Vanessa Redgrave's first visit to Egypt was as a guest of honour at the Cairo International Film Festival. She spoke to Amina Elbendary Click to view caption "I love my profession. I think it's important to society; it's more important than I ever believed it was. When I was younger I loved working in it but I didn't understand its importance -- until I went to Sarajevo in 1993 during one of the heights of the dreadful siege." It is not every day that aspiring writers get to meet international celebrities. Thanks are due to the Cairo Film Festival for inviting leading British actress Vanessa Redgrave to Cairo as the festival's guest of honour. But what can one learn in a noisy five-star hotel coffee shop during a 30-minute interview, though? Well, once the initial discomfort subsides a little about her formative influences, perhaps, and as it turns out something about her love for reading, a sustained interest in history, and a commitment to human rights causes. Born in 1937, Redgrave describes her early life during the years of World War II as "the normal life of a family that doesn't have much money, [...] going to see theatre that my father is in but not going to other theatres because it cost too much money; a special treat to go to the Royal Opera from my god-mother once a year, a big treat to see the Royal Ballet". Learning to dance, music, and World War II were the major formative influences in her life, she says. "Learning classical ballet and being taught by Madame Laumbert, I learnt the formative influence of discipline -- very strong discipline -- and very hard work. Probably that was the first," she recalls. "Preceding that by a little is of course the war, which is a very formative influence. And learning to read when I was four-and-a-half years old so by the time I was six I was reading John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It was formative because it is about a Christian's struggle to shed the burden of sin that he carries through all the temptations that are put before him, all the trials, all the tribulations and all the persecutions to finally reach his goal which is of course God and Heaven. "My father playing the piano and American musicals were a very formative influence because he brought back from America, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, long-playing albums of the great new American musicals. So on Sundays we used to gather around the piano and my father would play and sing and my mother and I and my brother -- my sister was too small -- would sing all the new modern American musicals with their wonderful, sharp, funny texts which were brilliant." Reflecting on her long and rich career in the theatre and film Redgrave remarked: "I'm lucky because I met people who opened my eyes to many other cultures and worlds, who opened my eyes to Russian theatre, to American theatre. I've been in a way very lucky, I've worked with extraordinary people, with maestros in the cinema and in the theatre too; I've worked with great classics of the old writers, I've worked in Shakespeare and I've worked in great modern classics too." Certainly her filmography reveals a wide range of interests, from Antonioni's Blow-Up in 1966 to Reisz'Isadora in 1968, to Zinnemann's Julia in 1977. Several of her films were based on literary texts, such as The Trojan Women in 1970 and Howard's End in 1992. In the theatre she's performed both classical and modern plays. Redgrave is an avid reader with extremely varied interests, including a fascination with other cultures and civilisations, contemporary and historical. "The great flowering of the Renaissance period, 16th and early 17th century, is a fascinating period to me," she says. "Unfortunately [in Europe] we learn about the European Renaissance; at school we don't learn about the great Islamic renaissance, [at least] we don't learn it in a way that [helps one] comprehend how different cultures influence each other, why a certain country flowers now rather than earlier, what were the influences, formative influences, on each culture and inter-connecting between each culture. This to me is a source of great interest and fascination." We quickly discover a shared interest in history. Redgrave has starred in a number of historical roles, including the title role in Mary Queen of Scots (1971). "It might interest you to know that when I do a production as an actress I study history," she tells me -- studies she takes quite earnestly I soon learn. "I study the history as it was at the time the writer wrote his play. I've produced Antony and Cleopatra and directed it as well as acted Cleopatra six times. And I always set it in the time that it was written; which is believed by historians to be 1606." Her interest in Antony and Cleopatra is hardly a passing one; she has even written a book on the subject explaining her views on the performance of the play. "What I discovered about Antony and Cleopatra, this is my own view, is that Shakespeare (or whoever it was this person we know by the name of Shakespeare) was lamenting the passing of an age