When the website findshivas.com went up last September, it
was a first, both for Hollywood and for Esalen cofounder and
author Michael Murphy. It was a first for Hollywood because
never before had a director and a producer used the internet to
ask fans to assist them in casting one of the lead roles of a
major Hollywood production—in this case the role of the
mysterious golf teacher, Shivas Irons, a character in Murphy's
spiritual classic, Golf in the Kingdom. And it was a
first for Murphy, because it signaled that Golf in the
Kingdom, long coveted in Hollywood for its cinematic
potential, was finally going to be
green-lighted—thirty-one years after he first published
the book. Indeed, Murphy has teamed up with director Susan
Streitfeld and producer Mindy Affrime, and though nothing is
ever quite certain in the complex world of making movies, it
appears that we may finally get to see this much-loved story on
the screen. Last winter, WIE managed to get an early
update on the status of this new production from the producer
and director duo, who are embracing the formidable creative
challenge of bringing Aurobindo, enlightenment, and integral
ideas to a medium more accustomed to surf, sex, and
Schwarzenegger.
What is Enlightenment: How long have you been
working on this project?
Mindy Affrime: Michael Murphy and I have been
conspiring to make Golf in the Kingdom for almost
thirteen years. A year and a half ago, we got the film rights
back from a Hollywood studio, and we have been working with
Susan on a script. We just finished a wonderful draft.
WIE: What makes this script work?
Affirme: Michael feels like this script is the closest
ever to being really true to his vision of the book.
Susan Streitfeld: What we did in the adaptation was to
strip the story down to its essential core, paring it down to a
simple tale of the search, of a boy and his teacher. Hollywood
likes to embellish. They like to tell you what you're watching
and how you're supposed to feel about it. We are trying to keep
it very, very simple and open.
WIE: Is it hard that the film is explicitly
spiritual in nature—is that a hard sell?
Affrime: Well, in some ways, yes. Really, Golf in
the Kingdom is a very simple tale about a young man who has
been studying philosophy at Stanford in 1956 and who decides he
has to go to India to gain enlightenment. At the very beginning
of his journey, in the London airport, his flight to Bombay is
delayed. So he ventures off to Scotland to play one last round
of golf, his passion. There he meets Shivas Irons, a mysterious
golf pro who teaches him all about life—on and off the
golf course—in twenty-four hours. There is no sex, no
violence, no sentimental ending. Golf in the Kingdom is
a universal tale about a young man looking for transformation
and finding it where he never thought he would.
WIE: What qualities are you looking for in casting
Shivas Irons, the teacher that Michael, the main character,
meets?
Streitfeld: Shivas Irons is a trickster, a Hermes
character. Hermes was known as the God of the Hinge, and Shivas
is like that. He sits at the threshold, opening and closing
doors, pushing and pulling at Michael's mind, trying to get him
to go beyond himself. Shivas is the best part of all of us, but
the part we have such a hard time actually living out of. He's
the one who embodies original authenticity. Both Michael and
Shivas are fantastic roles. Not only is the movie about the
archetypal search, but it is also a love story. It is about
finding a teacher, and about falling in love. These two see in
each other a potential, something essential, the ability to
connect and carve out this fantastic relationship for
twenty-four hours, a relationship that will have resonance for
both of them for the rest of their lives.
WIE: If you capture that relationship on film, I
think it will be a real accomplishment.
Affrime: We're going to give it our best shot. Sorry,
golf joke! But seriously, movies are difficult, and it's not
worth making one unless it's a subject you really care
about.