Hello Friends,
This blog is my response to the task assigned to us by our Prof. Dr. DilipSir on Midnight's Children: Film Adaptation. So read, understand and enjoy. Happy Learning!
Birth of a Nation, in the Words of Salman Rushdie
To do cinematic justice to Salman Rushdie’s novel “Midnight’s Children,” it would take a razzle-dazzle entertainer with Bollywood flair and a literary bent, someone equally at home with comedy and allegory, ghosts and little snot-nosed boys, Indian history and Indian myth.
In short, through some kind of hocus-pocus abracadabra (Mr. Rushdie is fond of pileups and lists without commas), a directorial equivalent of the author would need to be conjured. But there’s little magic and even less sense of the storyteller as magician in the modest, respectful adaptation directed by Deepa Mehta, a filmmaker whose socially engaged naturalism seems a mismatch with Mr. Rushdie’s gleeful too-muchness.
Still, Mr. Rushdie, who wrote the screenplay (and does the curiously flat voice-over), meets Ms. Mehta halfway. In wrestling his bursting-at-the-seams, sometimes wearying epic into movie-acceptable size, he has pared it of authorial quirks and compressed it, lopping off subplots and characters and flights of fancy.
What’s left is the core of the story told straight, from beginning to end, with none of the novel’s compulsive prognosticating and backward glancing. That may suit the straightforward style of Ms. Mehta (“Fire,” “Earth,” “Water”) but it makes for a movie that, if never exactly dull, feels drained of the mythic juice that powers the book, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.
Their more compelling grotesqueries shorn or diminished, the characters march in a now-this, now-that way through history, from the early part of the 20th century to independence to the days after Indira Gandhi’s state of emergency in the ’70s, and dart around the subcontinent, from Kashmir to Agra to Bombay to West Pakistan to East Pakistan (soon to be Bangladesh).
The bigger story, about India, is told through a smaller one, about a family, and especially one boy: Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of the midnight hour on Aug. 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s birth as a free country. There are 1,001 children born at that hour, all with special powers, but many have died by the time Saleem (Darsheel Safary as a boy; Satya Bhabha as an adult) discovers that he can hear the other children’s voices in his head as if he were some kind of all-India radio. (That’s his power, one of the best.)
When the midnight’s children join Saleem for chatty, contentious meetings, the camera’s focus goes soft, which seems fitting, as the children are mostly indistinct here, practically an afterthought, and without much metaphorical power. When “the Widow” — Mrs. Gandhi (Sarita Choudhury) — persecutes them during her Emergency, you wonder why she bothers.
In any case, they take a back seat to Saleem and his family’s story. There are infants switched at birth — one rich, one poor — revelations about parenthood, amnesia, war, riots, sudden shifts in fortune and, most satisfyingly, a kind of mother-son reunion between Saleem and his ayah that would do a Bombay talkie proud.
Ms. Mehta seems most at home detailing the family life of the young Saleem in Bombay. The two women who rule that universe, his mother (Shahana Goswami) and the ayah (Seema Biswas) — the perpetrator of that baby switching — give the film emotional ballast that’s lost when Saleem leaves for Pakistan.
Despite the Hindi-movie outlines of the plot, even more evident in its stripped-bare state, Mr. Rushdie and Ms. Mehta have avoided the temptation of turning “Midnight’s Children” into an ersatz Bollywood production. That’s probably wise. But the film needs an injection of Bollywood’s unembarrassed, anything-goes, bigger-than-life spirit, which embraces willy-nilly — as does Mr. Rushdie’s novel — the vulgar, the fanciful and the frankly unbelievable.
Directed by Deepa Mehta; written by Salman Rushdie, based on his novel;
director of photography, Giles Nuttgens;
edited by Colin Monie; music by Nitin Sawhney; production design by Dilip Mehta;
costumes by Dolly Ahluwalia;
produced by David Hamilton;
released by Paladin and 108 Media.
In English and Hindi, with English subtitles.
Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
With Characters
Satya Bhabha (Saleem Sinai),
Darsheel Safary (Saleem Sinai as a boy),
Shahana Goswami (Mumtaz/Amina),
Rajat Kapoor (Aadam Aziz),
Seema Biswas (Mary Pereira),
Shriya Saran (Parvati),
Siddharth (Shiva),
Ronit Roy (Ahmed Sinai),
Rahul Bose (General Zulfikar),
Charles Dance (William Methwold),
Sarita Choudhury (Indira Gandhi)
and Kulbushan Kharbanda (Picture Singh).
(The New York Times https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/movies/midnights-children-adaptation-of-salman-rushdies-novel.amp.html?espv=1)
Midnight's Children is a 2012 film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel of the same name. With a screenplay by Rushdie and directed by Deepa Mehta, the film began principal photography in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in February 2011 and wrapped in May 2011. Shooting was kept a secret as Mehta feared protests by Islamic fundamentalist groups.
