Love for Adapted Screenplays….

The 93rd Academy awards were announced on 26th April, this Monday and “The Father” took home the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. The winners were Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton, the story adapted from the play, “Le Père” written by Florian Zeller himself. I hadn’t heard about this play or about the director, Zeller before his directorial debut “The Father” was nominated for the Oscars. But I have seen the movie, and if The Father is the true replication of what the play reads like, I would have to say that Zeller has done an outstanding job and is a well deserved winner of the award. Throughout the film one can feel the despair, the confusion a person with dementia feels and the writer director was able to achieve what initially seems almost unachievable…to create that same mental confusion, the despair in the minds of his otherwise able bodied and able minded audience. Albeit for a short period of 90 minutes, one can actually feel what’s it like to go through the same disorientation. I can now understand a little better the plight of an Alzheimer’s patient or dementia patient and can sympathize towards the growing irreversible nature of the disease. Sure, Anthony Hopkins gave a stellar performance, completely personifying a person suffering from dementia, but he was able to achieve it so because of the script available to him that spelled out the character, helped him better understand his role and what was expected out of it.

The screenplay is the inception for any movie. It is the plinth, the establishment on which the whole monolith of a movie stands. Often the building, the establishment is praised and marveled at, but no such overwhelming credits befall on the base of it. The importance of a screenplay or its writer is rarely acknowledged by the general audience, who just wants to go to the theatre on weekends to blow off steam, with a tub of popcorn, and an expectation for a mind blowing and captivating film. Emerging from the darkness of the theatre, the movie is discussed with friends and family. The direction, the acting, the songs (if it’s a Bollywood movie), the eye popping wide angled shots and VFX induced scenes, all are talked about, ‘Wow’d at. The names of directors, actors, singers are circulated while the movie is recommended to those who haven’t seen it. “What about the story?”…”Oh it was brilliant. There are twists you won’t see coming” or, “You know, it’s an amazing story, just not for general audience”…. mostly such answers sum up the discussion over a story. The story, not the screenplay.

Screenplay has a broader scope than a story. A story includes the characters, their motives, the plot, the twists, and the end. But the screenplay is much much more than that. A screenplay sets the stage for every single scene, every move, every raised eyebrow. Take this short example from the first scene of Quintin Tarantino’s movie Inglorious Bastard’s screenplay.

“The owner of the property, a bull of a man FRENCH FARMER, brings an axe up and down on a tree stump blemishing his property. However simply by sight, you’d never know if he’s been beating at this stump for the last year, or just started today.”

When you watch this scene in the movie, you get the exact feel of Monsieur LaPadite hitting the stump as if since ages.

But I am not here to talk about original screenplays like the ones written by Tarantino himself. I’m here to admire at the brilliance of adapted screenplays. As a book reader, the more I read books the more I marvel over the genius of screenwriters and directors who work with adapted screenplays and precisely replicate what is being pictured in every readers’ mind. Trying to bring to life the world which, up til then, dwelled only in the imaginations of the readers.

The first time I experienced this was when I first saw the movie, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone”. I was 12 and my mom had read rave reviews about this children’s book in some marathi newspaper. She forced me to borrow the book from a friend, and me knowing nothing about the story, started reading it just because mom wanted me to. And no surprise there that I was blown away by the story. Never before had I read such an intricately woven story with vibrant descriptions of not only characters but places, castles, playgrounds, made up games, non-existent creatures and magical spells which you just wished your life on that it all existed. Needless to say, that first book made me a lifelong potterhead. But the love for HP didn’t actually kick in until I saw the first HP movie with my dad. Back then hindi dubbed version of English movies was the norm, and I sat through hindi translations like “Adrishya choga” (invisibility cloak) and “Anisht Dev” (The Dark Lord). It was the first time I saw my imagination come to life. The excitement I felt to see the Hogwarts castle, the robes, the Great hall…all of it exactly like I had imagined it. I kept wondering how could someone know exactly what I was picturing in my head. But the makers were replicating the books, the written material by Jo Rowling. Yes, kudos to Rowling for meticulously detailing every aspect of Gringotts to Diagon Alley but the magic also lied in the hands of screenwriter, Steve Kloves to adapt the entire book for the big screen.

It is quite common that one reads a book, loves it and then is motivated to watch its movie adaptation. Many a times this leads to disappointment as the movie doesn’t turn out to be a true depiction of the book. The director either fails to capture the essence of the story, or the casting is wrong, there are missing scenes which were crucial for the storyline etc etc. But rarely does it happen that a movie motivates you to read a book. It has happened to me. Not once but multiple times. And that’s because of David Fincher and his genius filmmaking talents. Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was the first Fincher film that motivated me to pick up the book, and introduced me to the Millennium trilogy. If you have seen the movie, you know exactly which scene I’m mentioning here when I say it scarred the viewer’s minds. Those Stieg Larsson books opened the gates for my love for the Nordic noir genre. The story repeated with Fincher’s “Gone Girl”, a book I had DNFed after few chapters but the movie made me realize what I had missed. The horror of missing out on the thrill of a literary shock felt like a big loss but Fincher did an amazing job delivering Amy’s plan and the Amy monologue. Though the epic Amy monologue is a complete chapter in the book and is far more brilliant, Gillian Flynn, the author and screenwriter did great work in adapting it for the screen. And although the scene of Amy’s return was far more chilling in the book than the way it was altered for the movie, as Fincher wanted it to be a tribute to “Gone with the Wind”, he absolutely nailed it with the killing scene of Desi Collings. This scene, which was only subtlely implied in the book, was vividly brought to life in the movie, thus etching it forever in the viewer’s memories. This all made me pick up the book from where I had left it and I have to admit, Gone Girl is and will remain my all time favorite books. “Zodiac” created a kind of obsession in me back when OTT platforms didn’t exist and I had to rely on the TV to be on the lookout for its next telecast. It was a movie like none other I had previously watched. A pure investigative story with little to no subplots or character backstories. I bought the book despite it being required to be shipped from overseas and being overpriced for a paperback. The book reads much more like the entire case files from all the counties around San Francisco, filling upto 800 pages, but it was James Vanderbilt, the screenplay writer who condensed it to a 3 hour screenplay and Fincher who delivered this humongous story spread across counties in an impactful way. “Zodiac” remains the finest, yet an underrated work of Fincher’s. As for the “Fight Club”, the book still sits in my “books to buy” list, along with Chuck Palahniuk’s book, “You do not talk about fight club: I am Jack’s completely unauthorized essay collection”.

