Examination of Witnesses (Questions 115
- 119)
TUESDAY 6 MAY 2003
MS GURINDER
CHADHA
Q115 Chairman: We would like to welcome
you, and congratulations on reaching the Top Ten in the United
States.
Ms Chadha: Thank you
Q116 Chairman: Before I call Alan
Keen, moving on from what Derek Wyatt and Chris Bryant were asking
the Directors' Guild, you made, in Bend it Like Beckham,
a very good film, an extremely enjoyable film, a film that had
something to say. Other British directors have also made films
like that—not the same but films with those qualities—and
they have not made it. What were the ingredients whereby what
you did achieved the success that it merited, when others had
done films which had achieved modest success, like Brassed
Off and have not achieved the success you have achieved?
Ms Chadha: I think it comes down
to two points. Firstly, what was interesting to me just now was
you asking how people started. In terms of a potted history what
happened with me was I had no idea what I was going to do when
I was at university. I did Development Studies and thought I was
going to end up working for Oxfam or something like that, but
during the whole `80s there were the riots and everything up and
down the country and that was my political awakening, and I decided
what I really needed to do was get involved in the media politically,
culturally and creatively. I therefore decided to become a news
reporter and I trained on the radio and I worked for the BBC as
a news reporter, and then I worked for LWT news but I found the
newsroom terribly restricting and I decided I wanted to do other
things. Around the same time the British Film Institute had started
bfi New Directors and I was given the opportunity with
them to make my first film. That was great for me because they
did not require anyone to have any film background so I have never
been to film school or ever studied film formally, and they were
interested in what I had to say. I made a film called I'm British
but . . . which was the first film from a second generation
Asian point of view. That film was very popular in Britain and
around the world and I then went on to make Bhaji on the Beach
straight after. Now, what happened with Bhaji on the Beach
was—and it is a film that has a big cult following now in
the States as well as here—that it was released in 1994
at a time when people, if they went to the cinema in Britain,
would much rather go and see anything American rather than a British
film, and the attitude was, "It is not worth spending our
money on this, we can always wait for it to come on Channel 4,
let's go and see whatever the Hollywood movie is". From then
to now, with Bend it Like Beckham, there has been a massive
change in my working time in terms of the British film industry,
and I would put films like Trainspotting, Notting Hill
and The Full Monty, down to the creation of an active British
film-going audience. After Bhaji on the Beach I was encouraged
in America to make a Hollywood film and I read lots of scripts
out there, none of which appealed to me, and I decided what I
would like to do is make a British film set in America and I made
a film called What's Cooking which followed four families
on Thanksgiving Day in LA but they were an African American family,
a Vietnamese, Latino and Jewish. It was a very American film on
the face of it because the characters were all American but it
was very British, and if you ever get the chance to see it you
will see that it deals with class and culture in a way that Americans
do not agree that they have a class system. That film was released
in America and really was very badly distributed, and in this
country it was not really distributed, and it was at that point
that I sat down and thought that I wanted to make another film
in Britain. We had the Arts Council—the Lottery group before
the Film Council—plus there was a lot of interest in Britain,
there was a growing film culture, and I decided I wanted to be
in Britain and make a British movie but I wanted to make one that
was going to play Multiplexes. I had made two that played in arthouse
cinemas, and both films that I knew would have appealed to a lot
more people had they had the opportunity to see them. So for me
it comes down to marketing and distribution. So before I even
started writing one page, I thought Right, how am I going to make
a British film that is going to build on the successes of East
Is East and The Full Monty and still deal with what
I want to deal with, and I decided that it was about marketing,
and I wanted to make a film about football because it had taken
over British life in so many ways, and with the whole Euro thing
and when Britain lost to Germany everyone was in tears, and I
thought there was something very interesting about football here
and I wanted to take that world—a world that most people
did not think was my world, or a girl's world, or an Indian girl's
world, and make it my world. Then I thought of the idea of making
a film about an Indian girl but with David Beckham in the title,
basically purely for marketing reasons—and I make no bones
about that; I talk about that in the press all the time. I knew
no one would want to go and see a film about an Indian girl or
football on its own—well, people might but it would not
get to as many people as I wanted, hence the David Beckham connection.
