Of adaptations and bastardizations and the Hero archetype

I had written a bit about cinematic adaptations more back in 2012 here and this may be considered a companion piece. 

Of course, that was 2012, when Sachin Tendulkar was still an active Test player, we had a puppet as a PM, and most importantly, the woke brigade had still not come across the absolute gold mine that was 70 genders, LGBTQABC+ and other goodie goodie stuff to choke us with. 

That meant most filmmakers simply cast the most appropriate actor for a role, pertinent to the era, gender, age and physical attributes. A black queen of England would've been scoffed at then, and an Indian David Copperfied even more so. I am not sure if Dickens even met a single Indian in his lifetime, let alone write a 500-page novel on anyone but the run-of-the-mill Englishman. Nothing wrong here of course, he was simply writing per his time and on things he knew, as do all writers and poets, and other artists. 

It, therefore, is imperative on anyone adapting a work, to at the least ensure, that - 

1. The core theme of the original is retained irrespective of if you keep the original time/place setting or transport it to another era, which always happens with Shakespeare. 

2. If the original setting is retained (ex: 12th century Bharat, or 18th century Britain), respect the bloody history of the place and at least try to be accurate in the production design vis-a-vis costumes, jewellery, armoury, and the actors' ethnic backgrounds. 

This has been a source of big debate especially after Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey hit the screens, and while Nolan largely does it justice, there have been some really abominable productions in recent years, which not just try to interpret the original, but force 'modern ideas' completely subverting the original material.

So here, I play the judge, jury and executioner and classify such works into 'adaptation' (meaning the core theme is retained, et.al) or 'bastardization' - in that it bastardizes the original in more ways than one, often in unpardonable fashion. 

The Inglorious Bastards - 

1. Disney movies - Yes, that is correct - it includes Snow White, Aladdin, Cinderella, basically everything adapted from fairy tales and other classics. The biggest disservice Disney has done is to reduce complex characters and plots to sappy tales (initially) and lately into narratives of women empowerment where no such thing was ever present in the original Germanic tales or in ethnic stories from Arabia, China or native American stories. The original Grimm brother's stories of Cinderella, Snow White etc. are far more brutal, real, and interesting. Most people don't even read those anymore because of the Disney movies and the merchandizing.  

2. Amazon's Rings of Power - Where do I even start with this one? I watched the first 3-4 episodes, being a huge Tolkien fan and I just couldn't take it. Even if I could've endured, our TV would've had to bear the brunt, so I just stopped. A whole new Hobbit-like species which Tolkien never spoke about, an absolutely insufferable Galadriel, a black elf and black dwarves, a 5.5 ft Sauron... absolute piece of trash for which apparently billions have been spent...so sad. I just hope young audiences dont watch this crap and get an incorrect viewpoint on Tolkien. 

3. Do we have to emasculate the hero? - One of the biggest victims of woke film making has been the hero archetype. The Greeks placed great importance on the hero. The word itself comes from the Greek 'heros' meaning a demi-god or a brave/courageous person. Notice how it does not care of the said hero's virtue. In fact, many of the Greek heroes duped their wives, cheated, pillaged where they could and generally employed all sort of machinations to fulfill their tasks, which they invariably did. Bharatiya epics differ in this major aspect, with dharma being the core driving force behind our heroes, be it incarnations or otherwise.

This aspect of modern adaptations reducing the hero archetype to tormented apologetic men is alright when applied to a Batman, or in any original screenplays, but becomes a bit jarring when applied to classics like The Odyssey. 

There was a recent interview of Nolan's in China where the interviewer point blank asked him if we need to apologize for heroes and the reply jolted me a bit. As good a filmmaker Nolan is, I cannot agree on his view that heroism is something to apologize for as it 'goes against democratic values'. Tales of heroes is what inspires young kids, it is what humankind has always celebrated, it is why a Messi, or a Federer gains worldwide recognition, sports being a modern, non violent (in most cases) for wars and battles of old. 

China, correctly, has assessed this as emasculation of the western culture as a whole and believes it can fill the void. I think this is also why films like RRR have been liked so much by western audiences, as they don't apologize for the herogiri (in fact it is the other extreme of it). 

Maybe this is a phase, but I love stories with a hero's arc, like Aragorn's in The LOTR trilogy or the first two Dark Knight movies. Even Jon Snow's followed this in GoT right up to that stupid episode in the dark in the last season. 

4. Race neutral casting: While The Odyssey is a cinematic triumph in how it got audiences people back to theatres, in Nolan's shooting on IMAX film, usage of locations and practical effects, the race neutral casting employed is very jarring. It just reduces the experience when suddenly you see Asian and Black faces in Odysseus' crew and Lupita Nyong'O as Helen. It just doesn't work. 

This is only the latest in a long series of such nonsense casting. In the 60s, Indian and Arab characters were played by white actors with brown faces. It looked ludicrous but then they had people like Alec Guinness who could literally do anything and at least they put on a brown face to resemble the character being played. The correction needed was to employ race appropriate casting, rather than go the other extreme where you have a judge in 1920s Britain played by a black actor (not joking - Wicked little letters has it in addition to having a Punjabi lady police officer) and King Arthur's nephew played by an Indian (albeit an excellent Dev Patel). This madness cannot stop soon enough. 

The good adaptations - 

1. LOTR - Where cinematic grandeur peaked. Peter Jackson said in his interview that the first thing they discussed was to not let their modern prejudices and point of view come in the way of the film and only make what Tolkien conveyed through the pages of his book. They took a hell of a lot of effort to make it, relying on practical effects as much as possible, and it shows. The movies are still as fresh as the day they came out, almost 25 yrs back. I watch the whole thing every year. If you own a DVD or blu-ray player, do yourself a favour and buy an extended edition box set. Amazon/Netflix doesn't do it justice. 

2. Kurosawa's Throne of Blood - Simply the best Macbeth adaptation I've seen. Every plot point is followed to the T, but in medieval Japan. Its beautifully shot, has an all time performance by Toshiro Mifune and the action sequences are absolutely thrilling - the climax is shot in real time with no special effects, the Macbeth character faces a slew of arrows leading to his final defeat and death. 

I had mentioned about Vishal Bharadwaj's possible Shakespeare trilogy in the previous post and he did go ahead and adapt Hamlet after all. As much as I detest the politics of Haider, where Indian army is shown running kangaroo courts and is generally pro-terrorists, it is still a well-made movie, and along with Maqbool and Omkara, is a fantastic adaptation of the three great Shakespearean tragedies. 

3. Romcoms - Changing genres away from the gore and violence, there is a whole set of early 90s and 00s Romcoms loosely adapted from classics which have stood the test of time (albeit only about 25-30 yrs). 10 things I hate about you - loosely based on 'The Taming of the shrew' is a sharp, witty comedy. Clueless is based on Emma, and there must be countless adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. The BBC version and the Keira Knightley one are both very good.

Maybe I will write more on the hero archetype in a dedicated post some time. Till such time, hope for better adaptations and less bastardizations! And please, stop the madness that is race neutral casting - it is an assault on the senses at best and insults the audience's intelligence at worst. 

PS - Since a few folks asked on the last Dhurandhar post - NO, no AI has been used to write this. This is akin to shooting on film, with everything typed out. As it should be.