Benegal's Carmen set for take-off
Saibal Chatterjee | Wide Angle
New Delhi, September 14, 2005
Septuagenarian filmmaker Shyam Benegal, coming off the box office debacle of
the historical
biopic, Bose - The Forgotten Hero, is all set to branch out into a new creative
terrain with a
Bollywood musical adaptation of the story of the classic coquette, Carmen.
The character is the female protagonist of what is arguably the best-known
opera ever composed,
Georges Bizet's Carmen. The story has been filmed and staged on numerous
occasions all over the
world.
Benegal's version, tentatively titled Chamki, will however not be based on the
popular opera.
"My inspiration is the novel (by Prosper Merimee) on which Bizet's famed opera
is based," he
reveals during an informal chat in New Delhi.
It has already been reported that A.R. Rahman will compose the music for the
film. According to
Benegal, Chamki will be a musical in the Bollywood/Hollywood sense of the
term, and "not in
the operatic sense". He says: "Indians do not relate to opera."
Chamki will be bankrolled by the Mumbai-based production company, WSG Pictures,
Incidentally, Benegal has never made an out-and-out musical. He has, of course,
used music and
picturised songs in films like Bhumika, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa, but being a
production
likely to be chock-a-block with songs and dances, Chamki will represent a first
for the
stalwart. "The character of Carmen in my film is a performer," he points out.
Chamki belongs to a tribal community of musicians and mendicants who live close
to the Indo-Pak
border in Rajasthan. They are people who indulge in cross-border smuggling to
make ends meet.
Benegal has decided to cast Bollywood star Urmila Matondkar as Chamki. " I was
looking for
sauciness and spunk, and not just sensuality," he says. "That is why I settled
for Urmila."
Urmila had, incidentally, featured in Benegal's modern reworking of the
Mahabharat, Kalyug,
released 25 years ago as a child actor.
"I see Carmen as a quintessential feminist," explains the filmmaker. "She is a
strong-willed
woman who knows what she wants and how to get it." In the original story, she
is perceived as a
temptress though. "You must remember," says the veteran director, "that the
tale was written in
a Catholic country and it was, therefore, only natural that she was presented
as somebody who
was evil and led men down to hell."
What is it about Carmen that drew Benegal to the subject? "It is a universally
recognized story
like, say, Romeo and Juliet. And it can be summed in four simple words: love,
betrayal,
jealousy and revenge. So it lends itself to great screen drama," he says.
Originally set in a cigar factory in Seville, Spain, Carmen is the story of a
sensuous,
beautiful Gypsy woman who aggressively seduces Don Jose, a soldier sent by his
regiment to
arrest her. The cornered woman aggressively seduces the man and the latter,
believing her
promise of everlasting love, allows her to make good her escape.
In the bargain, Don Jose is charged with dereliction of duty. He loses all he
as: his job, his
dignity, and his peace of mind. In the face of Carmen's refusal to tie herself
down to one man,
Don Jose is wracked by jealousy and obsession. He triggers a tragic finale.
Jimmy Shergill has already been penciled in to play the central male character
of a BSF
officer, while Yashpal Sharma is being considered for another significant male
part, that of
one of Carmen's suitors.
Benegal is currently on a location-hunting trip in Rajasthan. The film is
expected to start
shooting in late October.
In the 130 years of its existence, the Carmen drama has been interpreted in
numerous ways in
virtually every major filmmaking country of the world. In the silent era
itself, it was brought
to life on screen by Cecil B. DeMille and Raoul Walsh in the US and Ernst
Lubitsch in Germany.
In more recent years, masters like Italy's Francesco Rosi and Spain's Carlos
Saura have filmed
it with great success. "In Spain," says Benegal, "Carmen is adapted virtually
once every two
years."
The latest version of the ever-popular Carmen saga, set in a South African
township, has
garnered critical applause the world over. The Xhosa-language film, U-Carmen
eKhayelitsha
(Carmen in Khayelitsha), directed by Mark Dornford-May, bagged the Golden Bear
at the 2005
Berlin Film Festival.
One of the more famous screen adaptations of Carmen is based on Carmen Jones,
the all-black
version written by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was filmed in 1954 by Otto
Preminger with Dorothy
Dandridge as Carmen and Harry Belafonte as Don Jose.
Is Benegal's film the first-ever attempt to bring Carmen to the Indian screen?
It isn't.
According to the director, there was a version of Carmen made in Mumbai in the
1950s with
Sheikh Mukhtar and Sitara Devi in the lead roles.
Not much else is known about that particular film. So, for most Indian
filmgoers, Benegal's
Chamki will be their first real exposure to the timeless legend of the
irresistible Carmen.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1491532,00110003.htm
"We neglect our cities at our peril. For, in neglecting them, we neglect the
nation."
-John F. Kennedy
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