LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Film Highlight 2008

Thursday, 21 February: film highlight: Passage to India (d. David Lean, 1984)

presenter: instructor

A Passage to India (1984)

d. David Lean

Objective 2b. To extend the intertextuality of the novel or fiction to poetry and film by colonial, imperial, or post-colonial sources . . .

Special problems / issues of “Literary Film”

Literary texts adapted to films

Examples? Problems or issues raised with novels > films?

Most genre or style films (action, teen, romance) identify a niche audience

A literary film must work for two audiences

First, it must immediately please or not offend the literary audience who have either read the book or may be familiar with literary styles. The literary audience is comparatively small but has disproportionate impact b/c they

• write reviews,

• talk seriously about movies (i. e., as more than a place merely to park the kids),

• generate a positive or negative buzz

• manage institutions that give awards, reward merit or excellence, know the difference

Additional upsides of literary film fame:

• actors may gain prestige and reputation for depth through literary / historical roles > $, better roles, character roles

• original literary texts may be revived, republished, introduced to wider audience

Most familiar downside:

• “It wasn’t as good as the book.”

But a “literary audience” is not big enough to support many high-end movies, so literary films must also appeal to a general audience

Formal issues:

Exceptions granted, film generally is more directly sensory and less intellectual than reading, more immediate emotional impact but less depth, subtlety, complexity

--e. g., the "interiority" Bakhtin finds in the novel can be provided only by dialogue, actors' expressiveness, theme music, audience pre-identification

 > literary audience tends to be more intellectual, a reader provides images (in response to words), whereas a viewer in a movie theater is given images for direct sensory apprehension

Less intellectual viewers want more sensory pleasures, color, costumes > “period pieces”--everybody likes these, even intellectuals

Less intellectual viewers want simpler plots with definite endings

Ending of film of A Passage to India is surprisingly simple compared to text ending

Other novels by Forster were made by Merchant Ivory Productions, famous for art house films of Edwardian novels, featuring well-appointed interiors and excellent actors

Merchant Ivory most famous for

Le Divorce 2003

Remains of the Day 1993

Jefferson in Paris 1995

+ 3 films based on novels by Henry James

The Europeans 1979

The Bostonians 1984

The Golden Bowl 2001

+ films based on novels by E. M. Forster

A Room with a View 1985—maybe their biggest hit, hot love story

Maurice 1987

Howards End 1992

But A Passage to India directed not by Merchant Ivory but by

David Lean (1908-91)

British director best known for fine small films like Brief Encounter (1945)

+ two great Dickens films

Great Expectations 1946

Oliver Twist 1948

In 1950s-70s, several historical epics with spectacular cinematography

The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957

Lawrence of Arabia 1962

Dr. Zhivago 1965

A Passage to India 1982

Lean’s last film, though working on a version of Conrad’s Nostromo at death

Today show about 12 minutes of film--

No discussion questions planned, but comments welcome

Purpose: film can give readers unfamiliar with setting some images to use with their reading imagination

• Scene where Aziz meets Mrs. Moore in Mosque (ch. 2)
   

• Scene in English club where Adela expresses interest in meeting Indian people (ch. 3)
   

• Scene of "Bridge Party" between English and Indians (ch. 5 for next week)