Michael Radford was in Karachi recently to attend the launching ceremony of the children’s book, Mo’s Star, by writer and lawyer Mahnaz Malik, and talked to Dawn.
Born in New Delhi in 1946, Radford’s father worked for the Indian Army pre-partition. “My father and my great, great grandfather were in the Indian Army as well. My great grandfather was stationed in the Northwest Frontier Province for most of his life. He was born in Hyderabad and my father was born in Balgaum. My grandmother was born in Rangoon (Yangon) so that is why it so happens that I keep returning to this part of the world.”
Radford was educated at Oxford University and worked for a short while as a teacher. Soon he started working as a documentary film maker and one of his first films, Another Time, Another Place won 15 prizes in 1983 at various film festivals around the world.
At the launch Mo’s Star, he was happy to meet many devoted people who wanted to do help solve Pakistan’s problems, education being a priority area. “I think that when you have been lucky in your life as I am, you want to give back to the world. To me there are two areas where I try to help a lot. One is for people who can’t see and the other is education as I think this is where everything starts.”
He added: “It is all very well for people to come from privileged backgrounds to understand and know what’s possible in the world and there is nothing wrong with that. But one of the reasons why people are marginalized in society is that they don’t even know what’s actually possible. Only education can give that to you. And then coming across literature and the ideas of people who’ve lived or been like yourself, to understand that you can actually leave that situation in which you find yourself, that I think is the most important thing. ”
Radford’s much acclaimed film was the adaptation of George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-four, (1984), starring Richard Burton. It was a story of a man rebelling against a totalitarian society and falling in love. This film received the British Film Award for best film and best actor. His other moving and spectacular film Il Postino (1994) is the story of a postman who tries to pursue a local beauty through the poetry of a famous poet to whom he delivered mail. Having spent time with Massimo Troisi, the Italian actor who played the lead role in the film, Radford started thinking on making an Italian film, the first made by an Englishman. It won around 35 international awards – for best director and best foreign film by BAFTA – and was nominated for five Academy Awards which included awards for best director and best screenplay. Radford has also acted, and hasn’t forgotten how it feels to act.
Making films is not an easy job, he confesses, as the arts can only point out how confusing and chaotic the world can be. Unlike a novelist who is free to write and reach any plain, film makers do not enjoy that liberty. “The art of making a film is to take what is possible and make of it something which is according to your personal beliefs. There are no easy and cheap solutions to anything. And if anyone says there are, they should be warned against it. Secondly, the audience loves actors and a film is really actor driven. Without Al Pacino I couldn’t make Merchant of Venice, without Richard Burton I couldn’t make 1984 and without Massimo Troisi I couldn’t make Il Postino. Though I know my job technically, I am best known as being an actor’s director.” To his credit also are the famous films Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000) and B. Monkey (1998).
Radford claims that he is interested in the lives of common people. Many of his films have been about such people. Dancing at the Blue Iguana was about the ordinary lives of women working for a striptease club. “I believe that all humanity lives in the little stories of small people. That in those stories all the themes of humanity lie. That’s what I would like to say with all my heart.”