Storytelling is an art that has been expressed in numerous forms over the years, ranging from paintings from the age of cavemen to modern-day podcasts and audiobooks helping us learn and be informative. Storytelling serves as a form of record and evidence reflecting on the society and culture of the generation which creates the record. Although similar, all forms of storytelling are very different from each other. How a story is told depends heavily on the form or medium it is told on and the comprehension or the vision of the storyteller telling the story.
Since the dawn of motion pictures and cinema as a form of storytelling, it has been subjected to mixed views and often criticized by readers and lovers of books who have accused filmmakers of ‘adapting’ written works into films which sometimes tend to stray away from the original idea and work of the author and their vision. Film lovers on the other hand argue that films adapted from works and stories by other writers are merely the personal understanding of the filmmaker re-envisioned into a different medium, these two arguments, therefore, give rise to the broad argument of whose vision and the idea is better overall, the writer or the filmmaker.
The notion of one being better over the other is irrational since both are different forms of storytelling and in the broader scheme of things, art in itself is subject to self-cognition. The difference in a story when written and adapted arise as a consequence of the relative perks and constraints that exist in respective mediums. Citing the example of In Custody, a novel written by Anita Desai and later adapted for the big screen by the duo of Merchant-Ivory, we shall discuss the eminent differences that often occur between the two forms.
In the novel, Anita Desai paints a slow revolving picture around the life and the imminent failure that Deven’s life has come to be. Deven, a professor in a town college, is the protagonist of the novel. Deven is seen as a failure both by himself for his inability to follow his passion and by the people around him because of his disintegrating family and his weak connection with his wife and son. The convoluted and strained relationships in his personal life are at the forefront of the novel. On the other hand, the movie focuses more on Deven’s pursuit of the one true chance that he had received to follow his passion in however strange ways and his failure to comprehend and control his pursuit of passion.
The novel leaves the reader in a hazed sense of ambiguity where the reader may decide either to feel sympathetic towards the failure of his action however tricked and misguided he may have been, or to despise the sense of expectation and an unworldly mirage of hero worship that only leads to his loss of self and others. The movie, on the other hand, leaves the viewer with an embrace that even after the disastrous passion project Deven is left with a sense of accomplishment in his relationship with Nur, his hero, and idol in ways that may have never been thought of by him. This sense of finality comes from the delicate relationship that both had between them in which either found an escape from themselves and had in ways found a part of themselves in each other. Deven found his idol and inspiration while Nur found someone of his own, someone who cared, someone that won’t use him or his accomplishments for himself.
These apparent differences that occurred came about due to the nature of the medium used. Anita Desai in her novel had the flexibility and freedom to form and give the whole story a structure and life in a pace and way that she seemed fit, building a world that revolved around her prospect in its own time. The film however depicts the filmmaker’s vision and their search for finality in Deven’s life that already seemed to be disintegrating and the end provided a sense of closure after all the failures that he had been through. This came about since films are generally expected to bring about some closure in the life of the protagonist and also because the viewers in the limited screen-time want closure in the life depicted as if that would be the end of the journey in a way that the viewer may find closure in themselves and their being.
The differences in the medium of storytelling are what sets apart the two things i.e. a novel and a film. Even if the core of the story remains the same, the visions and opinions about a story may vary from person to person, giving us in itself a unique experience in trying to understand what the creator wants to convey.
-Written by Debajit Sarkar