” It appears to be immaterial to Kher that none of the
nominations were for him personally. Although Kher may be pleased that a Hollywood
film he is in has been so well received, it would seem to pale in comparison to
his own decades-long legacy. That legacy, belonging primarily as it does to
Indian cinema which is still the largest dream factory in the world, celebrates
its centenary this year.
But such “provincial”
heritage pales in comparison to the juggernaut of expansive globalization. Life of Pi is not the only 2013 Oscar
contender with an Indian association. Lincoln,
with one more nomination than Lee’s movie, was bankrolled by Reliance-DreamWorks,
an Indian-allied multinational corporation. So also, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon may have won in the Foreign Language
category, but the Chinese feature was partially American funded. Like Boyle,
Lee and Martel’s ability to purvey regional stories to a global audience, makes
that quality an ideal one for the kind of cultural consumption that now matches
a borderless marketplace with free-moving capital. Unlike Mowgli, the story of
Pi and his cat is set adrift from India, if ever it came from there in the first
place...
The print version of this article can be seen here.