We approached David Beckham very early on and said, "This
is what we want to do", and his people came back and said,
"David is a big supporter of women's football and he feels
if more girls played it there would be less hooliganism and less
violence at matches so he would support this. He does not necessarily
want to be in it yet because it might turn out rubbish"—and
also, because it was about girls and football, I also said that
I would like him to support it because I knew he knew something
about girl power with his missus, so that approach worked with
him and that is what it came down to. Getting the film made then
was very hard because I thought I had got myself a bit of a coup
with Beckham in the title but the hard thing was raising the finance
because everyone said, "Yeah, but girls? Football? I do not
think so", because you cannot conceive of that as being a
commercial idea for most people—it is just not conceivable.
I knew it was and I kind of felt that the British public would
because I was deeply impressed and moved by the fact that East
is East was such a huge hit in Britain. I could not get over
how that film could be so popular in all the nooks and crannies
of little towns across the country, and I was just trying to fathom
that, and I realised Britain had changed enormously and culturally
and I knew this film would work. One of the down points for me
was that we were at the cusp of going from the Arts Council to
the Film Council. The Film Council was just beginning to happen
and we had applied to the Arts Council. I knew that we were not
going to get the money. It was all based on two readers' reports,
as to whether we got it or not. One reader's report which I had
managed to get hold of had said, "Girls cannot play football.
No one is going to be interested in watching a film about girls
and football. More to the point, how are they ever going to find
an Indian girl that can bend a ball like Beckham? I do not think
this is a viable project." I went and saw John Woodward,
who I knew, and said, "I am furious about this. You will
have to do something about this because you cannot say this. James
Bond does not jump out of helicopters. This person should know
that." That made me feel very proactive. As a black director
and as Britain's only Indian woman director, which I was when
I made Bhaji on the Beach in 1994 and still am in 2003,
I thought I had the right to come to the Government's film department
and say, "This is not on." Whenever you have panels,
discussions or whatever about race, culture and film, I get wheeled
on to talk about it because I am the only person. Here I am trying
desperately to make my third feature in Britain and this is what
is happening. If I cannot make it, how on earth are you going
to inspire other people to do it? To his credit, John Woodward
really listened to what I had to say. I had to make a rewrite
and address some other problems but within a few weeks we managed
to get through it. It was because of that moment that this film
happened. Once the Film Council came in, other people said, "Okay,
they have a large chunk of the money. Maybe we should look at
this." It was not easy getting the film financed. Once we
started making the film, the real problem for me was how am I
going to make it a multiplex film and not an art house movie?
Luckily for me, the owner of Odeon Cinemas in this country, Richard
Seagal, who is a very nice, Jewish man, loved What's Cooking?
and he played it in his cinemas for four or five months, even
though no one else knew anything about it. I called Richard Seagal
and said, "I want you to come to my cutting room and see
my film. I want your opinion on what I need to do to make this
a multiplex movie. I think it is; what do you think?" People
do not really do that but I felt I did not have anything to lose.
Our distributor at that point was Helkon SK, an independent, British
distributor. Everyone had passed on the film in terms of distribution.
Helkon were very happy for me to do that. Richard came and watched
the film. He brought all his team and at that point he said, "Yes.
Odeon Cinemas will support you. This is a great British movie."
There was a sea change with Odeon Cinemas because I had involved
them in the process. Helkon used a Hollywood mode of releasing
the film. We were an event movie. We were not released like, "Here
is the big Hollywood movie over here this weekend and by the way
there is this little British one over here." They decided
to go for it in a big way and spend a lot of money, more money
than perhaps Bridget Jones's Diary. Suddenly, for a few
weeks, you had a British movie that was on buses all over the
country, on billboards, on bus stops. Publicity for the film was
everywhere. Obviously the Beckham thing helped. What I found happening
was the British public sensing that here was something that was
British, but it was being sold to them like a Hollywood product.
It was really important when we opened that our opening weekend
would cross that £1 million mark. When we did open, we opened
on over two million, which was phenomenal for a British film about
an Indian girl who plays football. It was a combination of things
but it is about marketing and distribution. The sad side of that
is that this film has gone on to be the most successful British
financed, British distributed movie ever. The other movies are
all Hollywood financed inadvertently through studios, like The
Full Monty and some of the others. Before us, it was East
is East and we just beat that a little. The reality is that
from the £12 million that we made in the cinemas plus another
couple in DVD sales and quite a lucrative BBC TV sale, there is
not a penny in profit in that movie. I have not made a penny from
the UK as a producer of the film. I was producer as well as director.
