Into It with Sam Sanders
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Nida ManzoorsPolite Societyis a hard film to classify.
At its heart, it is about a relationship between two very close sisters.
The younger sister, Ria, is dead set on becoming a stuntwoman.
Ria, hell-bent on preventing the marriage, enlists the help of her friends.
you’ve got the option to imagine the usual beats of this story.
Romance, betrayal, reconciliation.
From then on,Polite Societyrefuses to stay in one lane.
It turns into a joyful kung fu Bollywood epic, says Manzoor.
Maybe less obvious, says Manzoor, is the influence ofAll About Eve.
How long wasPolite Societyin the works?
Or theyd say, oh, can it be more about a forced marriage?
They wanted more trauma in it as though Muslim women must endure trauma to have a story to tell.
And again, I did not want that.
Lets make a movie.
Seeing young women express personal family drama through fight scenes felt refreshing and made perfect sense.
Why dont we see more of that?Im so glad that it worked for you.
Action has historically been very male dominated, and women have been largely excluded from that genre.
Its such a ripe ground for exploring womanhood and femininity.
That sister fight was so cathartic to shoot, so I wanted my sister there.
She watched it, and we were crying together.
I went via Tarantino into Hong Kong kung-fu, into the work of Yuen Woo-ping, and theRush Hourfilms.
Betty Daviss character is so complex.
Finally, I would have to go with Bollywood.
Theres musicality in comedy and in action.
Finding that rhythm is some of the most exciting parts of filmmaking for me.
I got to collaborate with my brother [Shez Manzoor] again.
He scoredWe are Lady Partsand he scoredPolite Societywith Tom Howe, another great composer.
So much of the tone comes through the music.
The needle-drop moments needed music to set the tone and set the genre.
Music for me is such a key way of getting into the headspace of characters.
Music is a character in the film.
Youve said that you want to bring more cinematic qualities to TV and especially shows featuring people of color.
When am I going into a closeup?
With some television its just your mid shots and your wide shots and thats fine.
But how can you utilize all of the filmmaking tools at your disposal to tell a story?
Thats exciting to me.
This is your story.
Cinema is for you as well.
It meant everything to me.
I cant quite say this is lasting change yet.
Sometimes I ask, what would Chad do?
These are white men having a good time.
Im like,I gotta just channel that.
How do you deal with that?Absolutely.
They ask what you are doing to give back.
And I do believe in mentorship, but are you asking Quentin Tarantino what hes doing to give back?
I feel so lucky, constantly feeling grateful, which is cool.
