NEW ZEALAND: WORLD FILM PREMIERE OF MAORI LANGUAGE FILM OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY " THE MERCHANT OF VENICE"

Record ID: 634133

  • Title: NEW ZEALAND: WORLD FILM PREMIERE OF MAORI LANGUAGE FILM OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY " THE MERCHANT OF VENICE"
  • Date: 13th March 2002
  • Summary: ACTORS WALK UP STAIRS AS ACTRESS SINGS ACTORS WALKING INTO THE WORLD PREMIERE MAORI QUEEN (DAME TE ATA-IRINGIKAAHU), WHO OPENED THE WORLD PREMIERE MAORI QUEEN SITTING IN MIDDLE OF ROW OF MAORI ELDERS (6.47)
  • Embargoed: 28th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HAMILTON, NEW ZEALAND
  • Country: New Zealand
  • Reuters ID: LVA6VOVPLHOB2XR52IH78YH6BJII
  • Story Text: The first ever feature film in Maori has had its world premier in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand. The film of the Merchant of Venice (Te Tangata Rawa o Weniti) is the culmination of a 60-year battle to gain recognition of the Maori language.
    The Maori Merchant of Venice is a labour of love. It was translated in 1945 by the Maori academic Dr Pei te Hurunui Jones [pay te (as in ten) hoo-roo-noo-ee] at a time when the language was dying. Te Reo [te as in ten, re as in red, oh], which literally means "our language", was banned in schools.
    Any student caught speaking Maori was liable to be caned.
    Speaking Maori was also frowned on in public.
    The Executive Producer and Director Don Selwyn grew up with such discouragement.
    "The attitude when I was young was that you don't speak Maori at all. And consequently, when the old people [Maori elders] came to our place (my mother is European) my father used to take them down the river and talk to them. He'd never speak Maori in front of my mother. So the mere fact that Pei te Hurunui stepped over the boundary and decided to translate this into Maori, he saw the value in the language and thank goodness he did."
    Jones gave Selwyn the script in 1957, and Selwyn produced it as a play in 1990. It then took ten long years to find the funding for the film. Nobody thought a Maori language production would succeed. But eventually the body responsible for Maori language television projects, te Mangai Paho (man-guy par-ho as in hot), stepped in with $2.4NZ million ($US1M).
    The Maori Merchant of Venice premiered in New Zealand's fourth largest city, Hamilton (population 200,000) on Sunday 17 February. Dr Pei te Hurunui Jones lived in the city till his death in 1976. The actors walked from the Novotel hotel run by the local Tainui tribe in the Italian Renaissance costumes they wore in the production to the Rialto cinema on the city's main street. Maori elder and cast member Wharetatao (Far-ay-tat-oww) King called the rest of the cast to the cinema with a traditional karanga (welcome), before the Maori queen Dame Te Atairingikaahu opened the premiere.
    Earlier three of the actors had given readings from the play to Hamiltonians in an Italian Renaissance garden in the city.
    Maori make up 15 percent of the population of New Zealand (half a million out of almost four million) and their population is growing. However the 1996 census shows that fewer than half speak any Maori, while less than one in ten is fluent in Te Reo. The language Maori currently speak is already devoid of the metaphors that Waihoroi (Why-ho (as in hot)-roy) Shortland (Shylock/Hailoka) used when he was growing up. However, this language is enshrined in the translation of the play. Shortland, who is often used as a Maori cultural adviser in films, chided the Maori on the set of the Piano, saying American actor Harvey Keitel spoke the language better than them. But he says the film proves there is plenty of Maori acting talent.
    "What this movie has told us more than anything else in the world is that we can do the stuff. We have a place. This movie will sit up there quite comfortably with Lord of the Rings, with Harry Potter, and whatever else because it brings its own specialness inthe industry. It looks great. It's a movie that crosses all of the lines. It answers all the movie-making questions. And the performers, the cinematography, all of these things have been done extremely well and above an expectation that a group of maoris could get together and do this and actually take on something like a classical play.
    Yeah, it's going to do all of these things, I believe. Whether it gets all of the accolades that I feel is due to it, only the people who give accolades make that decision."
    The film may have universal themes like revenge and prejudice, but these are particularly strong for Maori. Maori culture permits utu [oo-too], or revenge, for a victim of any sleight.
    As for prejudice, while most interpretations of the play are unsympathetic to Shylock, Shortland says he used his experience of racism to play the part of the Jew who is forced to denounce his faith.
    "And so in the movie I remove the yarmulke (traditional Jewish hat), which is a sign that I'm accepting this thing. This little yarmulke is going to go. My sign of Jewishness is going to go. The I kiss it, then I put it back. Now it's an interpretation only for myself that I'm putting the Jewishness back on this character and that he'll walk away from this thing with his Jewishness intact. Nothing will change inside of him. And I believe it's the same with me. You can call me a New Zealander. You can call me anything else in the world. You can force me to be anything but you can't reach inside me and take the Maori out of me. And that's what Shylock has and that will not change."
    The movie is currently touring New Zealand and discussions are underway to send it to overseas film festivals. The Maori Merchant of Venice may well attract Shakespeare-lovers and those curious about the Maori. Maori artwork and music features prominently in the film. The cast know the film will not break box office records but that is not as important as its impact on Maori. Selwyn says the film has already caused quite a stir with Maori students.
    "They just yell out choice, choice, choice, and they start yelling out what side they're on. What it does is not make us have to apologise about using our language. Our great Maori poets who handle the English language beautifully: 'gay and imputed lover of trees/why do you sing grey lamentations to a sullen sky?' Now there's a Maori writing in English and it's beautiful. And what we're trying to do is to encourage Maoris to write poetically so they don't have to apologise for their own indigenous language. They don't have to disenfranchise themselves from their culture."
    Ngarimu (ng as in going, ngar-ree-moo) Daniels, who plays Portia (Pohia), echoes that sentiment:
    "The whole idea behind this was really for the language. If it doesn't make box office overseas, then that's fine, but the main thing is that people get to learn first and foremost, listen and hear our language. Because many believe that the Maori language is a dying language but it isn't. It is so beautiful and the way that it is translated into a language that is barely heard now ever. And so the fact that our language gets heard overseas hopefully would not only make it encourage people not only in New Zealand but overseas, to learn Maori the indigenous language of New Zealand."
    -ENDS-
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