That is galling me, because I am now thinking how the hell did
that happen? I did not see that one coming at all. Whilst I started
off pretty smug, by the end of it, everyone is putting me on millionaire
lists in the papers, but that is the reality. The reason, I am
told, is because cinemas take 75p of every pound of ticket sales
so that went to UGC, Odeon and Warner Brothers. 25p went to Helkon
SK, who deducted their 30% distribution fee plus their £4.5
million they said they spent on advertising the film, which leaves
us somewhere like £1 million in the red.
Chairman: Among many other things, I
think you were very shrewd to go to a Jewish man because, after
all, this is The Jazz Singer.
Q117 Alan Keen: I can tell
you from experience that Gurinder can tell good acting from bad
at 200 metres. Bend it Like Beckham was made in my constituency,
in the adjacent seat to mine which also includes the Punjabi community
which is represented by my wife. We were there on the last day
of filming. Gurinder directed Ann and I to walk 200 yards away
from the camera while the heroine jumped towards the camera in
the foreground. We were supposed to look lovingly into each other's
eyes and I thought it was going to launch a career, but she can
tell good acting from bad. It was on the cutting room floor in
next to no time and we never appeared in the film. It used to
be Doris Day; then Michelle Pfeiffer; now it is Gurinder, as far
as I am concerned, in the film industry. Can I thank you, from
the point of view of the community that I do not know quite as
well as you? Everybody is so thrilled. Apart from helping the
British film industry, you have helped the community tremendously.
I chair the All-Party Football Group in Parliament as well and
I am still playing football so I understand it from the football
point of view. It has done the world of good.
Ms Chadha: One of the interesting
things that I did not know is that in India, in Delhi, as a result
of the success of the film, there is now a football league for
women called the Beckham League. Here it has given girls' soccer
a big kick. When the film came out, the women's FA number was
on the poster and they could not handle the calls that were coming
in, there were so many. Basically, I have been to about 25 countries
around the world promoting this film. It topped the charts in
New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland and India and in loads of
countries around the world. As we know, it is number nine in the
US. The important thing is that I see myself as a cultural ambassador
for Britain. It is a British film. One of the reasons for its
success in America now is because it is not formulaic in the way
Hollywood movies are. People are genuinely interested in seeing
stories about family. I was in Detroit and I was thinking how
are these people going to deal with people from Hounslow? As I
came out of the cinema, people were coming up to me and saying,
"This is a great film about families pulling together and
making it through", a very mid-west, family ethic. That is
what is going on in America. They see it as a film about a family
that is a little different to them but is also English. They cannot
get over the accents. It is culturally reflective of America.
For me, it is an absolute privilege to live and work in Britain
and to be inspired by Britain. When I travel the world so extensively,
the country is such a rich environment for someone like me to
flourish in. I take that abroad and to America. The fact that
this film is number nine in the US and people in little towns
across that country are seeing it is testament to the fact that
they believe culturally in what is going on in Britain as being
truthful in that film. It is a truth about contemporary Britain.
Otherwise, it is anything that Hugh Grant is in.
Q118 Alan Keen: I was brought to
tears when the father admitted the problem he had playing cricket
when he first came and he was not made welcome. Unfortunately,
I identify with his generation.
Ms Chadha: That was based on my
dad who came to Southall and could not get a job. He had a turban;
he had his hair cut and his beard shaved and the only job he could
get was in the Post Office in Southall, where he was trained.
He used to work for Barclays Bank in Kenya, so all that story
line was very much based on his experiences in Southall.
Q119 Derek Wyatt: Well done. I am
sure I speak for everyone. We are thrilled with what you have
done. It is even more amazing in America where they do not understand
soccer and have never heard of Beckham. Put us out of our misery.
Surely, now you have such distribution across the world, you have
made at least a penny?
Ms Chadha: I have now, yes, but
not in the UK. Abroad, yes. Australia, yes. Other countries, yes,
but not here.
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