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| Spot on: Tessa Ross |
If there is an Oscar for spotting movie potential, Tessa Ross, controller of film and drama at Film4, deserves one today. She is thought to be the first to recognise the cinematic qualities in Vikas Swarup’s Q&A before the novel had even been published (I discount Navdeep Suri, then press counsellor at the Indian high commission in London in 2003 and Vikas’s colleague who “made helpful marks in red” after first reading the manuscript).
Vikas and Navdeep are colleagues once again, since the former is India’s deputy high commissioner in Pretoria, while the latter is India’s consul general in Johannesburg.
Even Ronen Sen, now India’s ambassador in Washington but then India’s high commissioner to the UK, remembers the author fondly because “Vikas Swarup worked for me in London”. (Sadly, the ambassador, whose tenure ends next month, is busy tracking the new Obama administration and could not be persuaded to join the Indian tamasha in LA, unlike Lalit Mansingh, who, easily led astray by me, flew to California and gave the mother of all Indian parties for Lagaan in 2002.)
It is not often that Film4 buys a book without having the financial backing of a producer but Tessa did so.
“I loved the book,” Tessa tells me. “I thought it was rich and had a brilliant, moving premise at its heart and that it opened up a world that I’d rarely visited. It was wholly original, which is what I’m always looking for and I felt that it was a real prize, if we could get it right. So I was really delighted when Simon Beaufoy, a writer whom I’ve always admired, agreed to adapt it.”
She sent Beaufoy to Mumbai on two research trips and also asked Christian Colson, the man in charge of Celador Films, to be the producer. Colson’s first choice as director was Danny Boyle. Tessa describes the turn of events as “absolutely exhilarating” but generously deflects praise directed at her towards Boyle, Colson and Beaufoy.
“I did visit the set and was involved in all the big decisions we made but ultimately it was the relationship between the three men which made it happen,” she says. “They are a brilliant team.”
But since it is Tessa with whom the film began, it is only fair that she has managed to get a much sought after ticket for the Kodak Theatre. Eventually, adds Tessa, “the film will play on Channel4 and also on the film channel, Film4”.
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| Dressing up: Rishti Diwan |
What should Freida Pinto wear today?
Calcutta-born fashion designer Rishti Diwan suggests that an outfit she created while studying at the London College of Fashion, using 250 metres of 24-carat gold chain, would make Freida look even more stunning.
The dress, less than 3kg in weight, was brazenly copied by a designer in 2006 for Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza, the 18-year-old Miss Puerto Rico who won the Miss Universe contest that year, but without giving due credit to Rishti. However, her tutors in London marked down the former Calcutta La Martiniere for Girls and NIFT Delhi high flyer for future stardom and invited Rishti to become an “ambassador” for the college. Rishti, 29, happily settled in San Diego for the past two years with her neurologist husband, Rohan Gandhi, who is also from Calcutta, says: “It would be more appropriate for Freida’s silhouette to be Western but the fabric and embroidery could be Indian. My gold dress has an organic Indian quality. The men (A.R. Rahman, Irrfan Khan, Anil Kapoor) I would put into dark bundhgalas.”
In the large Indian community in California, there is concern that Slumdog’s Oscar chances could be harmed by appeals to nationalistic sentiment.
“We have noticed how Brad Pitt has been thanking actors in Hollywood for supporting The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” remarks Rishti. Since Benjamin Button took three relatively minor awards at Bafta, compared with seven major ones for Slumdog, Pitt’s implied call to Americans to do their patriotic duty may well sway some Academy voters.
“It is very much ‘us and them’, Slumdog being the outsider,” observes Rishti. “On the other hand, Dev Patel was interviewed on the very popular The Daily Show with Jon Stewart — Jon Stewart is for Slumdog Millionaire and has been making fun of Benjamin Button.”
Perhaps I have not been looking in the right kennels but I couldn’t spot a single cinema hall in Los Angeles playing Slumdog Millionaire nor even one poster for what is meant to be this year’s Oscar sensation.
This makes the suggestion made by one film critic somewhat puzzling. Going through the Los Angeles Times, I came across this philosophical discourse from Betsey Sharkey: “I am not just recommending that you see it but rather offering up some suggestions on how to see it.” She recommends an open mind: “What I would ask you to do is forget — everything… Let your mind go blank.”
She ends by saying that “when the best picture winner is announced on Sunday night, you’ll know why, win or lose, Slumdog Millionaire will be the one everyone is talking about.”
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| Touching up: Virginia Holmes with one of the actors of Slumdog Millionaire |
They also serve who do make-up and hair. In 2005 I met Virginia Holmes, an English girl educated at Stowe School and Exeter University, who has fulfilled her ambition of taking the western style of applying cosmetics to India.
With an Indian friend, Natasha Nischol (“her maternal uncle is Shekhar Kapur and her great-uncle is Dev Anand”), a product of the London College of Fashion, Virginia set up a design company, Fat Mu, which won the make-up and hair contract for Slumdog Millionaire.
“We created the looks for all the cast,” explains Virginia. “We had to link up the three main characters so that all had similar looks throughout the film. The little Jamal, Salim and Latika used to take the longest time in our chairs as we had to ‘dirty’ them up.”
She adds: “Freida to work on was an angel. Freida is a natural beauty and her face is a wonderful canvas on which to work. Our aim was to make her simple but beautiful and ethereal.”
Virginia tells me: “We are having an Oscar party here in Mumbai — my parents have flown over from the UK. Tension is running high as Danny has won nearly everything and this is the final hurdle. Fingers, toes and everything else crossed for the Oscars!”
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| New wave? A still from Slumdog Millionaire |
One effect of Slumdog Millionaire may be that it has spoilt us so far as watching mainstream Bollywood films is concerned. Take, for example, the Hindi films on the British Airways flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles.
Normally speaking I would not have been so impatient with the four on offer — Bachna Ae Haseeno, Heroes, Rock On!! and Singh is Kinng. The last was even commercially successful. However, the stop button was pressed in each case after 15-20 minutes. The Indian cinematic world post Slumdog Millionaire will not be the same as before.