of science, of enormous scientific development, of therefore a diminution of superstition. And he was in his own way paying tribute to the passing of that age and a certain emblem of that age. His history is very meticulous, he had studied a lot of ancient history without a doubt, because you can't fault one thing in his history. But of course what makes this play great is not his knowledge of history or geography; [but] that he was speaking of the passing of an age of tyranny but of beauty, of discovery, of scientific advancement, of the discovery of a new world (and I'm not referring to the discovery of the new world of America which of course had taken place), of a new world of science; the anti-Ptolemaic view of the universe." "Shakespeare had to be very careful here in expressing [these views] because you could still be persecuted if you expressed the Copernican point of view. Those who led the scientific discoveries which established the objective truth of the Copernican system and philosophy were first and foremost, interestingly enough, to be found in countries like Bohemia, which was very advanced in science. But you'll find that Cleopatra is clearly expressing, in a wonderful, poetic way, the Copernican view of the universe and that influences many things in the play as in life necessarily. Cleopatra herself is more like Queen Elizabeth I, she's not of course like any of the great queens of ancient history." And obviously her readings surrounding Shakespeare's play and the history of the Shakespearean text have led her on to other worlds, and other histories, predating the English author. "It interested me," she adds, "that the real Cleopatra and her forefathers advanced science and Egypt led the world in science, led the world, then [came] the Danes and Copernicus. But where did they get their [science]? If you talk about formative influences then you're on a fascinating history. I would love to spend time with a real scholar who could throw further light, I've done this with self-reading, self- reading, reading, reading. I don't want to follow any other world when I'm following this course of discovery. But the age of James I, who followed the death of Elizabeth I, was an age of great persecution of the Catholics and many many troubles but above all it was an age of superstition returned, which is what Shakespeare's play Macbeth is about. If you once followed a study of Antony and Cleopatra, knowing when Shakespeare was writing it, what made him want to write this extraordinary play, why did he have to write it, why was it never performed during his lifetime, which you discover once you are really studying, you're living somewhere nearer in so far as is possible for a live human being today to step into the play that Shakespeare wrote. But you can't do that in my view unless you're very conscious of the connections, why did he choose Anthony and Cleopatra? It wasn't just because they were a famous pair of lovers; it was the ending of an era, an era of science -- the Romans were not great scientists, they inherited science, the Greeks inherited their science and their great theorists were anticipated, but they couldn't have written what they wrote if it wasn't for the Egyptian scientists also. It was a complete symbiosis that took place, as far as I understand, with actual meetings and studies. And Alexandria was the centre of scientific learning, it wasn't Athens, it was not Athens -- and yet a descendant of Macedonian kings ruled Egypt. So you got this extraordinary cross-fertilisation of immense creative power and Shakespeare had to have known about this. He couldn't have written his play otherwise." Her excitement in talking about Shakespeare's play is infectious, an indication of how much she enjoys the field in which she works and the pride she takes in acting. "I love my profession. I think it's important to society; it's more important than I ever believed it was. When I was younger I loved working in it but I didn't understand its importance -- until I went to Sarajevo in 1993 during one of the heights of the dreadful siege. Then I came to understand the importance of the resistance of the human spirit. It needs culture, needs music in all its forms, needs theatre, needs writing, needs poetry -- that's what kept the Sarajevans alive: their mutli-ethnic culture and their resistance which took every form, putting on plays with children, for children, some of them were [based on] Islamic stories, some of them were fairy [tales], philharmonic music, popular modern rock music..." "They attempted to destroy Sarajevo precisely because it was an extraordinarily multi-ethnic culture of a very high level and very humanistic, which I personally have a great feeling for. I'm not denying humanity to any particular religion, but I'm talking of a humanistic approach to life." It is an approach that she admits has difficulty surviving in today's world "but I think that that's what I want to survive," she says matter of factly. "Festivals, without a doubt, are a contribution in their own way to this. I don't want