Movies based on Books

I have often heard people opine that great books don't necessarily translate into great movies, for whatever reasons.

In my limited experience, I haven't seen great many a movie based on a book that I have already read. In fact, I can remember only two of them. Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" was one, the movie adaptation of which I thought was abominable. The other one was Harper Lee's "To kill a Mockingbird",which I loved and also enjoyed watching it's movie adaptation equally, if not more.

Having said that, there are scores of movies in my list of favorites, which are based on or inspired by a book that I have not yet read. Examples in this category being The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, American Psycho, Sin City, the latest Batman Series to name a few. But I have heard people say that in case of The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption, the movie adaptations have surpassed their literary counterparts in depiction the underlying theme of the original.

So, coming to the topic of discussion, I wonder, having enjoyed some book thoroughly, is it possible for anyone to objectively judge it's movie adaptation? More often than not, the film writers and directors seem to take liberty in deviating from the plot-lines of the book, either to cater to the commercial interests, or to make it suitable for the present times and audience. When such is the case, can someone who already has a clear picture of the characters and the plot-lines of the book, accept some other portrayal with ease? Probably not. In such cases, it makes a bit more sense to accept the fact that the movie version, might not be the same as that of the book, since the director of the movie might choose to alter the premise slightly, and hence some of the alterations become inevitable. To quote a recent example, the reasoning Chris Nolan provides for Joker wearing the make up and the story about how he obtained the scars on his face in the movie "Dark Knight". But these minor deviations do not take away anything from Joker's portrayal as an anarchist psychopathic criminal.

However, there are times when deviations from the actual source appear to be too superfluous. At times they even act as a hindrance to the development of some of the characters. This is when the puritans tend to get miffed.

I have watched all the three movies in the Lord of the Rings trilogy long time ago, I totally enjoyed all three of them. For I thought that the visuals were astounding, the story was interesting, and most of all, it was a heroic saga and I am a sucker for movies belonging to that genre.

However, having finished reading the first volume of the book last week, I decided to watch the movie again, since I felt there were a few short-comings in the movie, especially in terms of the portrayal of some of the characters. For example, I felt that the characters of the Hobbits aren't all that well etched in the movie. In Tolkien's epic, Hobbits are not plain shorter versions of humans, but they're different beings altogether, who have a different culture and are driven by completely different needs and wants. Throughout the movie, Frodo comes across as a weakling who seems to have lines of worry permanently etched on his forehead. He doesn't seem to show any spunk when the Nazguls pursue him. One expects the Ring-bearer to be a bit more brave, especially since he is up against the Dark lord whom the bravest and the wisest on the middle-earth consider as a redoubtable foe. But when Gandalf tells Elrond that Frodo has a stout heart, I was wondering on what basis did he make that comment!

Also, the characters of Merry and Pippin come across as a couple of dumb mischief-mongers whose only contribution seems to get the fellowship into some trouble or the other. And the steadfastness of Sam Gamgee is rarely highlighted. In the book, the part of the plot where the Hobbits travel through the old forest, the barrow downs, their interaction with Tom Bombadil, highlights many of their defining characteristics, such has love for food and drink, capability to endure, capacity for stealth, dislike for conflict and so on. This plot is totally missing in the film.

The other glaring deviation, which I thought was totally superfluous was the extension of Arwen's character as the brave elf-woman who outruns and defeats the ring-wraiths, saves Frodo and later shares mushy moments with Aragon in the stealth of the night. Pray, why was this needed at all? More than anything else, it takes some of the credit away from Frodo, who in the book, shows remarkable resistance when allured by the Dark Riders at the Ford of Bruinen.

Peter Jackson has done a great job with the epic, no doubt, but he needn't have substituted some of original plotlines with an invented one, just to woo a particular section of the audience. The original one was far more cogent, and the invented one was definitely no improvement over the former.

That said, I still maintain that LOTR:FOTR is a really good movie, and if you haven't read the book prior to watching the movie, you will really enjoy it, like I did once upon a time.

Mumbai Meri Jaan

I watched "Mumbai Meri Jaan" yesterday. It's a movie about the post-7/11 serial bomb blast experiences of a few Mumbaikars.

The movie is an honest attempt in filmmaking. It has it's heart in the right place. It does not try to be too preachy, nor does it try to place the blame on some one section or unit of the society. It's a movie which portrays in a simple manner, the pre and post blast experiences of a few people. It describes the problem, but does not venture out to provide any solution.

