Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary falls on May 9
Tagore tales on talkies
The works of Rabindranath Tagore have always fascinated filmmakers, as these are universal — in time, space, emotions and human relationships, writes Shoma A. Chatterji

Credit for the most brilliant cinematic, hard-hitting and metaphorical use of Tagore’s songs goes to Ritwik Ghatak in Meghe Dhaka Tara

Rabindranath Tagore’s writings bring up images of lyricism and romance. Many filmmakers feel that the horizon of a Tagore creation — be it poetry, fiction, essay or drama — is too large, all-encompassing, complex and alien to Indian masses, conditioned to ‘popular’ literary figures like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Their creations, it is felt, are more cinema-friendly. The 14 remakes of Devdas in different Indian languages is an example.

The homespun philosophy of Sarat Chandra and the romantic spirit of Bankim Chandra had more appeal than the non-conformist and feminist themes, which Tagore dealt with. Yet, Tagore has been recognised as a rich literary source for very good cinema. Satyajit Ray’s films based on Tagore’s works offer the best example. In 1961, Ray made Teen Kanya (Three Daughters), on three Tagore short stories — Postmaster, Monihara and Samapti. The other Tagore works he filmed are Charulata and Ghare Baire.

Tagore’s works are universal — in time, space, emotions and human relationships. They offer filmmakers a challenge to make the film as powerful, credible and appealing on celluloid as it is in print. A film based on, adapted from, interpreted from Tagore’s oeuvre offers scope for argument, discussion, analysis, debate and questions among the audience, critics and scholars. A massive volume of scholarly treatises came out after Satyajit Ray’s Charulata, leading to a new genre — writing on films based on Tagore’s works.

Charulata (1964) is based on Nastaneer (The Broken Nest, 1901). Charulata, the film, and Nastaneer, the story, is set in 1879, when the renaissance in Bengal was at its peak. Western thoughts of freedom and individuality were about to ruffle the calm feathers of a feudal society. Women’s liberation was being talked about, but not beyond few cases of widow-remarriage and some education. Intelligent, sensitive, graceful and serene, Charu was a traditional woman, whose mindset slowly and steadily absorbed waves from the world beyond.

Charulata is the most critically discussed among Tagore’s works adapted by Satyajit Ray

Charulata is the most hotly debated, variedly interpreted, widely discussed and critically questioned among Satyajit Ray’s films. Most of these debates are around Ray’s fidelity to the Tagore original. Tagore and his works are too sacrosanct for a filmmaker to interpret otherwise was the general feeling. Ray responded to attacks on his alleged distortion of the original through his article Charulata Prasange in the collection of articles, (Bengali) Bishay Chalachitra.

In Chokher Bali, Rituparno Ghosh adapts the many worlds of Tagore so that it reflects our past filtered into our present. Ghosh concentrated on sound design to bring about the message of the political uprising in Bengal, happening at the same time, as the disruption of Mahendra’s marriage inside the home.

The rising crescendo of "Vande Mataram" filtering into the home, the sound of the horse carriage moving away to suggest Mahendra taking Binodini to the doctor, a thumri floating across the River Ganga in Benaras, the chanting of holy Sanskrit mantras to ease the death of an old widow on the banks, offer a fourth dimension to the narrative and cinematographic space at the same time. These worlds play around with intertextuality, elements of the post-modern in cinema. Yet, they do not take away from Ghosh, the originality and the uniqueness of his individual style.

Another filmmaker Tapan Sinha remained fiercely loyal in his rendering of Tagore’s works into cinema. Yet, he did introduce his directorial signature in these films. In Kabuliwalla, he introduced an imaginative, pre-titles prologue. For around 10 minutes, a panoramic view of the arid, rough, hilly terrain of the Afghanistan landscape comes up, with a slowly moving line of camels in silhouette — the only sign of life. The soundtrack is alive with the earthy music of Afghanistan.

This establishes the time-place-culture setting of Rahmat, the Kabuliwalla, throwing up subtle and strong images of his relationship with his daughter, Rabeya. As the camera shifts from the dry terrain and the camels in silhouette to the railway tracks, suggesting Rahmat’s journey to Calcutta, the titles begin to come up.

Tapan Sinha made four films based on Tagore’s works. These are Kabuliwalla, Khsudita Pashan, Atithi and Kadambini. In Khsudita Pashan, he used dreams and fantasy to heighten the intrigue of the romance not there in Tagore’s story. In other films, he used Tagore’s songs generously and to good effect. In Daughters of the Century, Sinha chose Tagore’s Living or Dead (1904).

