Hollywood's Hero
(Outlook | December 1, 1997)
There's a new hero in Hollywood: Tibet's Dalai Lama. Celebrated director Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet has Brad Pitt playing Heinrich Harrer, a superstar Austrian mountain-climber and Nazi poster boy who's humanised while tutoring the preteen Dalai Lama in Tibet in the '40s and '50s. For an authentic touch, the film has Dalai Lama's sister Jetsun Pema playing the role of their mother Amala. Then there's Martin Scorsese's Kundun, scheduled to open on Christmas day. It narrates the tale of the Dalai Lama more or less through his own eyes, from his recognition as reincarnated Buddha of Compassion at age two to his escape to India at 24. The third is the film Red Corner that stars one of Dalai Lama's most prominent Hollywood friends Richard Gere who visits Dharamsala at least twice a year. Gere plays an American lawyer caught up in a frame-up in China, with the Chinese being portrayed as brutal and corrupt.
Support indeed from the Hollywood Establishment. Coupled with efforts of celeb Buddha Boosters like Steven Seagal who was hailed in February as the reincarnated Tulku of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Adam Yauch, singer with punk-rap group Beastie Boys, organises Tibetan Freedom Concerts. Megastar Richard Gere recently published a book of photographs featuring Buddhist holy places. So serious is his commitment to the Dalai Lama that he hosted a "stateless dinner" on behalf of Tibet, the evening the White House hosted a state dinner for Chinese President Jiang Zemin last month.
So does the Dalai Lama feel like a pop guru to fickle Hollywood? "As a Buddhist I don't differentiate between a president, a Hollywood movie star and a beggar. What matters is people's humanism," says he. Only time will tell whether Hollywood's newly-discovered love for His Holiness is reel life or real life.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org