Tibet on the Big Screen

The 1990’s was coined the “Tibet Moment” in Hollywood. Countless celebrities were

attending Dharma centers around the country, Steven Seagal was recognized as the reincarnation

of an ancient Lama and three big-budget Hollywood films with Tibetan themes were released.

One of these films was Jean Jacques Annaud’s epic Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt,

which tells the true story of the friendship between the Dalai Lama and Austrian mountain

climber Heinrich Harrer in the last years of the country’s independence.

In this essay I will first provide background of how the Dalai Lama and Tibetan culture

became popular in America in the 1990’s. I will then explain how the film Seven Years in

Tibet reveals the spiritual transformation of Heinrich and promotes awareness of the Chinese

occupation of Tibet to a large western audience.

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibet and is considered the reincarnation of the

bodhisattva of compassion. The 14th Dalai Lama became known worldwide following his exile

from Tibet in 1959, due to the Chinese takeover of the state. When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet,

he was “met at the Indian border by a crowd of international journalists eager to get a glimpse of

the mysterious "god king" from the land of snows.” Although accounts of his escape appeared in

newspapers, the issue did not gain a lot of press and was not on the United Nation's agenda. As

both a spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama knew that he had to take a public stance, in

order to fight for the freedom of Tibet. Between 1979-1989 the Tibet issue was transformed into

an international campaign. Demonstrations took place in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, that were

“violently repressed by ...

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