From Text to Film: Analyzing Filmic Representation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

Authors

  • Saurav Shandil Research Scholar, Department of English, Central University of Himachal Pradesh

Keywords:

Politics, Transmutation, Screenplay, Postmodern, Postcolonial, Magical Realism

Abstract

This paper proposes to delve deeper into the politics of adaptation and transmutation of the Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie into a movie titled Midnight’s Children released on 09 September 2012. Both the novel and the movie mirror each other in many aspects but to bring the five hundred pages long novel into a feature film the length of the book was reduced to almost one hundred and sixty pages. The shooting of the film was done in Colombo as the director Deepa Mehta was afraid that it would be an onerous task for them to complete the shoot of the movie in Pakistan or India. Rushdie took almost a year to bring the book down to the length of the screenplay. Midnight’s Children portrays post-independence India. Similarly, the movie tries to retain the elements of the novel in the form of a screenplay. The novel as well as the movie is based on postmodern, postcolonial themes and magical realism. The movie also has tried to capture most of the aspects as they were in the novel but it is also beyond doubt that the screenplay differs from the book.

Author Biography

Saurav Shandil, Research Scholar, Department of English, Central University of Himachal Pradesh

Saurav Shandil is a Doctoral Research Scholar in the Department of English, Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala. He is working on Salman Rushdie's fiction for his doctoral research project. He has presented papers at International as well as National conferences and has attended several National and International conferences/seminars. He has to his credit a Best Paper Award, received at ELT@I's 2022 International Conference held in Jaipur. He has published a research paper titled “Identity Crisis, Depression Death and Political Allegory in Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House” in MEJO, an annual peer-reviewed journal.

References

“Critics' verdict: Mehta's Midnight's Children not half as good as Rushdie's book.” Firstpost, www.firstpost.com/entertainment/critics-verdict-mehtas-midnights-children-not-half-as-good-as-rushdies-book-609278.html.

“Salaman Rushdie Gave Midnight’s Children rights to Deepa Mehta.” NDTV Movies, www.ndtv.com/entertainment/salman-rushdie-gave-midnights-children-rights-to-deepa-mehta-for-a-dollar-611699.

“Was Nervous about Narrating Midnight’s Children: Salman Rushdie.” NDTV Movies, www.ndtv.com/entertainment/was-nervous-about-narrating-midnights-children-salman-rushdie-631414.

Durix, Jean-Pierre. “Salman Rushdie.” Conversations with Salman Rushdie edited by Michael R. Reder, University of Mississippi, 2000.

Gurnah, Abdulrazak. “Themes and Structures in Midnight’s Children.” Cambridge Companion to Salman Rushdie edited by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Cambridge UP, 2007.

Midnight’s Children. Directed by Deepa Mehta, Mongrel Media, 26 Oct. 2012. Hotstar, www.hostar.com/in/movies/midnightschildren/1000216428/watch?utm_source=gwa.

Reder, Michael R. “Introduction.” Conversations with Salman Rushdie edited by Michael R. Reder, University of Mississippi, 2000.

Ross, Jean W. “Contemporary Authors Interview: Salman Rushdie.” Conversations with Salman Rushdie edited by Michael R. Reder, University of Mississippi, 2000.

Rushdie, Salaman. Midnight’s Children. Vintage, 2013.

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Published

01.10.2022

How to Cite

Saurav Shandil. (2022). From Text to Film: Analyzing Filmic Representation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature, 13(4), 23–27. Retrieved from https://journals.eltai.in/index.php/jtrel/article/view/JTREL130405

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 4 (2022): October

Section

Research Articles

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