The movie has five parallelly running tracks, each showing the lives of different people. R Madhavan plays an socially conscious person, who has a decent job, opportunites to settle down abroad, but chooses to stay back, and prefers to travels to office daily by the local train instead of a car, which he can afford. Soha Ali Khan plays a modern Indian television journalist, who works really hard to report the news stories that have some kind of an emotional appeal, but in the process being apathetic about the emotional state of the people whom she's interviewing. In her opinion, her job is well done as long as she gets some salable "sound bytes". Kay Kay Menon plays a young self employed person, who is mostly seen idling at a small restaurant with his friends. He dislikes Muslims, and doesn't deal with the people from "Another community" (BTW, a short story by that name, written by R K Narayan, is one of my all time favorites), thereby losing out on a lot of opportunities. Irrfan Khan plays a immigrant from Tamil Nadu, who sells tea for a living, but is pretty much taken aback by the prodigal and nonchalant lifestyle of the "Rich people". And finally Vijay Maurya and Paresh Rawal play the two police constables. The former is a rookie cop who is frustrated when he realizes that he cannot change the "system", while the latter is an experienced cop, who has learnt the art of being a spectator.

We're shown how the lives of these people change with the serial blasts and how they react to it. Madhavan's character experiences post-blast traumatic experiences and cannot bring himself to travel by the train anymore. Soha Ali Khan's character ends up at the receiving end of the modern television journalism, by being treated as yet another Prime-Time news story, after her fiance dies in the train blast. Kay Kay Menon's character starts suspecting every Muslim to be an accomplice in the train blast, and even goes on to spy on one of them, Irrfan Khan's character plays on the fear-factor by setting up hoax calls, his way of getting back at the rich who he feels, look down upon him. And finally, Paresh Rawal's character begins to come to terms with the fact that by being a spectator, he hasn't really done much. There's more to life than "chalta hai".

The actors have done their job very well, especially R Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon and Paresh Rawal deserve a word of praise. One can really feel for what they're experiencing. I didn't find even a single shot as being wasted. The pace is moderate, but then, this is not a film that fits into the fast paced movie genre.

However, I thought that Irrfan story was a little bit weak. Especially, the scene where Irrfan's character realizes his folly, was a bit too abrupt. It might have been the editor's decision to snip any scenes leading to the development of guilt in the character in order to restrict the film within the 2 hour time frame.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I would rate it 3 out of 5. Compared to the few movies that have come out in the last fortnight, this one undoubtedly, is the best one.

Books Read in 2008

This year, I have been reading more for knowledge than for pleasure. However, whenever time permitted and when the mood was right, I did lay my hands on books, some of which I had bought ages ago, and some bought at the spur of the moment to satisfy an immediate curiosity.

Anyway, the list so far looks as follows:

1) Just for Fun - Linus Torvalds and David Diamond: An autobiographical account about the person who wrote the first version of the Linux kernel, and gave it out to the world, which now hacks it, for pleasure or purpose. I enjoyed the book, except for the bit towards the end which got a little bit boring.

2) When Nietzsche Wept - Irving D Yalom: A book I gifted myself as a birthday present, this talks about a fictional interaction between Josef Breuer and Fredrich Nietzsche, and how the former helps resolve the mental issues that the latter is suffering from, and in the process, cures his own personal problems. It's a relatively unknown book, since not many of my friends have heard about it. The theory behind the birth of psychoanalysis that's presented in this book is quite interesting. The book does wander into the philosophical territory, but more than anything else, it goes on to show the human side of the brilliant thinker and a gifted physican.

3) Shantharam - Gregory David Roberts: My roommates gifted this for my birthday, and I took quite a while to finish this book about an Australian convict who lands up in india, interacts with the local mafia, and becomes a pakka mumbaiyaa. Good book, read it if you get it.

4) Prisoner of Birth - Jeffery Archer: Bought as an act of impulse when I saw the jacket photograph on the doors of Sapna Book house. A very "Count of monte-cristo" like story which has no surprises in store, but the execution is quite deft. Typical Archer novel.

5) First amongst equals - Jeffery Archer: Four ambitious MP's and they journey to grabbing the coveted post of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. In typical Archer istyle, it keeps you guessing asto who will end up with the PM position, until the last page.

6) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol: A prequel to GEB, I thought when I picked up this book long ago in Pune. But read it only after three years. Some of the puns are the wittiest I have ever come across.

7)The three biggest mistakes of my life -Chetan Bhagat: I made a mistake reading this one. Guess it was written inorder to be made into a stereotypical Hindi movie.

8)The Broker - John Grisham: Bought it at the Chicago airport, when I realized that "I am a strange loop" by Douglas Hoffstadler wouldn't keep me hooked throughout the 14 hour journey. I have mixed feelings about this novel. While the story was interesting in parts, the Italian lessons in the town of Bologna was really not that exciting. And unlike the Grisham novels that I have read in the past, this had little to do with courthouse.

Currently reading the Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien.

Back to my previous home!

I am moving back from Wordpress to Blogger.

No, it's not because wordpress is bad or something. I am just bored and I want to move!

Anyways, I ended up changing the template of my blogger page. Which made me wonder, in the days of google-reader and other feed aggregators, how many readers do "visit" the blog-page?

Because as far as my blog is concerned most of my visitors read whatever I write(which is not very often) through one of the feed aggregators. Except when they feel the itch to comment on something, I don't think someone actually visits the blog-site :)