Kadambini, a young widow, is taken to be dead. Before she is cremated, a storm stops the rituals and people run away leaving the ‘corpse’. When she comes home, the family disowns her, taking her to be her own ghost. Unable to make them believe that she is alive, she drowns herself in the family pond, creating one of the best last lines of Bengali literature — "Kadambini died to prove she did not die."

In Chaturanga (2008), Suman Mukhopadhyay remains loyal to the original story. The cinematic innovations are dictated by change in the medium from word to celluloid, enriching, rather than distorting the film as it moves from one philosophical idea to the next, expressed through the wild wanderings of Sachish, the eternal questioner, who finds no truth in the greys that lie between the black and the white of life. The novel is divided into four chapters named after the four main characters — Jathamoshai, Sachish, Damini and Sribilash.

Tagore’s novel is a first person, point-of-view narration of Sribilash, who is more an observer and a commentator than a character. Mukhopadhyay cut out the voice-over to convert Sribilash into a major character. The opening frame shows Sachish sitting on a beach, his back to the camera, while a group of white-robed Sufi singers wander across the landscape.

The closing frame shows a confused Sachish, watching the Sufi singers perform their devotional song, the burnt embers of the fire they had made lying on one side of the beach. The narrative returns to the beach again and again, like a metaphor on the continuity of life — and death.

Filmmakers have generously drawn upon Tagore’s music, songs, poetry in Bengal. Hindi cinema has had few interpretations and cinematic adaptations of Tagore. Examples are Kabuliwalla produced by Bimal Roy and Char Adhyay by Kumar Shahani.

Bimal Roy’s Sujata used scene from Tagore’s dance-drama based on a legendary Buddhist tale Chandalika to draw parallels with the story of an untouchable girl. Sujata used the original tune of a Tagore song for another song, picturised on Sunil Dutt. Musical adaptations from Tagore were prolific in the 1950s and 1960s in Hindi films. Composers like S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman and Hemanta Mukhopadhyay were strongly inspired by Tagore’s songs and often used his original music in their compositions.

In Bicharak, based on a Tarasankar Bandopadhyay novel, Tapan Sinha used a Tagore song as a leitmotif to express the feelings of guilt that keep haunting the hero, a judge, since the death of his wife in a fire. Credit for the most brilliant cinematic, hard-hitting and metaphorical use of Tagore’s songs goes to Ritwik Ghatak in Meghe Dhaka Tara and Komal Gandhar. He turned the romance and lyricism, linked to Tagore’s musical compositions, on its head and changed it to fit into the dark, exploitative and oppressive ambience of Nita’s life — and death — in Meghe Dhaka Tara, complementing the songs with powerful visual frames and a brilliant sound design.

Lines from a Tagore poem inspired Rituparno Ghosh’s Asookh. Ghosh also used Tagore’s songs and poetry in Utsab. He inserted a dramatised scene from Chokher Bali, the novel, into the screenplay of Bariwalli.

Tarun Majumdar’s fine sensibilities come across through Tagore’s songs in his films. In Nimantran, Majumdar used Tagore’s poem, "Nirjharer Swapno Bhango", recited without vocal inflections by the hero. In Balika Bodhu, the resident tutor, an old man, keeps to himself and plays a patriotic Tagore song on his violin. Later, when the police comes to arrest him, we discover that he was a terrorist. The significance of the song then comes across.

Some of the films made on Tagore’s works are — Naukadubi, Shubha O Debotar Grash, Steer Patra, Chhuti, Malancha, Malyadaaan, Jogajog, Chirokumar Sabha, Chhelebela, Bouthakuranir Haat, and Nishithe. Purnendu Patrea’s Streer Patra played around with animation in the graphic titles, still photographs in the closing shots. But he stuck to the original story. The result was confusing. Chhuti defined a moving, subtle treatment of a tragic love story directed by Arundhati Devi.

Functioning in an ambience of illiteracy and a diversity of languages, Indian cinema has evolved into a major medium of communication to bring Tagore to the masses. The process works backwards where sub-titled films adapted from a Tagore original could inspire viewers to read the literary original after having watched the film. When an Indian publishing house brought out an English translation of Chokher Bali almost simultaneously with the release of the film, the book was a sell-out. Though the film failed to repeat the magic.

Tagore’s films as a genre effectively blend words with visuals yet sustain the independence of the original literary work, as well as the independence of the film that has an identity of its own. When a director chooses Tagore, he offers an alternative world-view that is his interpretation of a Tagore creation. In Nastaneer, in the original story, Bhupati departs in the end, leaving Charu to her grief and bewilderment. Ray brings them together in Charulata to live forever in a state of suspended animation. Ray’s story is as daring today as Tagore’s was when it was first written. Yet, there is no element of shock, for the process of life comes out silently.