us to get cut off. And when I say 'us' I mean my sisterhood and brotherhood of fellow actors and actresses, performing artists, musicians, those I know and those I don't know. I want us to be able to exchange, I want us to be able to meet, I don't want there to be any more Berlin walls between any country. I think it's absolutely essential for the life of a people, for their sanity, for their development in whatever profession it is. And Egypt is sort of an example if we take it in the historic sense." Vanessa Redgrave's interest in other cultures, and her humanistic approach to life were perhaps what drove her to actively champion several causes of liberty and freedom. Over the years she has been politically active in numerous ways: she was arrested during a ban- the-bomb demonstration, led anti-Vietnam war marches and expressed sympathy for the IRA . At one point in time she was a member of the Trotskyite Workers' Revolutionary Party. In 1983 she successfully sued the Boston Symphony for cancelling her contract as narrator in Oedipus Rex for political reasons. In this part of the world she is best remembered for her support of Yasser Arafat and the PLO and her 1977 documentary film The Palestinians. It was produced the same year as Julia, which won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Based on Lilian Hellman's book Pentimento, Julia deals with Nazi persecution in the 1930s. Redgrave played the title role of the girl who is crippled and ultimately murdered by the Nazis while Jane Fonda played Hellman, the playwright whose anti-Nazi political awakening arises as she witnesses the persecution of her childhood friend. Redgrave's acceptance address at the 1978 Oscar award ceremony, which contained phrases in support of the Palestinian cause led many in Hollywood to brand her anti-Semitic. At her press conference last Sunday evening Redgrave's support for the Palestinian cause was naturally a subject for discussion. The actress recalled her surprise on being asked similar questions during her interview at the Actors' Studio last year even though the programme and the studio specialise in questions relating to the arts. (Redgrave had invited her friend Professor Edward Said and his daughter, an aspiring actress, to the event). "I explained that for me the Palestinian people and their cause and their rights and their lives I hold to my heart and are in my heart. As are many, many other peoples who are suffering," she said. Asked about the influence of the Zionist lobby on American film Redgrave told the questioner that she had a lot of misconceptions, presumably about American filmmaking, but also about people in the West. "There are many people in this world that you do not know about, my dear friend," she said in reproach. Redgrave stressed that "strength comes from people's spirits, not from numbers. Whatever lobbies there are in the world -- and there are many lobbies, and many of them are involved in terrible activities, all over the world -- but I want to tell you my belief, that there is no lobby, not of any country, not of any people, no matter how powerful their interest, that is stronger than the lobby of worldwide people that I know, including people of all religion, of all nationality, who have human spirit and who care about human beings and their lives and their rights. That is what I believe in." Later at the same conference she asked how many of the members of the press present had watched the Palestinian film Rana's Wedding, directed by Hani Abu Asaad and shown as part of the New Arab Cinema section at CIFF. She urged us all to attend the next screening, singing the praises of the film. "I want to tell those of you who have not yet seen Rana's Wedding that this is one of the highest examples of filmmaking I have ever seen; a film in which the director, his script writer, the actors and the cameraman have taken us directly into the agony of the present life of the Palestinian people and during which and by the end of which we see and believe the truth that there is a strength in the human spirit that is stronger than even the greatest agony ever lived." The Small Hall of the Opera House drowned in applause. Otherwise, Redgrave remains busy as usual. "I'm working on a film which I'm co-producing and acting in which is very exciting to me called The Fever, and I hope to be able to complete this film in February. Maybe I'll have the good fortune to present it at another Cairo Film Festival." She has also been busy working on projects related to children's education -- a cause close to her heart. She set up a school in London for three to five year olds and handed it over to the state. She is also a UNICEF ambassador, which she describes as "a full-time job in our world because most governments don't respect human rights at all." She adds: "I think it's an important work and I feel privileged to do that work. I think children's education and culture is the most important thing that I can give a little bit of assistance to, because I think that's almost the only thing that can keep our world sane."
