Hanif Kureishi Regis Dialogue with A.O Scott, 2001 A.O. Scott: I'm A.O. Scott, a film critic at the New York Times. I'm here at the Walker Art Center for a Regis dialogue with Hanif Kureishi, the British playwright, novelist, screenwriter and film director. Hanif Kureishi: Hello. A.O. Scott: Thank you. Thank you. Hanif Kureishi: Hi. A.O. Scott: A number of people, a very big crowd actually, last night, came out to see what was the official North American premier of Intimacy, a new film based on some of your stories and your novel of that title, directed by Patrice Chéreau. We're going to see a clip from that in a minute, but I wondered if we could start off by talking about that, and what that project was like, and how that collaboration developed with a French director with a background in opera and theater coming to make this film set in a very gritty and specific London. Hanif Kureishi: I think as I've got older I've got more interested in collaboration. Mostly I'm on my own, I spend a day on my own. I get fed up with that now. I guess I want to be changed by the people. For the best. A.O. Scott: Yeah, of course. Hanif Kureishi: Where possible. When Patrice Chéreau came to see me and said he wanted to make a film of Intimacy I was very pleased. Particularly as Intimacy is a monologue set in one room, it didn't seem to me to necessarily be right for a movie. But I liked him, I liked his face and I thought, okay, let's see where this will go. Hanif Kureishi: He was passionate about this book. Also he was passionate about a story I wrote called Nightlight, which was actually based on a friend of mine, about a couple who meet once a week to copulate without speaking. Patrice wanted to use this as the basis of the film. Hanif Kureishi: So we had these copulations. A.O. Scott: One of which you'll see in a moment, by the way. Sep 29, 2001 1 Hanif Kureishi: Yeah. There were five copulations, or four, but there were going to be a number of copulations throughout the film. The film was going to be based around these copulations. So that it became fuck one, fuck two, fuck three. Like movements in a symphony. Hanif Kureishi: Of course around the copulation, it's like a French film ... actually in French films people copulate all the time, then they... A.O. Scott: Right. Then they think of what else to do with themselves in between. Hanif Kureishi: Yeah. Well then they go on the subway. A.O. Scott: Yeah, right. Hanif Kureishi: And then they copulate again. This was going to be one of those. We had to have a story in between the copulations, and so we sat around in a hotel and we ... actually our meetings were rather like the copulations, because ... I began to realize this, because Patrice Chéreau and I didn't know each other. We were complete strangers and we would meet in a hotel room once a week to try to do this huge thing, which was make a film together. A.O. Scott: And without a language in common I take it. Hanif Kureishi: Yeah, without a language in common, and just trying to talk and get to know each other and figure out what we might do. Hanif Kureishi: We kind of figured out a story. At the end of the road where I live there was a theater, it was a bar, and downstairs was a theater. We went into the bar for a drink one day and there's a big sign in the bar and it says, "Theater and toilets," with an arrow pointing downstairs. Patrice, who has obviously spent his whole life in the theater was really affected by this sign saying, "Theater and toilets." Hanif Kureishi: He said, "I want to see the theater." So we went downstairs, we saw the theater, and they were doing ... It was a tiny little room and they were doing weird productions of things like Dorian Gray and Streetcar Named Desire, and so on, and the big pillars and stuff. This theater got into the movie. You'll see it in the movie. He had to rebuild this theater, and in fact that bar, in a studio nearby because it was so small he couldn't film down there. Hanif Kureishi: So all these kind of funny elements, stuff that we saw, and also the idea of making a film about London, of Sep 29, 2001 2 people moving through the city following each other, the buses, the streets, and so on, because I liked the idea of a foreign director making a film about a city. Hanif Kureishi: So somehow out of all these bits and pieces and the copulations we got to make a movie, which is really how all movies, or all anything comes together somehow. Usually though in one person's mind, but in this case in my mind and Patrice's mind, and also in the mind of the screenwriter who wrote the film, who was French, and wrote the movie in French. So the movie was written in French, was translated, then it was sent back to me. A.O. Scott: Were you around during the filming? Did you have contact with the actors who were- Hanif Kureishi: I was around during the rehearsals and I hung around with the actors a bit, and talked to the actors a bit. There are some directors who want you on the set, and who like you being around like Stephen Frears who always likes you being around, because he'll say, "Would they really do that? Would they really say that? Is that right?" Someone like Chéreau clearly didn't want me there at all. There's another director like Roger Michell who did The Buddha of Suburbia who kind of wants you to be there, but hates you being there because he thinks all you're doing is thinking bad things about what he's doing. A.O. Scott: Right. Hanif Kureishi: Different directors have different attitudes depending on how paranoid they are basically. A.O. Scott: Yep. The acting, and the direction I must say, of this film, and those of you who have seen it I think would agree, is really extraordinary. Very powerful, very raw. I think without further ado we'll go to the first copulation that begins the movie. We have Jay and Claire meeting anonymously in the middle of the week in London. A.O. Scott: Having just concluded the copulation that is being rewound at this moment, but it is ... you were talking about London and how this movie sort of propels people through the city, and this is the second scene of the movie and you have him out in traffic, David Bowie on the radio, and that's in its way as powerful a moment in this man's life as what we've just seen before. Hanif Kureishi: What, shaving? A.O. Scott: Shaving and ... there's a sort of intensity to that traffic- Hanif Kureishi: The shave, yeah. Sep 29, 2001 3 A.O. Scott: ... and the shave. Yeah. We've all had difficult shaves like that. Hanif Kureishi: Are you going to rewind this and show the copulation or- A.O. Scott: Or leave it to these good people's imagination. Hanif Kureishi: Where's this? Speaker 3: We're working on rewinding the film back. A.O. Scott: Okay. Hanif Kureishi: All right. Speaker 3: We'll have it momentarily. Hanif Kureishi: Okay. A.O. Scott: All right. Maybe just to sort of work people up to an even greater pitch of anticipation we could ... In many of the movies that you've worked on that have been based on your work, sex has a central part. There are a lot of ... There's a scene in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, I think you referred to it once as the fuck sandwich, for you have the three copulating couples on top of each other on split screens. Hanif Kureishi: Yeah. A.O. Scott: Raise your eyebrow. But, what's- Hanif Kureishi: What is it with this copulation? Yeah. A.O. Scott: Yes. Thank you. That was the question. Hanif Kureishi: I guess I'm interested in, you could say ... moments like that are dramatic. There's the sensuality, there's the Sep 29, 2001 4 ethical, there's the political. Often the couples in my work are mixed race as well, as my parents were. It seems to me just a way of bringing together a number of elements. For instance, in My Son the Fanatic the father, whose son becomes a Muslim fundamentalist, is at the same time having an affair with a prostitute played by Rachel Griffiths. That occurred to me because when I was researching the film, My Son the Fanatic, for instance, in the north of England I noticed that the prostitutes and the Muslims lived very close together because they were all poor. They were finding it very difficult to live together. Hanif Kureishi: So the idea of a man being drawn between the two of them, and of course most of the taxi drivers in Bradford and Halifax drive the prostitutes around. And the Asian women, the Muslim women are mostly at home.