Character Assassination

Have you ever watched an adaptation of a dearly beloved book that made you want to reach for your hatchet and go after the director/screenwriter to seek vengeance? I have. Many times.

Every book lover will relate to the sinking feeling one gets upon hearing of the imminent movie adaptation of a book. One immediately starts to wonder which characters got slashed or what unnecessary changes to the original plot became ‘necessary’ during filming.

Accepting that character is destiny, every writer creates characters that lead inevitably, and convincingly, to the dénouement or catastrophe (well, maybe not, if the writer is Dan Brown). It is a delicate balance that should NOT be tampered with, even by the writer him-/herself (more on this in a subsequent piece). Changing the basic temperament of a character is tantamount to slaying the albatross; this wanton act of destruction is guaranteed to end in misery and tears for the book lovers, and the grief can only be assuaged somewhat by the timely and skilful application of a hatchet (as mentioned earlier). The changes that are made to literary characters to enable them to face the camera are, in my opinion, no different from assassinating the original characters and replacing them with imposters.

Some may view this as an overreaction, but I shall now proceed to prove my case with a few well-chosen examples.

In 1992 an ‘adaptation’ of James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans was made. To this day I have never understood why even the original title was retained, because very little else from the original text was. Obscure and uninteresting characters rose to prominence in the movie, inconvenient characters were summarily bumped off, and a pitiful attempt made to preserve the lives of other characters merely to create a totally unjustified love angle. Harsh words? Perhaps you’ll believe me if you compare the movie with the novel yourself. This adaptation ruined the novel for me and I never reread it after my college years.

Though I liked The Last of the Mohicans (the novel) very much, I did not mourn for it the way I did for another text ruined for a similarly unacceptable reason — Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939). What further saddens me here is that Christie herself changed the original ending when the text was adapted for the stage in 1943. Her reason? To make the play more palatable to the audience. Hah! This novel has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. If readers found the original ending so fascinating, were theatre audiences considered too dim-witted to follow the plot? The difficulties of staging the crime do NOT justify changing the ending. The title is belied — why was that not changed too? A more apt title for the play would have been And Then There Were Two. Many later adaptations chose to use this version rather than the original text. The hopelessly romantic Bollywood contributed its own version in Gumnaam (1965), complete with songs, new and unnecessary characters, and an overall atmosphere that added to the despair of the lovers of the original text. I blame Christie for this mess.

Another dearly loved text that was mangled in several adaptations is Pride and Prejudice (1813). The 1940 Hollywood production, starring Sir Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, was critically well received. It failed to excite me, however. I will say nothing of this Regency romance played in Victorian crinolines — that might only offend less than the unforgivable changes made to the plot. I pass over in contempt the 2004 Bollywood musical and 2005 Hollywood productions. These awful adaptations were redeemed (to my mind) in two BBC productions — in 1980 and 1995 (of the five versions aired, I am familiar with these two). Both were well made serialised adaptations, although I felt that Jane Bennet came across as a bit whiny in the 1980 production.

Bollywood has its own unique brand of adaptations that combine the elements of classical Indian dramatic theory with the literary text (Western or otherwise). This may explain the insistence upon the inclusion of songs, a jester and the focus of the plot resting on the hero and on his attainment of the object of his desire (read, the heroine). Now, this can lead to really messed up plots when Bollywood adapts literature to its use. A case in point is Rebecca (1938) adapted into Kohraa (1964). The imperative felt to whitewash the hero’s character leads to a butchering of the plot, which blames the most unlikely person for an old crime. An even more horrible example is Bees Saal Baad (1962), which seems to be an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). I say ‘seems’ because the plot is so horribly mutilated that it is hard to be sure — and there’s not the slightest hint of a hound, nor Holmes. I am told that Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (2002) is another such tale of broken hearts (I am talking, of course, of the readers of Devdas (1917)); I would say, however, that casting SRK in the role immortalised by Dilip Kumar in 1955 was heartbreaking enough. I haven’t been brave enough to watch Bhansali’s Devdas myself.

Not wanting to sound like a person devoted to finding faults, let me say that some good adaptations do exist. For instance, the three-part BBC adaptation of And Then There Were None (2015) was a very good one. Peter Jackson’s 2001-03 epic production of The Lord of the Rings (Extended Edition) was very good, too. Boy, did he bring the texts to life! Another excellent adaptation was Govind Nihalani’s Tamas (1988). I felt Nihalani’s film/serial was even more chilling than the novel. And Peter Brook’s Mahabharata (1989) was simply outstanding.

See, I am not a fanatic for the written word. I can enjoy a good tale in any form. Some have found it hard to understand why I make such a fuss about changes made in what are, after all, works of fiction. Well, it is a big deal to me, and I will tell you why. Let us say the producer/director/ screenwriter spot a text they like and decide to present it on screen. Pay attention here: they liked the text. So they have no need to change it, right? If the text needed ‘improving’ in terms of character delineation and plot resolution, why did they pick the text? If they think they are qualified to improve upon the work of the original writer, why don’t they write their own, entirely original, screenplay? And what gives them the right to assume inability on the part of the viewers to accept or comprehend the text as it was originally set down by the writer? Worse, those who only watch the movies get the wrong impression of the text and of the literary merit of the writer.

If it is argued that a text cannot be expected to be converted into a movie in its entirety given the considerations of playing time and audience patience, is it possible to resolve this problem by turning every would-be adaptation from movie into a serialised tale? Not necessarily. When directors/screenwriters find a sponsor willing to foot the bill for a serialised version of the book, they choose to milk the text for every last drop by adding characters and situations to keep the serial going. If economic considerations drive them to choose a text as one likely to rake in the profits, my objection still stands: if the text looked good as a book, why change it for its appearance on the screen?

I would like to think that I am not alone in looking at adaptations with a jaundiced eye. Readers are welcome to weigh in with their own list of hatchet-worthy adaptations.…