TEDIndia 2009
Shekhar Kapur: We are the stories we tell ourselves
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Where does creative inspiration spring from? At TEDIndia, Hollywood/Bollywood director Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth," "Mr. India") pinpoints his source of creativity: sheer, utter panic. He shares a powerful way to unleash your inner storyteller.
Shekhar Kapur - Director and writer
Shekhar Kapur is a visionary filmmaker and storyteller who works at the intersection of art, myth and activism. Full bio
Shekhar Kapur is a visionary filmmaker and storyteller who works at the intersection of art, myth and activism. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
So, I was just asked to go and shoot this film called "Elizabeth."
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And we're all talking about this great English icon and saying,
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"She's a fantastic woman, she does everything.
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How are we going to introduce her?"
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So we went around the table with the studio and the producers and the writer,
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and they came to me and said, "Shekhar, what do you think?"
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And I said, "I think she's dancing."
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And I could see everybody looked at me,
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somebody said, "Bollywood."
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The other said, "How much did we hire him for?"
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And the third said, "Let's find another director."
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I thought I had better change.
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So we had a lot of discussion on how to introduce Elizabeth,
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and I said, "OK, maybe I am too Bollywood.
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Maybe Elizabeth, this great icon, dancing?
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What are you talking about?"
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So I rethought the whole thing,
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and then we all came to a consensus.
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And here was the introduction of this
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great British icon called "Elizabeth."
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01:06
Leicester: May I join you, my lady?
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Elizabeth: If it please you, sir.
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(Music)
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Shekhar Kapur: So she was dancing.
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So how many people who saw the film did not get
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that here was a woman in love,
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that she was completely innocent
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and saw great joy in her life, and she was youthful?
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And how many of you did not get that?
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That's the power of visual storytelling,
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that's the power of dance, that's the power of music:
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the power of not knowing.
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When I go out to direct a film,
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every day we prepare too much, we think too much.
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Knowledge becomes a weight upon wisdom.
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You know, simple words lost
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in the quicksand of experience.
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So I come up, and I say,
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"What am I going to do today?" I'm not going to do what I planned to do,
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and I put myself into absolute panic.
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It's my one way of getting rid of my mind,
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getting rid of this mind that says,
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"Hey, you know what you're doing. You know exactly what you're doing.
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You're a director, you've done it for years."
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So I've got to get there
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and be in complete panic.
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It's a symbolic gesture. I tear up the script,
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I go and I panic myself, I get scared.
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I'm doing it right now; you can watch me. I'm getting nervous,
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I don't know what to say, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't want to go there.
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And as I go there, of course, my A.D. says,
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"You know what you're going to do, sir." I say, "Of course I do."
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And the studio executives, they would say,
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"Hey, look at Shekhar. He's so prepared."
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And inside I've just been listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
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because he's chaotic.
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I'm allowing myself to go into chaos
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because out of chaos, I'm hoping some moments of truth will come.
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All preparation is preparation.
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I don't even know if it's honest.
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I don't even know if it's truthful.
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The truth of it all comes on the moment, organically,
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and if you get five great moments
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of great, organic stuff
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in your storytelling, in your film,
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your film, audiences will get it.
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So I'm looking for those moments, and I'm standing there
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and saying, "I don't know what to say."
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So, ultimately, everybody's looking at you,
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200 people at seven in the morning
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who got there at quarter to seven, and you arrived at seven,
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and everybody's saying,
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"Hey. What's the first thing? What's going to happen?"
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And you put yourself into a state of panic
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where you don't know, and so you don't know.
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And so, because you don't know,
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you're praying to the universe because you're praying to the universe
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that something -- I'm going to try and access the universe
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the way Einstein -- say a prayer --
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accessed his equations,
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the same source. I'm looking for the same source
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because creativity comes from absolutely the same source
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that you meditate somewhere outside yourself,
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outside the universe.
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You're looking for something that comes and hits you.
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Until that hits you, you're not going to do the first shot.
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So what do you do?
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So Cate says, "Shekhar, what do you want me to do?"
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And I say, "Cate, what do you want to do?" (Laughter)
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"You're a great actor, and I like to give to my actors --
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why don't you show me what you want to do?"
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(Laughter)
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What am I doing? I'm trying to buy time.
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I'm trying to buy time.
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So the first thing about storytelling that I learned,
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and I follow all the time is: Panic.
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Panic is the great access of creativity
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because that's the only way to get rid of your mind.
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Get rid of your mind.
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Get out of it, get it out.
