Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood.

Orville Schell. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2000. $26.

Reviewed by Stephanie McMillan

Appeared in City Link, July 12, 2000.

Does Harrison Ford spend days on end chanting and spinning a prayer wheel? Does Oliver Stone appeal to protective demons for assistance when he directs his films, and does Richard Gere practice celibacy? Frankly, probably not. The strict discipline of Tibetan Buddhism "has undergone substantial changes for most westerners," states Orville Schell, dean of the graduate program in journalism at UC-Berkeley, documentary filmmaker, and the author of fifteen books. Though the traditional religion demands renunciation of all things in favor of contemplation and meditation, many in the west choose to interpret it according to their own convenience. "Actually," Schell comments wryly, the religion "isn't quite as undemanding and flexible as some people imagine it."

Schell notes the "obvious contradiction between the stereotypical Hollywood lifestyle and the notion of the simple Buddhist life that sees all material goods as an illusion." In this light, his description in Virtual Tibet of a star-studded gala benefit for Tibet's autonomy is quite amusing. He pokes gentle fun at the spectacle of celebrities who munch on gourmet salad as monks chant prayers and who patiently stand in line to meet the Dalai Lama. (His Holiness didn't recognize Sharon Stone until urgently prompted by Richard Gere and Melissa Mathison, after which he gave her an extra little hand press and delighted coo).

Though his dry observations come off somewhat sarcastic in print, in an interview Schell is kinder to the stars. "You know, even in Tibet (Buddhism) is practiced in different ways, and there are charlatans there too," he says. "And there are very profound, spiritual people as well. I mean, I would say that Hollywood doesn't have a monopoly on grasping, on greed, and ego." Schell makes a point of describing the sincerity of Richard Gere. "The way he treats people, and the way he lives his life is, I would say, quite exemplary."

Schell acknowledges that a certain amount of ego, which a Buddhist is supposed to renounce, is required for acting in movies, "but then there also probably has to be a certain amount of ego attached to being the abbot of a large monastery. The point is life does involve a certain amount of ego, the question is how much. And what kind of an ego."

Perhaps no one has an ego as magnificent as that possessed by action film actor Steven Seagal, who believes he is the reincarnation of a lama. He tells Schell, "People all over the world come up to me and recognize me as a great spiritual leader..I'd like to spread any kind of light I can and lead people into the dharma." As if that's not funny enough, he continues, "I've seen so much bullshitting from people who just want to be associated with the Dalai Lama. But the Dalai Lama gave me a spiritual blessing that would not have been given to anyone who was not special."

After delving into the current Hollywood fascination with Tibet, Shell explores the craze as a historical phenomenon. Previous obsessions ith the isolated region were fueled by hyperbolic adventure books and memoirs about reaching - or trying but failing to reach - the mysterious, closed city of Lhasa. The very elusiveness of Tibet was a major attraction, rather like a romantic interest being more desirable for playing hard-to-get. Schell quotes from many of these texts, including Seven Years in Tibet (from which the recent major Hollywood movie was adapted). He interviews its author Heinrich Harrer, the former nazi who managed the arduous journey on foot to Lhasa after escaping a British prisoner of war camp in India during World War II.

Having written elsewhere on Tibet itself, Schell does not include much description of its society and culture in Virtual Tibet. His purpose with this book was to get at the myth, or as he puts it, "to look at our Tibet, not the Tibet." The western notion of pre-1950s Tibet as a spiritually enlightened place of harmony and peace has been with us since those first adventure books, though more than one explorer described being let down by the reality. "The Lamas ruled the country in their own interests.they never preached or educated laity, but kept the latter in ignorance and servitude." one wrote. Another described Lamaism as "an engine of oppression." Schell notes that "What would be remembered from the accounts of these newly minted Tibetan specialists was not their encounters with a filthy, corrupt, oppressive, and backward Tibet, but the exoticism of the remote world they had at last penetrated."

It is disappointing that Schell does not elaborate on these tidbits of information that contradict the myth he describes so thoroughly. Schell's own assessment of daily life in old Tibet would have been interesting to learn. Most accounts are written with the distortions of subjective interests, so it's difficult to ascertain what the conditions actually were. The Chinese version naturally depicts a feudal hell that needed to be liberated, and indeed many Tibetan young people did become Red Guards and attack their own monasteries. Among Tibetans, "members of the aristocratic class, the government class or the monastic class . have a point of view that obviously views their world as having come to an end when the Chinese came," Schell says. "If you talk to a nomad or a serf who worked on an estate of a monastery or an aristocrat, you might get a somewhat different view." Many exiles, who have not been to Tibet since the late 1950s, paint a rosy picture of the region before Chinese interference.

In the process of exploring the illusion of Tibet, Schell makes his own pilgrimage to Argentina for the filming of Seven Years in Tibet. There he finds an uncanny replica of a Tibetan marketplace with meticulously crafted details (including ceramic yak dung here and there on the ground). Schell describes the scene in colorful detail: "'Give me five more nomads and two monks,' someone calls over the walkie-talkie system that ties the whole production together." In spite of the cameras, the plaster and chicken wire, Schell finds himself nostalgic, yearning for a place like the one conjured up on the movie set. He's frustrated that he is not permitted to meet the film's star, Brad Pitt, and makes a bit much of the parallel between the elusiveness of the crowd-shy actor and that of the region itself.

After returning to the United States, Schell pursues Brad Pitt's personal public relations agent and is finally granted an interview. Schell finds the encounter rather a let-down when Pitt produces nothing but cautious, fragmentary answers to Schell's questions. However, Schell's meeting with the taciturn megastar is actually more enlightening for its being mundane. It seems Pitt demonstrates the Buddhist ideal of ego-lessness better than many of the Dalai Lama's followers when he tells Schell, "I'm not a politician and not a historian. I just have no place jumping into a political ring talking about the future of Tibet." If everyone were so modest, perhaps the myths of a false Tibet would be less tenacious in the public mind.

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