Pratibha Parmar is an acclaimed filmmaker, among the first of a generation of queer British filmmakers who were also people of color. Among her many noteworthy films are Reframing AIDS (1987) and Khush (1991). In 1993, she made Warrior Marks, a film about female genital mutilation, based on a book by Alice Walker and Parmar. Warrior Marks was controversial amongst many who opposed Walker and Parmar’s political stance against FGM, but cemented a long-standing collaboration and friendship between the two women.
Parmar has now recently completed a biographical film, six years in the making (four of them mostly preoccupied with fundraising, according to her) about Walker, Beauty in Truth, to make its PBS premiere Feb. 7 at 9 p.m. Windy City Times spoke with Parmar about the film, her collaborative relationship with Walker and her own career.
Windy City Times: What compelled you to make a film about Alice Walker?
Pratibha Parmar: My partner and I were watching a bunch of DVDs one Christmas, documentaries about Americans who had made a big impact; musicians, writers, and so on. All of them were men, and white. So I wondered, where are the women? Women shape and make history, so where were the women public intellectuals who have created debates and shaped how we discuss things, in the literary canon and public discourse? Why hadn’t someone made a film on Alice Walker when she has contributed so much to the American literary canon and has fundamentally changed literary paradigms, in terms of looking at southern Black women’s experiences? She was the first to take us into the intimate, intricate landscape of southern Black women’s lives in a way that had not been done before, and that was a very foundational literary gesture from her which had not been acknowledged in any significant way.
WCT: As the film points out, a lot of people don’t even know she had produced 10 books before The Color Purple, and a lot of people still only identify her with that book.
Pratibha Parmar: When I was making the film and would tell people that I was making a film about Alice Walker, the only way they knew her was as the writer of The Color Purple and yet, yes, that was her tenth book, and she’s gone on to write over 30 books, including novels and poems.
As a feminist and as a filmmaker, I’m really aware of the way in which historical amnesia has operated to wipe out women’s contributions. It’s an international phenomenon, unfortunately. It’s fundamentally important that we not only restore but rescue women’s stories and inspirational stories so they are documented.
WCT: In terms of queerness: She’s very resistant to being codified in any way, and simply responds to any attempt to label her with the response, “I’m very curious.” As a queer filmmaker, was that particularly important for you to get in?
Pratibha Parmar: I wanted to address every part of Alice’s life, so her sexuality was definitely an area I wanted her to talk about. Obviously—for me, as somebody defined as a queer filmmaker—I’m always interested to know more about people’s sexuality, the choices they make and why. And having known Alice over so many decades, I know she’s had relationships with both men and women, and I’ve known many of those people in her life as well.
I think that Alice is very open about it in the film, the relationships she’s had with women. But its not just in the area of sexuality, it’s in every single thing. She won’t be confined or constrained by any particular label, and she feels that it doesn’t allow for change and for her that’s what’s so important. It’s her curiosity about life that makes her open to all kinds of relationships.
The film’s been shown at quite a few LGBT film festivals and quite a few people have come up to me and said, “That was just fantastic that she said that,” and I could see that they were freed by it.
WCT: A lot of people will be interested in the two sections about her daughter. [Rebecca Walker has written often about her estrangement from her mother.] Did you seek any response from Rebecca Walker to participate in the film?
Pratibha Parmar: I asked her for an interview for the film and she declined.
WCT: What was that like, to incorporate those sections into the film? Alice Walker has not spoken much about this in public, has she?
Pratibha Parmar: It’s probably the first time she’s speaking in a comprehensive way about it on camera about the estrangement, and its personal and emotional impact on her.
It was one of the most difficult moments to film. Many people advised me against it and said to leave it alone, but I felt a duty as a filmmaker to broach the topic. It’s a story of her life, and she talks about the birth of her life, so then it’s natural to ask, what happened [to the daughter]? It’s a very significant event and trauma in the way that her shooting of her eye was. [Walker was blinded in one eye as a child.] I think the loss of her daughter was traumatic for her. I witnessed that as a friend, and so I was reluctant to go there as a filmmaker, but felt I needed to, as a filmmaker. She was very giving. She makes herself vulnerable.
WCT: You entered this project not as a beginning filmmaker, but as someone with a very distinguished career, as someone who has had a historical relationship to queer narrative and representation, and also as friends with someone who is herself a significant figure in American literature. What was it like to work with someone like her, given that complex relationship?
Pratibha Parmar: When we actually started to make the film, we didn’t even have a legal contractual agreement at that stage and the only thing she said to me was, “Pratibha, I know you will be honorable.” And that, to me, is significant of a couple of decades of friendship that has been forged in the spirit of sisterhood, and a friendship which has come very similar ways in which we engage with the world—we’re both Aquarians! I have often been on the firing line for saying things people don’t want to hear and so has Alice, on a much bigger scale.
I think we recognise each other as kindred spirits, have shorthand ways of saying things to each other; there is that gift of an equal friendship. As you say, it’s not about me being this beginning filmmaker but someone who’s coming in with her own body of work which Alice has seen over the last many years.
WCT: You touch upon the controversial elements of her work, including that of FGM ( female genital mutilation ), and you also document the many criticisms she has faced for her representation of the Black family, especially following The Color Purple. But in terms of the fact that you are close friends, is there a possibility of this being too hagiographic? How do you balance it out?
Pratibha Parmar: I think I have balanced it out by broaching all the controversial aspects of her life. I don’t think I would have been doing Alice Walker any favours by making a film of her life if it had been purely a hagiographic profile of her. One of the things that she said after watching the finished film was, “It’s a very honest film.” I actually approached some of the people who’ve been openly critical of her, for interviews, and not one single person, would appear on screen.
I sent a number of emails I sent to all the critics of her work on FGM, etc. and they ignored my emails. Why can’t people put their faces with their words?
WCT: What would you like people to take away from this film?
Pratibha Parmar: I’d like them to take away what I have [gotten] from Alice over the years: to have the courage to stand up for your own truth no matter what people are saying about you, so that you remain consistently true to how you see the world and how you would like to see it changed.
Originally published in Windy City Times, February 5, 2014