The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Fatwa-free Rushdie says ‘Midnight’ film closes circle Posted: 27 Apr 2013 01:26 AM PDT
But while fatwa-free life is now "pretty good," he admitted there are occasional "slippages" - including during a trip last year to India, the land of his birth, while promoting the movie. In an interview timed with its US release, he discussed hopes for more film adaptations, Quentin Tarantino's unlikely influence on "Midnight's Children" - and his feelings about Margaret Thatcher as a mother-figure. The movie tells the story of two boys born on the stroke of midnight, August 15, 1947, at the precise moment India gained independence from its British colonial masters, but then switched shortly after birth. The 1981 novel won the coveted Booker Prize and launched the Anglo-Indian writer's career - but seven years later the glamorous literary life came to an abrupt stop when Iran slapped a death sentence on him for "The Satanic Verses." Rushdie recounted his years in hiding in last year's autobiographical "Joseph Anton" - the pseudonym he chose to keep would-be assassins off his trail - which he hopes will be the next book to be adapted for the big screen. But he was in Los Angeles this month to talk about "Midnight's Children," which came out in several countries including India last year, ahead of its release in the United States from Friday, April 26. The idea of adapting the novel came "completely spontaneously" from Indian director Deepa Mehta, said Rushdie, who wrote the screenplay and narrates the movie. At one point he thought of acting in it. "But when we came to actually make the film, I thought, you know, it's distracting, it's kind of stunt casting," said Rushdie, who had a cameo part as himself in 2001's "Bridget Jones' Diary." He praised Tarantino, who also takes cameo roles, but said: "He's a pretty experienced actor, so it's different" - and admitted that he was having trouble writing a torture scene towards the climax of "Midnight's Children." "It was a difficult scene to write for a long time, until I thought that the way to write it was almost as comedy. That's where I thought of Tarantino. I thought of 'Reservoir Dogs,' a very, very black comic tone of voice." The finished work manages to weave the novel's allegorical complexity and strands of magic realism into a coherent and visually spectacular two-and-a-half-hour long movie. One of the most important places for him to take the movie was his native India, and above all Mumbai, or Bombay, the city of his birth. "It was extraordinary to show the film to an audience whose history it also tells... It was very moving for me. It felt like closing a circle, to bring that film back to Bombay, to the city from which the novel was born," he said. But the trip to India - where "The Satanic Verses" remains banned for allegedly insulting Islam - was not without incident. He was forced to cancel a trip to the eastern city of Kolkata. "Obviously it's very annoying," he said. "The chief minister of Bengal decided in her wisdom to prevent me from coming. It's horrible actually." Talking generally about his security now, Rushdie said his life in hiding has "been over for longer than it went on. "That's why, when these occasional kind of slippages into the past take place .. now it really catches me by surprise. Because I'm not expecting it any more. Life is pretty good these days," he added. Of other adaptations, he said he was "optimistic" that a film version will be made of "Joseph Anton," with a British production company potentially involved, although a deal has not yet been signed. He has also been writing a TV show called "Next People" for US cable channel Showtime, and hopes one day to see film versions of his children's books, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" and "Luka and the Fire of Life." "Satanic Verses," however, appears unlikely ever to make the big screen, he admitted. "There isn't a great stampede for the rights, I have to say, so I doubt it." But in the comfortable surroundings of the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles, he paid an unexpected tribute to Thatcher, whose government provided him with round-the-clock protection against the Iranian fatwa threat. "Our politics were very, very opposed, and I think that's still true today," he said, but he noted that, on the one occasion he did meet her, she was very charming. "One of the ways in which she was charming was to be very physically affectionate ... She'd speak to you in a kind of almost aunt-like way. That was unexpected. "The Iron Lady as your mother .. that was disarming." — AFP-Relaxnews |
| Publicist to stars Max Clifford charged with 11 sex assaults Posted: 26 Apr 2013 11:33 PM PDT
Clifford, 70, was charged with 11 counts of indecent assault, prosecutors said, including on two underage girls, after being arrested in December as part of an investigation into sex crime allegations against the late Jimmy Savile. Savile, one of Britain's biggest TV stars in the 1970s and 1980s, was after his death last year found to have carried out sex crimes on an unprecedented scale over six decades, triggering an inquiry that has snared several other celebrities. Clifford, whose clients have included "The X Factor" reality TV creator Simon Cowell, is best known in Britain for selling "kiss and tell" stories about the rich and famous to scandal-hungry tabloid newspapers. "Having completed our review, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Clifford to be charged with 11 offences of indecent assault relating to seven complainants," the Crown Prosecution Service's Alison Saunders said in a statement. Clifford, whose alleged crimes were committed between 1966 and 1985, is expected to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on May 28. One of the assaults relates to a girl aged 14, and another to girl aged 15. Lawyers for Clifford were not immediately available to comment, but a statement from the publicist carried by Sky News said he was living a "24/7 nightmare". "I have never indecently assaulted anyone in my life and this will become clear during the course of the proceedings," he said. Other celebrities arrested in the Savile probe, codenamed Operation Yewtree, include glam-rock singer Gary Glitter, comedian Freddie Starr and children's' TV show presenter Rolf Harris, who all deny any wrongdoing. Earlier this month David Smith, a former BBC driver, became the first to have charges brought against him, including two counts of indecent assault, two of gross indecency, and one of buggery, all in 1984, prosecutors said. Police say Savile committed 214 offences, including 34 rapes or serious sexual assaults, beginning as long ago as 1955. The scandal forced former BBC Director-General George Entwistle to stand down after only 54 days in the top job. — Reuters |
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