Ganesha
Scribe of the Mahabharata
THE MAHABHARATA
a film by Peter Brook
"It's about you . . . If you listen carefully, at the end you'll be someone else."
Background on
the Mahabharata and Online Texts | |
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ESSAYS
AND OTHER RESOURCES Peter Brook Interview, by Faynia Williams. In September 2001, Peter Brook won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain--and consented to an interview for the Guild's journal, DIRECT. Another Peter Brook Interview (Nancho Consults). "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought," by Basarab Nicolescu (Trans. David Williams) published in the Gurdjieff Review"The Readiness Is All: Peter Brook's Thirty Years in Paris," by Janet Savin (in Shakespeare Bulletin: A Journal of Performance Criticism and Scholarship). "Peter Brook, the Mahabharata, and Intercultural Performance," by Craig Strobel (1999). On Brook's international group of actors trained in methods and traditions of acting and performance of their native cultures and his experiment with a universal or cross-cultural performance style or language. Also on the problem of cultural appropriation and insensitivity. "Peter Brook's The Mahabharata: The Exigencies of Intercultural and Intersemiotic Translation," by John Hellweg Sotigui Kouyaté interview: "When I joined Peter Brook, I didn’t feel out of place. I could see everything was happening inside a circle, just like in Africa, and on the third day, he took my hand, looked me in the eye and said: “Sotigui, from today, you’re part of the family.” That was a magical moment for me. He didn’t say: “You’re part of our group, of our company.” He’d understood the soul of an African, he’d embraced my culture. Brook is a universal man. For him, there are no barriers between people, which is rare in today’s world. Some people don’t understand my loyalty to Brook. But how can I not be loyal to someone who defends such values in today’s world, where separation and individualism hold sway? // At his International Centre for Theatre Research were 22 actors from 18 different countries. In The Mahabharata, the five Pandava brothers were played by a German, a Frenchman, an Iranian, an Italian and a Senegalese. This bothered no one, and the play travelled the world for four years. Only Brook could have pulled off such a feat. There aren’t any races or skin colours in his mind. I’ve also played Prospero in The Tempest under him. It was the first time a European director, a British Shakespearean to boot, had staged this play with a black Prospero." "The Readiness Is All: Peter Brook's Thirty Years in Paris," by Janet Savin (in Shakespeare Bulletin: A Journal of Performance Criticism and Scholarship).The soundtrack also features an international group of musicians and composers. The base of Hindu religious music is interpreted and performed with instruments from other countries such as Japan, Turkey, and Australia. Among the composer/performers are the Nobel-Prize winning Rabindranath Tagore, Djamchid Chemirani, Philippe Eidel, Kudsi Erguner, Kim Menzer Mahmoud Tabrizi-Zadeh, and Toshi Tsuchitori. Dr. L. Subramanium was the musical advisor for the stage production. Dr. Subramanium has also scored the music for Salaam Bombay and Mississipi Masala, and is featured as a soloist in Little Buddha by Bernardo Bertolucci. |
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"A work of beauty and eloquence...an exhilarating experience."--Los Angeles Times "Richly evocative...above all a great yarn." --The New York Times "A masterpiece...The Mahabharata offers more food for thought than every other movie released this year combined." --Billboard Magazine "A 100,000-stanza Sanskrit poem, more than 10 times longer than the Bible, it's one of the oldest and most sacred works of Indian literature, and one of the world's longest written works. For his 1985 stage version, Brook distilled this metaphysical marathon down to nine hours; for the film, he's got it down to three densely populated hours. . . . Two warring bands of brothers, offspring of kings and gods, fight savagely for dominion. In this corner, we have the five virtuous Pandavas, led by Arjuna, versus the ragingly macho half-brothers Duryodhana and Karna. Both teams get sideline advice from the benevolent god Krishna, who tries to teach them to restore earthly harmony by abandoning their bloody lust for power. . . . Made in three months for a shockingly low $5 million and filmed on a set colored with spice, smoke and stone, and lit by candles, torches and mist-shrouded moons, The Mahabharata is often gorgeous." (Joe Brown, Washington Post. 03 Staff August 1990) "Simplifying a bit, we might say
that The Mahabharata (which can be translated as 'The Poetical History of
Humanity') is the story of a war between the Kauravas (the bad guys) and the Pandavas (the
good guys)--a war in which dharma itself, the order of the universe, is threatened; a war
in which Lord Krishna, a manifestation of the great god Vishnu, will be a participant on
the side of the Pandavas. The story is interrupted and diversified with many byways and
digressions (one is the Baghavad Gita, the lofty book of Brahman ethical
teachings) and vivified with striking characters, curses, bitter vengeance, ambiguities
and eccentricities, but it is a great story. It is not for everyone's taste, but those who
like it are apt to like it enormously. |
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| The Mahabharata, in its original Sanskrit probably the longest epic ever composed, embodies much of the essence of Indian culture. Said to be written down by the god of writing and beginnings, Ganesha (the elephant-headed god), it is a fascinating story of a feud between two parts of a single Indian ruling family (the Bharata), featuring a gambling contest in which one set of cousins is tricked out of their kingdom. The culminates in a vast, cataclysmic battle, told in a heroic and moral context. Krishna teaches the warrior that the ultimate battle is not about land and riches and worldly power. The ultimate battle, waged on cosmic ground, is about the human spirit. The Ultimate Weapon is summoned, a weapon that if used will destroy the world of both matter and spirit. Shrinking from one's moral duty, refusal to act even when it is most difficult to act, and egotistical attachment to one's actions--these human weaknesses pose the greatest dangers to survival of the individual and the species. | |||
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Gloria Floren, Letters Department,
MiraCosta College, |
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II—Parabola Video Library)--which means
"The Political Story of the Human
Race"--was originally planned as a 9-hour
version of the 18-volume Sanskrit text, is based on
his celebrated stage production. Brook cut it to 6 hours for
television. The Parabola Video Library edition cut the original
six hours of film to a little under three hours. Screenplay: Peter Brook,
Jean-Claude Carriere, Marie-Helene Estienne. Director of Photography: William
Lubtchansky. Editor: Nicolas Gaster. Produced in Association with Denmark,
Finland, Iceland, NEH, NEA. The actor who plays Ganesha also plays Krishna.