How a French photographer came to Bollywood and was drawn to sadhus

Cornfield waved her lens at the Varanasis cremation ghats earlier this year, where, despite precautions, she caught COVID-19. She also toured at the Magh Mela in January in Prayagraj. His entry ticket: dress like them in all orange, from the kurta to his mask. It was a thrilling experience to be in the amazing gathering, to see the ritual, to feel the ambiance, to hear trance sounds. It was scary too, to be a stranger and alone, to try to avoid the jostling, to be fiddled with in the crowd.

Transe, within the framework of the next exhibition “Beyond the Imaginary” at Galerie Z22, Berlin. (Credit: Stéphanie Cornfield)

Indian life and the dreadlocked and deeply furrowed godmen, the postcolonial exotic Other, continue to arouse special appeal to the Western gaze. It’s reality, like arranged marriages, jokes Cornfield. It’s part of his reality now. She moved to Mumbai within the last decade. It’s ironic that these religious men fascinate her, she said, I am spiritual, not religious. All these wars in the world, these ethnic divisions, these terrible tragedies are due to religion.

It is right that the German government provide the means for this project to a Parisian whose grandfather fled the Nazis. A Russian-Romanian Jew married to a Greek Orthodox, who lived in the immigrant community of Istanbul and arrived in the United States in 1941. He changed his name and ultimately became the president of the American film studio 20th Century Fox (for Europe and the Middle East), but left the United States later. His father was a pioneer of cinema in Eastern Europe. Stephanie’s uncle, Bernard Cornfield, was a famous financier / impresario and Father Hubert Cornfield, a Hollywood director. What saved my grandfather was that he was fluent in German (out of 13 languages), says Cornfield.

Anushka Sharma, for the shooting of the Anurag Kashyap film Bombay velvet (2015). (Credit: Stéphanie Cornfield)

His father drew movie posters, made a short film (The Red color) and worked with big names Sidney Poitier and singer Bobby Darin in Pressure point (1962) and Marlon Brando in The night of the next day (1969). Cornfield was only six when his parents divorced and 10 when his father returned to the United States. His mother reveled in stories about him, his three best friends Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and James Dean, letters exchanged with Stanley Kubrick. And why he chose carpentry over letting others run his scripts. Once, her mother, during a dinner, on her fathers in Paris, saw Brandos, a pretty crude stupidity putting butter in the ears of one of her friends, to make fun of her (the famous scene of the butter without consent in Last Tango in Paris was a few years away, and Brando being named in the #MeToo movement in decades). Cornfield grew up with these stories, but was never struck by the stars.

The political science student at the American University wanted to be a war reporter. She joined her journalist boyfriend in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War. I saw what it was and thought I wasn’t psychologically strong enough to do that. I was more drawn to art, she says. And started as a nightlife photographer in Paris, London, New York. As a rockstar photographer she met amazing people (Iggy Pop) and the self-taught person learned what it was like to be a portrait photographer which helped her film celebrities later. Her first celebrity project was on the set of French director Tony Gatlifs, a documentary on Gypsy music shot in India, Spain and Romania (Latch Drom, 1993). From the charming Nicholson with the incredible, almost unreal voice, David a certain distant Lynch, Kirk Douglas (who offered to hook me up with his son Michael and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, adding with a mischievous smile that she didn’t was not photogenic…) to Matt Damon (at Cannes this year for the Los Angeles Times), the saga continues. It was at Cannes 2012, she bumped into Anurag Kashyap, who was there with her film Wasseypur Gangs.

Stephanie Cornfield. Credit: Pia Torelli

She moved to India. She, unlike the very bright and poised Bollywood, thought she might have a chance, because I’m different. She wasn’t quite right, but Kashyap gave her a chance. It was just before Bombay velvet (2015). She searched on Google to find that the busy Kashyap had had back surgery. One day, she landed at his house while he was immersed in script reading. Days later, Phantom Films gave Cornfield an appearance test of Anushka Sharma and publicity photos of her and Ranbir Kapoor. Although she couldn’t work on a Kashyap set, she hopes to someday do. Later, when hired for Queen (2013), she missed the total creative freedom that Kashyap had given her. Aside from her usual portraits (Ashim Ahluwalia, Adil Hussain), she missed a few big gigs: a magazine cover with Kangana Ranaut, directorial debuts of Sajid Nadiadwalas (Cut, 2014), and Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal (2016).

She went cheerful, drawn to the raw and vibrant energy of the people and felt mesmerized by the beauty of India, photogenic, cinematic, amazing light and adventurous nature, anything can happen. Once you’ve tasted it, it’s hard to go without. Cornfield remembers two years ago in Los Angeles when producer Jon Kilik (The hunger Games and Spike Lee films) saw his Indian photographs, he said, Ah, so you wanna be a director? He walked around for a bit, turned around and shouted in the dark, Great job. I believe in karma, in being good to people, because what’s going on happens. This exhibit talks about that, she says.

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