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iView Author:
ANIRUDH JAYARAM
(NAVI MUMBAI, INDIA)

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WITHHELD

Books to CINEMA - A Journey through Mediums

Dear fellow bloggers, today I read an article on PFC about Guide. This set me thinking about movies based on books.

Hollywood has a grand tradition of movies made on books. From “To kill a mocking bird”, “Ben Hur”, “The Wizard Of Oz”, and so many great films to the Star Wars series, The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and the Harry potter series, all of them have been based on books. Just for reference, the LOTR books were written by J.R.R.Tolkien and the Harry Potter books by J.K.Rowling. Now you have movies based on the “Inheritance Trilogy” by Christopher Paolini, the first of which was Eragon, and a movie on C.S.Lewis’s “The Chronicles Of Narnia”, the second movie of which is scheduled to be released soon. Even Roald Dahls’s “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory” was well adapted by tim burton.and enhanced by a wonderful performance by the ever dependable Johnny Depp. Most of Steven Spielberg’s films are based on books. The most notable of these are “Jurassic Park”, “Schindler’s List”, and the most recent being “The War Of The Worlds”. Reports are that he is adapting “Tintin” on to the celluloid with Peter Jackson, the creator of the LOTR trilogy. Peter is producing an adaptation of “The Hobbit”, the prequel of the lord of the rings.

In India often literary giants have been associated with cinema in it’s early stages. The great Munshi Premchand tried his hand at scriptwriting. Then there was K.A.Abbas who was a literary giant, a movie critic, scriptwriter, and director rolled into one.

How can you forget the magnificient Satyajit Ray, a man who ran a Bengali newspaper “Sandesh” for kids. He wrote many books for children and created two memorable characters - Felu Da, the detective, and Senor Shonku, the scientist. Of course his film career needs no introduction. He adapted many of his books and those of other writers too on the celluloid.

You also had people like Gulzarsaab juggling his literary and film careers deftly. Of course he does that even today. There were people in cinemas from other languages that did this very well too. Puttana Kanagal in Kannada and M.K.Karunanidhi in Tamil are the forerunners in this.

In Hindi of course you had Bimal Roy adapting the classics of Rabindranath Tagore (Kabuliwala) and Sarat Chandra Chatopadhyay (Devdas, Parineeta) . Then there was “Guide” by R.K.Narayan, adapted magnificently into cinema by the great Vijay Anand. Gulzar saab made great movies, though not based on books. But he continued to flourish in his literary career too.

The there was a slump. Fewer movies were made on books. But today the situation has improved. Vishal Bharadwaj successfully adapted Shakespeare on celluloid with Maqbool and Omkara. He also made “The Blue Umbrella”, a charming story by Ruskin Bond, into a very charming film. Amol Palekar’s “Paheli” was based on Vijaydan Detha’s “Duvidha”, a movie earlier made by Mani Kaul too. Sanjay Leela Bhansali made an opulent “Devdas”. Pradeep Sarkar created a beautiful “Parineeta” . Mira Nair adapted Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” into a highly compelling film.

In the coming days you have Atul Agnihotri’s film “Hello” based on Chetan Bhagat’s “One Night At The Call Centre”. Bhagat’s first book “Five Point Someone” is also being made into a film by Rajkumar Hirani.
People argue whether movies based on books live upto the book or not. Literary lovers always claim that the movies of their favorite books were disappointing. The written word is always considered to be supreme.

In my humble opinion, books and cinema are two different media catering to different tastes. They have different appeals. Books let you imagine. They nourish your imagination and let you make its world your own. Of course books stay forever. The affect your eyes less than movies too!
But then although movies are an imagination of someone thrusted on you, isn’t it a great experience to watch them? Movies truly make your favorite characters and events come alive for you. Nothing can beat this experience.

So to conclude it can be said that both these media are equally great and fascinating. Enjoy both the experiences and do not ruin the exhilaration by undue comparisons. Both books and cinema are god’s gifts to the world. Let’s cherish them equally!!!!!!