Speaking of films that motivated me to read the book, next one that comes to mind is “The Help” a book by Kathryn Stockett. One easily falls in love with the sassy mouthed Minny, played by Octavia Spencer or the chirpy Celia Foote from trashy Sugar Ditch, played by Jessica Chastain. The colourful and varied characters of the novel were difficult to pull off, but for writer director, Tate Taylor, The Help turned out to be a likable and one of the milestone movies.

Screenplays can make or break movies. A weak screenplay is reflected in the weak storytelling, disjointed scenes and the weak impact of an otherwise powerful scene, thus sabotaging a movie in the process. Yet another example of a perfect adaptation of a novel onto the big screen and a movie that compelled me to read the book, is the ever beautiful “Call me by your name” directed by Luca Guadagnino & screenplay written by James Ivory, who took home the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Ivory was able to extract the essence, the inherent nature of a pure, innocent, unadulterated adolescence first love, which Andrè Aciman delivered through his novella. There’s no other word that can rightfully describe this movie other than “Beautiful”. Beauty in every frame, every shot, every camera angle. The music, background score and the melodious voice of Sufjan Stevens is just pure beauteous and exquisite. Oliver and Ellio may well would have been the next Jack and Rose, if only the movie was a big budget one and world widely screened, and “Mystery of Love” the next “My heart will go on” anthem. This was possible because of the passionate writing of James Ivory. He said in his Academy acceptance speech,
“The story which is familiar to most of us whether we are straight or gay or somewhere in between. We’ve all gone through first love, I hope and come out the other side mostly intact. So maybe not without the benefit of loving parents like the Perlmans in this film.”
Such passion and love for Oliver and Ellio. Such understanding of their attraction and love.

The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola; The Namsesake directed by Mira Nair, written by Sooni Taraporwala; Da Vinci code directed by Ridley Scott, written by Akiva Goldsman are few of the noteworthy examples of book to screen adaptation. In the past, screenwriters’ names were hidden in shadows, reduced to whispers among the din of the names of directors, actors who delivered the words written by them. They remained elusive to the general public, whereas it was their magic that created the empire, the movie which later garnered accolades. When you look at failed attempts at adaptation like Inferno, The Snowman, The Girl on the Train, you admire even more the work of screenwriter and of director who flesh out the literary world.

Adapted screenplay writers don’t have a free reign as original screenplay writers have. No doubt writing an original screenplay is as tough but it is a different battle altogether and a topic for some other time. While adapting a 500+ page book into a two — two and a half hours long movie, writers have to take some liberties. Some parts need to be omitted, altered, a character to be introduced or not included at all, or the setting and location changed, much to the chagrin of die hard readers. But it’s okay and necessary as long as it doesn’t change the true nature of the book and what it actually wanted to convey in the first place. So the omission of “Peeves” in the Harry Potter series wasn’t a big deal as some die hard fans think so. Or the Harriet shown in the movie, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” wasn’t the actual Harriet from the book. The book one was far away in Australia.

There are examples of good adapted screenplays in India albeit they are lesser in number and far less appreciated. Works of older writers are repeatedly adapted for bigger and smaller screens, like Rabindranath Tagore’s “Chokher Bali” brilliantly made into a movie by Rituparna Ghosh, and again for television by Anurag Basu. I can immediately hear the opening track of “Tehreer Munshi Premchand Ki” at the mention of Munshiji’s works. Directed by Gulzar, the stories impeccably depict the pre-independance world of Munshiji. Or R. K. Narayan written “The Guide”, which Dad compelled me to read and later watch the Devanand starrer movie, by writer director Vijay Anand increased my appreciation for the adaptation and the book even more. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya was only sixteen when he wrote “Devdas” which gained acclaim and later was adapted as films multiple times. Every writer and director added their own style to the story but ultimately stuck to the original story more or less. Sanjay Leela Bhansali took the liberty of including scenes where Paro and Chandramukhi meet, which ultimately proved to be beneficial for the story, adding depth to the characters. It was a minor change and didn’t alter the actual fabric of the masterpiece.

That is not what happened with Raju Hirani’s “3 idiots”. Hirani claimed the movie was based on the book “5 point someone” by Chetan Bhagat. But it hardly resembled what was written in the book. Hirani went on to make crores and it turned out to be an instant hit with both critics and audience liking it. The plot, the theme was changed so much so that it didn’t resemble the book at all. The message of the movie was altogether different. What with “Success ke piche mat bhaago. Excellence ka picha karo”. Whereas the message of the book was that there was no profound message at all. It was about engineering students and college life, a fun read and for collegers and hostelites to reminisce with “Aha! That was exactly how it was with my roomies.” Instead the movie became all about Amir Khan and his character. Every aspect of the book was altered and it only slightly resembled the book. It’s like “Hirani ne ekdum se waqt badal diya, jazbaat badal diye, Zindagi badal di.”

There are many more films that deserve a mention here. But by mentioning these few, I wanted to acknowledge the adapted screenwriter’s job, who toll hard on a work that never will be originally theirs.