Film-maker Paul Cox meets Shri Mataji and Sir C.P...

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Film-maker Paul Cox meets Shri Mataji and Sir C.P...

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:17 pm

 

(Australian Sahaja Newsletter - 31 March, 1995)

 

While Shri Mataji and Sir C.P. were in Melbourne during February for the Puja

Programme, a meeting was arranged with Paul Cox, a noted Australian film

producer. He has been a long-standing film critic of Hollywood and the negative

influence it exerts over the film industries in other countries. He has also

said that American films of today are out of harmony with the human spirit.

Their films are very fast, quickly changing from one scene to another, which has

a disturbing effect on one's attention.

 

At Shri Mataji's request, a meeting was arranged and Paul Cox met with Sir C.P.

and Shri Mataji at their hotel. During the meeting, Shri Mataji had said that

She agreed with his views on the American film industry and She felt that he was

the right person to make a film based on the life and times of Lal Bahadur

Shastri. Sir C.P. then presented a copy of his book to Mr. Cox. Shri Mataji said

that young people of today do not have any positive role models which can bring

inspiration into their lives. The heroes of today are 'anti-heroes' and have

quite negative characters. It was important for society to provide positive

images to our young people and to fill them with hope for a brighter future.

 

Mr. Cox accepted a copy of the book and said that he would read it, and if he

was interested in proceeding with the film he would contact Sir C.P. in Sydney

before he returns to India.

 

Word reached us in March that Mr. Cox had read the book and had requested a

meeting with Sir C.P. So on the afternoon of Wednesday the 15th, Sir C.P.

travelled to Melbourne and met with Paul Cox. Mr. Cox said that he had enjoyed

the book and that it could provide much material for a film. He said that he was

interested in the project and that steps would be taken to get the project off

the ground. The film is to be made in India, with both a Hindi and an English

version. The first task is to find a script writer... Mr. Cox suggested some

script writers known to him in India. He also suggested that research needs to

be done in India locating archival footage and material on Mr. Shastri.

 

Sir C.P. reported that the meeting went very well and that the first steps in

this momentous project will be taken soon. Paul Cox is a great admirer of India

and he had planned to visit there in August, at which time he may meet with Sir

C.P. again to further discuss the

project.

 

Below is an article about Paul Cox, Australian film-maker written in the Pune

Times in India in January 1995 where he expresses his views on film-making

today:-

 

Quote:

By Ranjini Rajagopal

 

BOMBAY - Australian film-maker Paul Cox, whose latest film Exile, was

screened at the international film festival being held here, is one

director who believes in personal cinema. Cox is very concerned about

the fact that intimate cinema is being fast elbowed out, and replaced by the

superficial, quick action films of the West, that do not penetrate the psyche.

 

Most of Cox's films deal with the fragmentation of the individual, from within

as well as without. In Exile, the protagonist, Peter Costello, is exiled from

his country for stealing sheep, in a desperate attempt to raise enough money to

marry his girlfriend.

 

Left all by himself on a remote island, he learns to survive the hard way, while

his love is married off to someone else back home.

 

The film deals with the issue of individual assertion in adversity, and

according to its director, signifies hope... " It's basically about the artiste's

soul; he is always an outsider, " says he, " There are so many Van Goghs running

around right now, not recognised because they have difficulty accepting the form

in which we are growing. That incredible frustration will only get worse. "

 

Cox's films all revolve around the search for individuality, which he feels

needs to be looked at from a non-consumerist angle. " The individual is not the

end product anymore, but there to be consumed by society, " he says, adding that

western culture, which " has nothing to offer us, " is presiding over the cultures

of the world. " In Arizona, you are now allowed to carry a gun inside. And this

is the country that controls the greatest gift of the century - film. Society

feeds that because this is very good for the gun lobby. "

 

Cox feels Indian films manage to retain their cultural specificity, and that

there are sincere attempts at expressing it. " But such films have no chance to

change the world. And now, you're getting US films dubbed in Hindi. This is

bizarre, " he says.

 

To the question that there is a major lobby that considers these technological

advances as revolutionary, Cox says that a revolution is also expected to bring

in new challenges. " It's because our civilisation has killed God, " he explains,

" and replaced God with ourselves. The inner psyche of the human being is more

important than the outer. It's more important to get to know the silences in

between, and those within you, but all that is not being consumed. "

 

Cox feels the magical, metaphorical element of life is going fast out of

circulation. " I come from a time when there was a demon living in a rock, where

the animals seemed to speak. "

 

This is precisely why he goes in search of remote islands, removed from urban

lives. " Both Exile and Island are set on an island; they're also about all of us

being an island. I look for a virgin bit of sea, or land to make a film. This

place on which Exile was shot; there are some grinding stones here that say that

aboriginals were there 20,000 years ago. Nobody's been there. I don't even want

to tell anyone where it is, because somebody's going to go and make a golf

course there, or build a hotel. "

 

He feels an enormous sense of loss, " So I escape to an island to make sense of

all this, for all this fragmentation condenses into one human soul. The

protagonist in Exile is forced to balance the inner and and the outer to

physically and spiritually survive. Indian society is also turning in the

direction of western society. "

 

But making the kind of films he does has drained Cox completely. " It's very hard

to get the money to make such films. Then making it is difficult, and then, you

can't sell it at all, because it's not entertaining, " he says, adding, " I've to

restart my career completely after this film. "

 

However, Cox does not want to project himself as a negative film-maker, although

he is very disillusioned with the way cinema celebrates violence. Pulp Fiction

and Kieslowski's Red were at the Cannes together and Pulp Fiction got the Palm

d'or.

 

They say it is very well directed and acted. " So was the Second World War, " he

says. " If the world celebrates this in a medium that I think is very dear, that

holds some hope of exchanging our dreams and hopes, it's very serious. When

somebody's head is blown off, people laugh, they say it's only pulp fiction; not

to be taken seriously. I take it very seriously. " Quentin Tarantino, the

director of Pulp Fiction, has also scripted Natural Born Killers, a film that

Oliver Stone has directed. " This is the Bergman of our times, " reacts Cox. " If

someone like Fellini were to make films today, he wouldn't have a chance. " He

(Paul Cox) feels such films violate people who believe they're being

entertained. " It makes me want to never make films again. " Cinema, feels Cox,

has the ability to penetrate the psyche. " It should disturb you inside, and

years later, you discover the gift that you were given at that time. "

 

Cox's latest project is on the dancer Nijinsky, who wrote a beautiful diary just

before he slipped into total madness. Cox had made a film on Van Gogh years ago,

from the painter's point of view. " I'm interested in the threshold of sleep -

madness - because I think they're more alert. "

 

He is also ready to shoot a more saleable film, Lust and Revenge, to raise the

money to make the other film. " I've had many chances to go to Hollywood, but

once you do that, you can't think for yourself. I know many who've fallen like

that. "

 

The other film Cox has in mind, he wants to make in India. " I might make it in

Kerala, " he says, " It's called the Homecoming. I'm scripting it with the Greek

actress, Irene Papas, who has a striking half-Bengali profile. "

 

The film is about a woman whose mother leaves a note behind which says that her

father was an Indian. " She is very disturbed, because she has lived several

years believing something else. She goes in search of her father. But she

doesn't find him, she finds herself. " Cox doesn't know when he can really begin

making the film. " I must be careful, or else it'll probably flop again, " he says

with a chuckle.

 

(Australian Sahaja Newsletter - 31 March, 1995)

_________________

" Your power itself will show that this power is really of love,

affection, compassion for the transformation of the whole world. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Ganesha Puja,

10 May 1995, Cabella Italy