When a film is made from a well-known story of a famous writer, the filmmaker does not have many options.
The first option is to follow the story as written by the author. The filmmaker must make the film as true to the original story as possible. He can, of course, take some cinematic liberties to suit his format. Cinematic idioms and language, after all, are different from the literary art form. And following the original story without changing much is usually the safest bet for a filmmaker.
Immediately, two films come to mind that followed this option. Both these are masterpieces as novels in their own right. At the same time, both these films are all-time greats as well.
Francis Ford Coppola made Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, and Victor Fleming made Margaret Michell’s Gone With The Wind.
Both these films follow the original storyline of the novels without changing much. The filmmakers might have changed both the stories a little bit to suit the cinematic medium. They might have changed the dialogues, the flow of the narrative to suit the requirement. They might have altered a few more things to suit the format that may not be visible to my untutored eyes. But overall, both the movies follow the main narratives of the respective novels. There is not much disparity between the outcome of the two different art forms. Essentially, both the medium tells the same stories.
I have read both the books and seen both the movies. Had I watched only the movie, I would not have felt cheated. The movies were as true to the original novels as possible. Just by watching the films, one would get the essence of the original novels - the mood, the social conditions, the uniqueness of the characters, the narrative - all come out excellently, as in the original stories. No wonder both the movies got multiple Academy awards.
The second option for a filmmaker is to take the basic storyline to adapt it and by using his imagination and creativity to make a new creation. This is a difficult option for a filmmaker, with well-read and famous stories written by acclaimed authors. The audience may or may not accept the new creation.
At the same time, with the second option, the filmmakers, other than acknowledging the source story, need not do anything. Ethically they should not even piggyback on the famous story or author to sell their films to the audience.
However, the second option gives the filmmaker greater liberty in his creativity. There are plenty of good films adapted from literary classics, which are classics in their own right.
One film that immediately comes to mind is Charulata, by Satyajit Ray. Charulata is adapted from the story of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nashtanirh. But when Ray made the movie, he changed the storyline from the original story and created a masterpiece uniquely his own. The world over, this film is considered one of the best examples of literary work converted into a film. Ray departed from the original Tagore story in many places. Ray even depicted the ending of the film differently than in the original story. While Tagore hinted at a reconciliation, Ray kept the ending more open-ended.
So, what point do I want to make?
Recently I saw a mini web series on Netflix named Ray. Sayantan Mukherjee created the mini web series. The mini-web series includes four short films. Srijit Mukherji directed two films, while Vasan Bala and Abhishek Chaubey directed one each.
All these four films are adapted from short stories written by Satyajit Ray, hence the name of the series. There was a lot of hype about the series in the media. Films made from Ray’s short stories naturally evoked a lot of curiosity. And to top it all, the series was highly publicized in the name of Ray to attract maximum eyeballs and attention. The name of the series is a total giveaway that the filmmakers wanted to encash Ray’s name.
As all know, other than being a filmmaker of high repute, Ray was also an accomplished and prolific author. He created a few wonderful characters in Bengali literary fiction. But without going into his creation of characters in detail here, I can safely say that Ray always wrote and made films for everybody. All his creations had one thing in common. They were all family entertainers. Starting with the kids in the family, and ending with the aged grandparents, all together can enjoy Ray’s creations - be it his stories and novels or his films.
However, I found all the films of this mini-series unsuitable for wholesome family consumption and against everything Ray stood for. Now there is an argument going on that the mini-series is made for an OTT platform like Netflix. Hence taking liberties is acceptable. But to depart from the main essence of Ray’s work to suit an OTT platform is not doing justice to the original stories. On top of that, the series was popularized as Ray’s stories.
I am not competent enough to go critically into the cinematic qualities of these films. But I can safely say that, in all these films, the filmmakers changed the original treatment, mood, presentation of the stories. No essence of Ray’s original stories is present in any of the films. These stories were as well not written by Ray at all.
Reading literature is not the priority for the present generation. Most are hooked on electronic media for their entertainment. So knowledge of good literature comes to them through good and well-made films. Hence, the filmmakers must stay as true to the story as possible. A filmmaker can change the stories as much as possible but can not pass them on in the name of the author. Viewers have different expectations when a name like Ray is involved.
I am not a conservative person. I am not against showing violence and sex on the screen. Violence and sex are acceptable if the story demands them. Ray’s stories never had violence and sex, the way we now understand them. Yes, his detective stories had action but not violence. In his period film Shatranj Ke Khilari, Ray showed an illicit affair. There was plenty of scope for showing sex on screen. But his art and sensibility did not permit it.
There is a subtle difference between lovemaking and having sex. And I am sure all discerning viewers understand the difference between the two. It is going against Ray’s sensibility to show or write a sexually explicit scene. Yet, in this series, the filmmakers showed the act of sex without any proper justification. When the filmmakers do not have enough skills to hold the audience's attention, they restore to showing acts of sex out of context. If the screenplay is weak, it has to fill up with junk.
At a time when young people are more interested in audio-visual entertainment rather than reading good literature, these Ray stories could have been a stepping stone to revive interest in reading the original. The filmmakers, trying to make these films contemporary, chic and sophisticated, simply murdered Ray’s amazing stories. The masterpiece of literature made into, at best, mediocre films.
In an attempt to intellectualize Satyajit Ray through a contemporary lens, Netflix India's Ray completely alienates his humanism and effortlessness in portraying people’s vulnerabilities.
Shreya Paul of Firstpost