The Company of Mira Nair

The Indian filmmaker discusses her movies, her characters, and her own history.

by Sean Howe
May/June 2007

Photo by Carlo Allegri/Getty Images

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair has produced a body of sensuous work that investigates heritage, family, class, and love. Although the success of her first feature film, 1988’s Salaam Bombay!, occurred during the cultural studies boom, her impulses seem independent of academic trends. Her own background—Catholic schools in Delhi, Delhi University, and a Harvard scholarship at 19—inspired her to make films about people suspended between cultures. A young Indian-Ugandan woman falls in love with an African-American in the rural South in Mississippi Masala; a servant and upper-caste girl compete for the attentions of a prince in Kama Sutra; a wedding contractor falls for a maid in Monsoon Wedding; and, in her most recent film, The Namesake, a young Bengali-American tries to find his place in New York City. Since imagery, cinematography, and character are so important to Nair’s films—each scene feels like a carefully constructed painting—we asked her to choose some of her favorite shots and ruminate on their significance.

She met us at Mira­bai Films, her New York-based production company, where she’s preparing for her next project, an adaptation of Gregory David Robert’s novel, Shantaram, starring Johnny Depp.

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Keywords:

• Interview,
• Film and Television,
• The Arts

Mentioned:

• 
  Mira Nair : College Class of 1979
• 
  Sooni Taraporevala : College Class of 1979