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And let's go to the universe because
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there's something out there that is more
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truthful than your mind,
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that is more truthful than your universe.
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[unclear], you said that yesterday. I'm just repeating it
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because that's what I follow constantly
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to find the shunyata somewhere, the emptiness.
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Out of the emptiness comes a moment of creativity.
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So that's what I do.
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When I was a kid -- I was about eight years old.
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You remember how India was. There was no pollution.
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In Delhi, we used to live -- we used to call it a chhat or the khota.
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Khota's now become a bad word. It means their terrace --
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and we used to sleep out at night.
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At school I was being just taught about physics,
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and I was told that
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if there is something that exists,
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then it is measurable.
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If it is not measurable,
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it does not exist.
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And at night I would lie out, looking at the unpolluted sky,
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as Delhi used to be at that time when I was a kid,
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and I used to stare at the universe and say,
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"How far does this universe go?"
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My father was a doctor.
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And I would think, "Daddy, how far does the universe go?"
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And he said, "Son, it goes on forever."
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So I said, "Please measure forever
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because in school they're teaching me
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that if I cannot measure it, it does not exist.
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It doesn't come into my frame of reference."
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So, how far does eternity go?
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What does forever mean?
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And I would lie there crying at night
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because my imagination could not touch creativity.
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So what did I do?
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At that time, at the tender age of seven,
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I created a story.
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What was my story?
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And I don't know why, but I remember the story.
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There was a woodcutter
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who's about to take his ax and chop a piece of wood,
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and the whole galaxy is one atom of that ax.
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And when that ax hits that piece of wood,
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that's when everything will destroy
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and the Big Bang will happen again.
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But all before that there was a woodcutter.
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And then when I would run out of that story,
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I would imagine that woodcutter's universe
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is one atom in the ax of another woodcutter.
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So every time, I could tell my story again and again
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and get over this problem,
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and so I got over the problem.
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How did I do it? Tell a story.
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So what is a story?
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A story is our -- all of us --
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we are the stories we tell ourselves.
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In this universe, and this existence,
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where we live with this duality
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of whether we exist or not
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and who are we,
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the stories we tell ourselves are the stories
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that define the potentialities
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of our existence.
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We are the stories we tell ourselves.
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So that's as wide as we look at stories.
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A story is the relationship
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that you develop between who you are,
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or who you potentially are,
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and the infinite world, and that's our mythology.
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We tell our stories,
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and a person without a story does not exist.
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So Einstein told a story
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and followed his stories and came up with theories
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and came up with theories and then came up with his equations.
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Alexander had a story that his mother used to tell him,
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and he went out to conquer the world.
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We all, everybody, has a story that they follow.
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We tell ourselves stories.
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So, I will go further, and I say,
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"I tell a story, and therefore I exist."
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I exist because there are stories,
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and if there are no stories, we don't exist.
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We create stories to define our existence.
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If we do not create the stories,
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we probably go mad.
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I don't know; I'm not sure, but that's what I've done all the time.
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Now, a film.
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A film tells a story.
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I often wonder when I make a film -- I'm thinking of making a film of the Buddha --
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and I often wonder: If Buddha had all the elements
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that are given to a director --
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if he had music, if he had visuals, if he had a video camera --
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would we get Buddhism better?
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But that puts some kind of burden on me.
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I have to tell a story
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in a much more elaborate way,
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but I have the potential.
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It's called subtext.
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When I first went to Hollywood, they said --
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I used to talk about subtext, and my agent came to me,
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"Would you kindly not talk about subtext?"
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And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because nobody is going to give you a film
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if you talk about subtext.
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Just talk about plot
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and say how wonderful you'll shoot the film,
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what the visuals will be."
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So when I look at a film,
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here's what we look for:
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We look for a story on the plot level,
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then we look for a story
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on the psychological level,
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then we look for a story on the political level,
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then we look at a story
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on a mythological level.
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And I look for stories on each level.
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Now, it is not necessary
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that these stories agree with each other.
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What is wonderful is,
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at many times, the stories will contradict with each other.
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So when I work with Rahman who's a great musician,
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I often tell him, "Don't follow what the script already says.
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Find that which is not.
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Find the truth for yourself,
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and when you find the truth for yourself,
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there will be a truth in it, but it may contradict the plot,
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but don't worry about it."
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So, the sequel to "Elizabeth," "Golden Age."
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When I made the sequel to "Elizabeth," here was a story that
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the writer was telling:
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A woman who was threatened
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by Philip II
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and was going to war,
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and was going to war, fell in love with Walter Raleigh.
