Cinephiles and literature lovers recently gathered for a conversation on the word-to-visual transitioning process when novels are adapted to big screen.
Though the reference point was Ang Lee’s 2012 recreation of Yann Martel’s book, Life of Pi – with either of the genre having deep connections to the city – the discussions got a new-found relevance with the buzz around Ponniyin Selvan I and II, filmmaker Maniratnam’s two-part adaptation of the eponymous novel by Kalki Krishnamurthy.
Samir Sarkar, film producer who was involved as production consultant, and Sunayana Panda of the Pondicherry Book Club discussed how the Life of Pi film held up to the book, both partly set in this city. Sarkar’s story about his eight-year association with Life of Pi, long before it appeared on the big screen, had its own set of mental images — of Yann Martel huddled over a seat at the Indian Coffee House in the city where he wrote the novel, legendary French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel balanced on a hood-less autorickshaw as they scouted the locale, or how the camera relentlessly tracked the many moods of the tiger that starred in “Gladiator” for the CGI-recreated beast in the Pi film.
It was around 2001 that Yann Martel lands in the city with an idea for a novel in mind. In between the bouts of writing, he would strike a friendship with one of his uncles Chimanbhai Patel, who ran a photo studio. “No coincidence that the protagonist is called Pi Patel,” Sarkar recalled.
Years later, M. Night Shyamalan and Alfonso Cuaron were among those would fancy a film adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel, but later abandon the project.
Meanwhile, Gil Netter (My Best Friend’s Wedding) picks up the rights of the book and knocks on the doors of studios until Elizabeth Gabler of Fox Studios takes up the challenge, provided they could assign the right director, said Sarkar.
“As the project journeyed on, Jean-Pierre sends me a script of his version of the film. His ambition was to shoot on the real sea, with a real tiger and a real boy. The project was shelved,” said Sarkar.
“Half the story about a boy and a tiger happens on the high seas,” said Sunayana, pointing to the unique challenge of adapting Pi, a survivor drama and coming-of-age allegory, to cinema. Four years later, the project is back, this time with Ang Lee at the helm and with his own screenwriter (David Magee). Ang Lee had a rather enhanced vision for a Life of Pi screenplay and his extensive research led to formulating a timeline for the screenplay (the story would be set in India during the Emergency) and offer a convincing reason to explain the family of the protagonist’ migration to Canada.
“Without that realism, the film would perhaps not be in the revered space that it now occupies in world cinema. In fact, Ang Lee’s vision for the film on a 3D-VFX slate was also beyond available technologies of the time,” he said.
The discussion also had invaluable tips for aspiring screenwriters – on how unlike in Shakespearean theatre tradition where the story arc falls into five acts, a story told in book or film form is usually divided into three acts — the beginning, middle and end — or the thumb rule that one page of a script with dialogue is roughly equivalent to one minute of screen time.
Life of Pi is no ordinary book. Such was the enormity of the creative, financial, technological and logistic challenges involved in its transition to a film that its phenomenal success story would come with a tragic tailpiece. Roughly around the time the 2013 Oscars were announced with Life of Pi bagging up a rich haul of awards, the VFX company involved in the project declared bankruptcy.
