This fame granted her influence that she never imagined and, ultimately, she learned to use it to advance both women’s rights and the age of aviation.
"No matter how you come at it, Amelia’s story is a fascinating tale of mystery and tragedy, says Nair. "But what intrigued me about the screenplay for Amelia is seeing her as the first real American icon that also became a brand name.
"Here was a woman who loved just one thing flying but because that was so revolutionary in her time, she came to stand for all kinds of other things including women’s rights and felt a responsibility to be something more to people. Amelia tried to reconcile what she needed to do for money and society against what she felt she had to do to be herself. That’s a game that modern women are still playing."
The director of such culturally and emotionally rich films as Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair and The Namesake, Nair was born in India and lived in Africa before building her distinctive Hollywood career as one of a handful of woman directors at the forefront of cinema today.
Nair fell in love with the forward-thinking American pilot and her fearless vision of life as she read the Amelia screenplay. Although Nair grew up in an utterly different time and place, she instantly related to Amelia’s strength, optimism and hunger to get things done -- on a deeply personal level.
"I was born in a small town in India," the director notes, "and Amelia was from a small-town in Kansas. I felt a great sense of affinity for her dreams to experience the bigger world around her. Those were my dreams, too."
Nair liked that the script’s portrait was honest, exposing Amelia’s human flaws along with her zeal and bravery. She continues: "The way Amelia trained herself to overcome fear and to go after the impossible is a lesson that I think we all aspire to. And yet I was drawn to a portrait of her that went beyond the iconic, that looks at her quirkiness, her need for love, her capacity to make mistakes and even to be so brave as to be reckless."
The screenplay spurred Nair to dive into her own research, screening hours of newsreels and documentaries, reading Amelia’s diaries and documentation of her life collected over the years.
"The more I learned about her, the more I was struck by the kind of sweet humility Amelia maintained through it all," she says. "I think humility and passion make such a lovely combination and is so rarely seen. That really interested me as a filmmaker."
Finally, Nair was attracted, like Amelia herself, to exploring the lure of flight in the thrilling early days of aviation when human beings first began to attain a vast freedom over the landscape that only birds previously had known.
"I saw in Amelia’s tale someone who is ecstatic in the sky, but also very earth bound," comments Nair. "She loved nature, and believed in its power, so it’s especially moving that, ultimately, it was the ocean or the skies that swallowed her."
The screenplay also introduced Nair to the two dashing, fascinating men who grew closest to Amelia: her savvy business partner and eventual husband, George Putnam; and the accomplished pilot and pioneer of the American airline industry, Gene Vidal.
Nair found herself compelled by both men. "George was the first person in this country to create what is now known as public relations. He was also an adventurer in his own right, but he knew he didn’t have what it takes to be an Amelia Earhart or Charles Lindbergh, so he threw his support behind Amelia in his own way, financing her trips with sponsorships and publicity events.
"Yes, it was Putnam who packaged Amelia, but he was also the one who really allowed her to explore her passion by finding a way to make money out of it," she notes.
"Gene was also a huge force in Amelia’s life because they were both very much the public faces of American aviation," Nair continues. "I think they were deeply attracted to each other, but Gene was the one person who told Amelia the blunt truth, who told her that her adventures were getting reckless, and I think she felt that hampered her dreams. There was both love and conflict driving the three of them."
"My journey through Amelia amassed an unforgettable history rich with detail- from newsreel footage, to artifacts to biographies and first-person accounts. Amelia’s life spanned decades of love, loss, heartbreak, and success," said Nair.
"Throughout the making of this film, I had the privilege to become acquainted with not only Amelia’s history in the skies, but also her history on the ground - with characters like Amy Guest and Dorothy Putnam and Mabel Boll - and others surrounding her close-knit group.
"Despite shooting the world around Amelia, I had to make choices that sharpened the journey of this utterly modern woman as she lived the seesaw between the ecstasy she felt in the sky and the responsibility she assumed towards the earth.
"Ultimately, my film began to soar as a study of one woman’s ‘ecstasy of the sky’. I hope Amelia sheds new light on this fascinating individual and encourages audiences to further discover the woman, the history, and the individuals who made that history. Ms. Earhart certainly gave me the key to the skies."
Nair jumped into production with a team that included Ted Waitt as well as Avalon Pictures President Kevin Hyman; and Nair’s long-time, trusted producing partner Lydia Dean Pilcher. "We had a deeply creative team," says Nair, "who tapped into what Amelia means to so many Americans."
Amelia is released 13th November