Saturday, May 19, 2007

Bruce lee's rarely known interview on Pierre Berton show

In the ancient Indian epic, Mahabarata, Guru Dhronacharya, in the course of teaching archery decides to test his students ability. He keeps a wooden bird hung to a tree and summoned his students. He asked each student one by one to aim for the eye of the wooden bird and be ready to shoot. Once they were ready to shoot he would ask them to describe what they see? Students generally describe the garden, sky, trees and the bird itself. Dhronacharya then asked them step away. When asked what he could see, Arjuna told that he could only see the bird's eye and you know the rest of the story.



Now why talk about Arjuna with Bruce Lee in title! For us Arjuna is only an epic personality, he might have lived for real or may not be is left to one's belief. But here is a person who lived equivalent to that level of dedication to his art, in his case its the martial art. Most of us would have seen and enjoyed Bruce Lee's movies for what it is, but rarely we know the true personality of Bruce Lee. I believe you can fairly understand his personality from this interview recorded 9th December 1971, two years before his death. Normally we can watch people talking with their "heart and mind" but I see Bruce Lee talking with his "heart and body"

In this interview he is completely informal and ditches down the super star status given to him in his period. His body language and expressions are a real treat to watch. To mention some of his quotes from the interview:

"to me... ultimately... martial art means... honestly expressing yourself"

to Berton's final question, whether you think yourself as a Chinese or a North American, he answers...

"honestly I want to think of myself as a human being, under the sky there is but one family, it so just happened man people are different"

I say, here lived a Arjuna, a person whom we have seen in flesh and blood.

the interview...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never imagined that way and you have written it well.

balar said...

Just wonder how did i miss my hero's post.

thanks for the excellent vidio..

Thiru said...

pria: thanks.
-----------------------
balar: you are welcome.

Anonymous said...

This theme is simply matchless :), it is interesting to me)))