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Because she fell in love with Walter Raleigh,
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she was giving up the reasons she was a queen,
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and then Walter Raleigh
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fell in love with her lady in waiting,
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and she had to decide whether she was a queen going to war
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or she wanted...
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Here's the story I was telling:
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The gods up there,
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there were two people.
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There was Philip II, who was divine
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because he was always praying,
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and there was Elizabeth, who was divine,
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but not quite divine because she thought she was divine,
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but the blood of being mortal flowed in her.
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But the divine one was unjust,
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so the gods said,
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"OK, what we need to do is
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help the just one."
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And so they helped the just one.
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And what they did was, they sent Walter Raleigh down
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to physically separate her mortal self
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from her spirit self.
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And the mortal self was the girl
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that Walter Raleigh was sent,
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and gradually he separated her
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so she was free to be divine.
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And the two divine people fought,
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and the gods were on the side of divinity.
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Of course, all the British press got really upset.
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They said, "We won the Armada."
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But I said, "But the storm won the Armada.
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The gods sent the storm."
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So what was I doing?
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I was trying to find a mythic reason
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to make the film.
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Of course, when I asked Cate Blanchett, I said, "What's the film about?"
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She said, "The film's about a woman
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coming to terms with growing older."
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Psychological.
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The writer said "It's about history, plot."
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I said "It's about mythology,
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the gods."
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So let me show you a film --
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a piece from that film --
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and how a camera also --
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so this is a scene, where in my mind,
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she was at the depths of mortality.
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She was discovering what mortality actually means,
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and if she is at the depths of mortality,
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what really happens.
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And she's recognizing the dangers of mortality
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and why she should break away from mortality.
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Remember, in the film, to me,
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both her and her lady in waiting
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were parts of the same body,
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one the mortal self
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and one the spirit self.
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So can we have that second?
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(Music)
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Elizabeth: Bess?
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Bess?
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Bess Throckmorton?
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Bess: Here, my lady.
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Elizabeth: Tell me, is it true?
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Are you with child?
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Are you with child?
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Bess: Yes, my lady.
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Elizabeth: Traitorous.
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You dare to keep secrets from me?
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You ask my permission before you rut,
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before you breed.
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My bitches wear my collars.
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Do you hear me? Do you hear me?
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Walsingham: Majesty. Please, dignity. Mercy.
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Elizabeth: This is no time for mercy, Walsingham.
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You go to your traitor brother and leave me to my business.
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Is it his?
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Tell me. Say it. Is the child his? Is it his?
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Bess: Yes.
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My lady,
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it is my husband's child.
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Elizabeth: Bitch! (Cries)
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Raleigh: Majesty.
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This is not the queen I love and serve.
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Elizabeth: This man has seduced a ward of the queen,
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and she has married without royal consent.
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These offenses are punishable by law. Arrest him.
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Go.
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You no longer have the queen's protection.
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Bess: As you wish, Majesty.
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Elizabeth: Get out! Get out! Get out!
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Get out.
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(Music)
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Shekhar Kapur: So, what am I trying to do here?
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Elizabeth has realized,
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and she's coming face-to-face
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with her own sense of jealousy,
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her own sense of mortality.
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What am I doing with the architecture?
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The architecture is telling a story.
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The architecture is telling a story
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about how, even though she's the most powerful woman
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in the world at that time,
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there is the other, the architecture's bigger.
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The stone is bigger than her because stone is an organic.
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It'll survive her.
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So it's telling you, to me, stone is part of her destiny.
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Not only that, why is the camera looking down?
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The camera's looking down at her because she's in the well.
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She's in the absolute well
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of her own sense of being mortal.
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That's where she has to pull herself out
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from the depths of mortality,
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come in, release her spirit.
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And that's the moment where, in my mind,
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both Elizabeth and Bess are the same person.
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But that's the moment
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she's surgically removing herself from that.
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So the film is operating on
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many many levels in that scene.
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And how we tell stories
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visually, with music, with actors,
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and at each level it's a different sense
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and sometimes contradictory to each other.
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So how do I start all this?
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What's the process of telling a story?
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About ten years ago,
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I heard this little thing from a politician,
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not a politician that was very well respected in India.
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And he said that these people in the cities,
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in one flush, expend as much water
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as you people in the rural areas
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don't get for your family for two days.
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That struck a chord, and I said, "That's true."
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I went to see a friend of mine,
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and he made me wait
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in his apartment in Malabar Hill
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on the twentieth floor,
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which is a really, really upmarket area in Mumbai.
