Having toyed with English history in "Elizabeth", Indian director Shekhar Kapur has remade colonial classic "The Four Feathers". He tell you about spooked horses, sandstorms, and danger in the desert.
Was it tough shooting in the desert?
It was tough, it was really really tough, but in that toughness lies the adventure. And in the adventure lies creativity. And in creativity lies art. And in art lies life. I can go on but I better shut up.
Was it very physically demanding?
Just walking over dunes is physically demanding. Now imagine trying to walk over a large dune, sinking up to your knees. Now imagine doing it with equipment on your back. Now imagine that you've just shot in a dune and there are footsteps on the dune and you can't shoot on that dune. Now imagine having to go for the next shot to another dune that has the same light and has a similar look.
Now imagine that you are six hours into the dunes and the night falls and you have to walk back six. Now imagine that you can't find your equipment. Now imagine that you've got insurance companies and bond companies and studios in LA and studios in New York saying, "Your main actor got lost yesterday, you're not allowed to go and shoot in the dunes."
Now imagine a dust storm coming in and everybody saying, "No no, get out, get into your things, you're going to get killed, everybody takes cover." And imagine the director saying, "We've got a dust storm!" How many directors get a dust storm to shoot? But on the other hand, imagine actors who love the same thing. Imagine directors of photography who love the same thing and imagine being 4,000 miles away from a studio where they can't say no.
You've said you wanted to turn a colonial tale into an anti-colonial tale and the studio didn't quite see it in the same light. Were there any "creative" discussions about this?
There's quite a lot in there, it's for people to find. Remember the story is told from the point of view of the British. Certainly in America I used to get one guy saying, "My God, this is so anti-colonial. You must have made this film after September 11th because this is an anti-American film," and the very next guy would come and say to me, "Why is this such a colonial film?" If you ask me, there's a lot of messages there that are anti-colonial.
Did we have a lot of arguments about it with the studios? In the end, no. The studios kind of also understood that we live in a world that does not see colonisation with the same moral right as people used to do in the 30s or 1903. But then you know that was all before September 11th. After September 11th it's a very different story.
Given it was a tough shoot in the desert, were there any injuries to the cast or crew?
The biggest injury was here in England. That was awful. We were shooting where the Cutty Sark is and there were crowds and we had a horse and carriage standing by, and the horse for some reason spooked, just jumped and took the carriage and went straight into all the extras. That was terrible because we had some serious injuries there, serious serious injuries.
Throughout all the action scenes, nothing, we had nothing, we had serious emotional injuries but nobody really got hurt. But Ramadan was tough, it was tough because in Islam [during Ramadan] you can't eat or drink after sunrise and before sundown, so it's dehydrating. A lot of the extras were Muslim and they all came. Tough life, tough people.
