Film: Mickey, Martin and Mao

1997 may have been Hollywood's Year of the Yak, but now Tibetan chic is finally giving way to an earnest examination of the culture. Richard Gere pays tribute to his spiritual mentor, the Dalai Lama, by cussing the Chinese in the forthcoming Red Corner. And Martin Scorsese weighs in with his epic Kundun, tracing the early life of the exiled Tibetan leader up to the Chinese invasion and his departure for India.

Speaking at the National Film Theatre, Scorsese, himself a former trainee priest, explained his intentions: "I wanted the picture to immerse the audience in the lifestyle, the culture of Tibet. The history of Tibet, of China, of Buddhism is complex. I just felt we should make a picture of the boy. The two-year-old becoming the 18-year-old and living up to his religious convictions of non-violence."

Kundun, which takes its name from the Dalai Lama's formal title and is seen solely through the eyes of the 14th incarnation, is one of Scorsese's most mature efforts, visually and spiritually. But it nearly never got made.

While the director was still shooting the $28 million movie in the foothills of the Atlas mountains in Morocco, the Chinese government was moving against its intended distributors, the Disney corporation, and Scorsese feared the project would be abandoned.

Called "an interference in China's internal affairs" by senior ministry of film official Kong Min, the film precipitated the resignation of Disney chairman Michael Ovitz and the employment of the services of arch-diplomat Henry Kissinger to soothe relations.

China, which has previously prevented Oliver Stone making a film about Mao Tse-tung, represents a commercial goldmine for Disney. With The Lion King an enormous success there, the company hopes to capitalise on the expanding market by building a Disneyworld in Shanghai, and adding more merchandise outlets to its five existing ones.

On the day that the news of Beijing's reaction broke, Scorsese joked that he was more concerned about a rumoured Oasis split-up. But the problem was not small.

"It's a $6 billion market. There's so much money to be made. But we didn't all sit in a room and say, 'Let's make a picture and get everybody into all kinds of difficulties.' In America, you can make a picture pretty much about anything you want. We thought there would be some dialogue with the Chinese. But this kind of confrontation, to cancel all financial dealings with Disney, was very surprising."

Ironically, Scorsese discovered 15 years ago that America is not quite the bastion of free speech it purports to be. With budget, locations and cast fixed, he was set to film Nikos Kazantzakis' 1954 novel The Last Temptation, when right-wing Christian groups, incensed that the figure of Christ was reportedly to be a portrayed as a homosexual, applied enough pressure to make Scorsese's backers balk.

Five years later, when he succeeded in making The Last Temptation of Christ (in many ways a companion piece to Kundun), Bill Bright, of the Campus Campaign for Christ, offered $10 million for the print so that he could destroy it, and Reverend Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority promised that the release would spark off a "wave of anti-Semitism" targeted at Lew Wasserman, then head of Universal Pictures.

But while Temptation extrapolated from the scriptures, Kundun is a close rendering of the Dalai Lama's early recollections. Written by Melissa Mathison, wife of Harrison Ford and screenwriter of ET, the script bears evidence of the six-day audience she was granted with the spiritual leader. Images like the blood in a fish pond, or the dead monks surrounding him, were drawn direct from the Dalai Lama's dreams, as told to Mathison.

"I was not interested in making an expose," says Scorsese. "I mean, what am I going to expose? We get to the point where we imply that he was a difficult child, even that his father benefited from his place in society, but that's it."

Of course, Kundun bears the same burdens as any Scorsese picture - which means that it has received poor support from the Academy. Scorsese may well go down in history as the greatest film-maker never to win best director.

"We wanted it released on Christmas Day to see if we could get any Academy nominations. We got four [cinematography, costume, art direction and dramatic score, all losing to Titanic], but not the ones they wanted. It was up for best picture but it's just not going to be."

Released against Jackie Brown, The Postman and Alan Rudolph's Afterglow, the film received minimal support in the run-up to the Academy nominations, the trade press carrying adverts only for the film to be considered for best picture. The marketing plan was akin to the instructions for handling fireworks: light the blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance.

Despite Disney's commitment to the film during the Chinese intervention, the US distribution has been rather guarded, and minimal takings, even for a Scorsese picture - just over $5 million in the States to date - are the result.

The film has also been largely ignored by the American critics. But Scorsese is sanguine.

"I am too thick-headed about some things. I do know when I tried to make films in the late Sixties - when I tried to do things their way and it came out my way, whether I wanted it to or not - I'd get fired. [He was director of The Honeymoon Killers, for example, for one week.] It's like being a big child in a way. I'll play, if it's my way.

"I look at some directors today who are real pros, can do anything... In a funny way, I feel I'm an outsider."

His next project returns to the more familiar territory of American celebrity - a biopic of Dean Martin and the Rat Pack, co-written with Goodfellas collaborator Nicholas Pileggi. It also reflects another aspect of Scorsese's life-long mission.

"I love the old Hollywood and British films that I grew up with. I try to preserve film heritage, to take care of it for future generations."

Well known for his campaign to prevent the loss of that heritage through the deterioration of old film stock, Scorsese is a custodian of aesthetic as well as of material treasure. His contribution to the BFI's Century of Cinema series, 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese', was one way for him to evangelise his heroes. But his own work also contains his homage to the artists who shaped the cinema. Just as Temptation paid tribute to The Greatest Story Ever Told and King of Kings, so Kundun subtly draws from the work of Satyajit Ray and Jean Renoir's The River.

And, acting as executive producer for up-and-coming directors, his dedication to heritage is equalled by his desire to promote the future of cinema. In the words of rookie director Matthew Harrison (whose first film, Rhythm Thief, earned him the backing of Scorsese for his second, Kicked in the Head): "He was like a bodyguard. Different forces of the industry couldn't really fuck around with me because of him."

In Scorsese's view, the medium should be prized for more than just its artistic heritage: "It's why I like saving old pictures. You never know which one is going to say most about society and politics of the period, particularly in America. The films may not be that good but years later they'll tell you more about the time."

As for Scorsese's own cinema - and Kundun in particular - it remains, at its purest, film that speaks.

'Kundun' opens on April 3.