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And he was having a shower for 20 minutes.
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I got bored and left, and as I drove out,
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I drove past the slums of Bombay,
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as you always do,
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and I saw lines and lines in the hot midday sun
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of women and children with buckets
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waiting for a tanker
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to come and give them water.
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And an idea started to develop.
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So how does that become a story?
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I suddenly realized that we are heading towards disaster.
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So my next film is called "Paani"
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which means water.
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And now, out of the mythology of that,
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I'm starting to create a world.
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What kind of world do I create,
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and where does the idea, the design of that come?
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So, in my mind, in the future,
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they started to build flyovers.
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You understand flyovers? Yeah?
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They started to build flyovers
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to get from A to B faster,
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but they effectively went from one area of relative wealth
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to another area of relative wealth.
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And then what they did was
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they created a city above the flyovers.
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And the rich people moved to the upper city
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and left the poorer people in the lower cities,
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about 10 to 12 percent of the people
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have moved to the upper city.
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Now, where does this upper city and lower city come?
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There's a mythology in India about --
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where they say, and I'll say it in Hindi,
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[Hindi]
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Right. What does that mean?
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It says that the rich are always sitting on the shoulders
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and survive on the shoulders of the poor.
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So, from that mythology, the upper city and lower city come.
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So the design has a story.
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And now, what happens is that the people of the upper city,
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they suck up all the water.
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Remember the word I said, suck up.
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They suck up all the water, keep to themselves,
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and they drip feed the lower city.
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And if there's any revolution, they cut off the water.
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And, because democracy still exists,
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there's a democratic way in which you say
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"Well, if you give us what [we want], we'll give you water."
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So, okay my time is up.
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But I can go on about telling you
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how we evolve stories,
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and how stories effectively are who we are
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and how these get translated into the particular discipline
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that I am in, which is film.
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But ultimately, what is a story? It's a contradiction.
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Everything's a contradiction.
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The universe is a contradiction.
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And all of us are constantly looking for harmony.
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When you get up, the night and day is a contradiction.
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But you get up at 4 a.m.
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That first blush of blue is where the night and day
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are trying to find harmony with each other.
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Harmony is the notes that Mozart didn't give you,
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but somehow the contradiction of his notes suggest that.
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All contradictions of his notes suggest the harmony.
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It's the effect of looking for harmony
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in the contradiction that exists in a poet's mind,
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a contradiction that exists in a storyteller's mind.
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In a storyteller's mind, it's a contradiction of moralities.
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In a poet's mind, it's a conflict of words,
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in the universe's mind, between day and night.
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In the mind of a man and a woman,
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we're looking constantly at
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the contradiction between male and female,
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we're looking for harmony within each other.
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The whole idea of contradiction,
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but the acceptance of contradiction
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is the telling of a story, not the resolution.
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The problem with a lot of the storytelling in Hollywood
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and many films, and as [unclear] was saying in his,
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that we try to resolve the contradiction.
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Harmony is not resolution.
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Harmony is the suggestion of a thing
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that is much larger than resolution.
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Harmony is the suggestion of something
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that is embracing and universal
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and of eternity and of the moment.
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Resolution is something that is far more limited.
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It is finite; harmony is infinite.
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So that storytelling, like all other contradictions in the universe,
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is looking for harmony and infinity
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in moral resolutions, resolving one, but letting another go,
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letting another go and creating a question that is really important.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Shekhar Kapur - Director and writerShekhar Kapur is a visionary filmmaker and storyteller who works at the intersection of art, myth and activism.
Why you should listen
Golden Globe-winning director Shekhar Kapur makes lush, international period films -- such as Elizabeth and The Four Feathers -- and Indian hits like Mr. India and Bandit Queen. Most recently, Kapur's short film "Passages"" is part of the October 2009 film anthology New York, I Love You. Also this October, he sat on the judging panel for 1 Minute to Save the World, a competition for short films about climate change. (And yes, last summer, he was a judge on India's Got Talent.)
His forthcoming film Paani – the hindi word for water – explores mumbai's shrinking supply of water and its distribution underworld. equally at home in hollywood and Bollywood, he's also a comics mogul; in 2006 he co-founded Virgin Comics as a venue for turning Indian and Hindu myths into pop-culture icons. For the company, now reorganized as Liquid Comics, he cocreated the series Ramayan 3392 A.D., based on the Ramayana. His newest Liquid series: Devi.
Shekhar Kapur | Speaker | TED.com