The film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. The film was also a nominee for Best Picture and seven other categories at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards, winning two awards.
★PLOT★
The film begins with the narrator .i.e. Saleem Sinai describing his much anticipated birth at the moment of Indian independence. The narrative jumps back to 1917 Kashmir. Saleem's grandfather, Dr. Aadam Aziz went to the Ghani mansion to have a look at the landlord's sick daughter, Nasim, without realising that she was going to his future wife. The narrative jumps to Agra of 1942. Saleem tells his grandfather had contracted an optimism disease of those times and had become an ardent supporter of Mian Abdullah. But Abdullah while returning from a party with his secretary Nadir, gets assassinated by a group of his opposers. Nadir flees away to Dr. Aziz's house where Aadam shelters him in his cellar despite opposition from his wife Nasim. Saleem introduces Aadam's 3 daughters, Alia, Mumtaz and Emerald. During Nadir's stay, Mumtaz developed a bond with him which resulted in a marriage. Soon the marriage was broken when general Zulfikar and his team got to know about his presence in the cellar. Devastated by the unexpected divorce Mumtaz finds solace in the arms of the wealthy entrepreneur Ahmed Sinai.
The two married and move from Calcutta to Bombay, where they bought a villa from a wealthy Englishman Methwold. Mumtaz takes up a new name, Amina Sinai. In the villa an accordionist, Wee Willie Winkie and his wife, used to come to sing and entertain and a matter of the fact was this that the wife was carrying Methwold's child with her. Amina too was carrying a child then. Both went into labour on 14th Aug, and gave birth at the moment India got independence. However a nurse, Mary, driven by love for her revolutionary partner, decided to swap the name tags of the rich and the poor kid thus, altering their fates. Mary realised the extent of her mistake and requests to make amends by deciding to become Saleem's ayah. One meant for poverty, led a life of privilege, and Shiva, the one destined for fortune led an unfornate, impoverished life on the streets. For Saleem, things worsen, as his family pressurises him to be different and special, while his father becomes became an alcoholic. He soon started hearing voices which he realised could be controlled by him, soon realising that these were the voices of the other midnight's children born in the initial hours of the independence all of whom had special powers. The most prominent of them however were, Shiva the warlord and Parvati the witch, who was his only blind supporter, and Saleem himself with telepathetic capabalities.
Wanting to make good use of his power, he formed the midnight's Children's conference destined to serve the nation. But things go against him as an accident reveals that Saleem's blood group doesn't match with his parents revealing that he's not his parents' true child. In shock his parents send him away to his aunt Emerald who lived in Pakistan, now the wife of Major Zulfikar. In his exile Saleem learns about Power, Politics and struggle. Saleem grows much distraught by the division caused in the MCC, due to the loss of innocence and the seeping of language and class differences amongst the members, he disbands the conference. Saleem finally is recalled back to his family which had now moved to Karachi. He returns only to find that his father had still not accepted him. Mary realised that the only way to make amends was by disclosing the events of that night, which led to the revelation.
The war of '65 starts in which owing to bombings Saleem loses his family. Having been present at the time of the accident, he suffers a memory loss and wakes up in '71. He is enrolled in the army for his sniffing skills and becomes part of crew which went to fight in the East Pakistan which with the help of India became Bangladesh. Still in his amnesia, he joins a large celebrating crowd including the victorious Indian soldiers, Whose head was Shiva, now a war-hero owing to his powers, and also a few magicians from India, which included Parvati the witch. Having identified Saleem she calls him, thus breaking his spell of amnesia. Having heard his tough journey, she takes him back to India in Delhi to her ghetto of magicians. They fall in love but, Saleem ambitious to do something big leaves Parvati giving her the excuse that he couldn't marry her because he was impotent. Realising the futility of his ambitions he returns to find carrying the child of Shiva. Aadam, one of the many other illicit children, a result of Shiva's numerous liaisons, formed the next generation of magical children, was born at the moment of the declaration of emergency by the PM Indira Gandhi.
The PM, an ardent believer of horoscopes, started to see Midnight's children as a threat to her supremacy, so in the name of a sterilization programme she started to incarcerate midnight's children and drain their powers. Shiva leading the project, in search of Saleem reached the slum and got hold of Saleem. In captivity he gave the information of the other children, who were incarcerated too. The sterilization programme started through which powers of the children were drained. The children, drained of their powers forcefully were let out, while Shiva died in an accident. The emergency was suspended simultaneously. He finds his son. Joyed by the event Saleem has lunch at a restaurant only to realise a similarity between the chutney he ate and the one he used to have during his childhood which his loving ayah used to prepare for him. He gets the address of the chutney company which was in Bombay and sets out to find it. He finds that he was right at last. Mary and Saleem were over joyed to see each other. The film concludes as Saleem's son, Aadam, utters his first ever word.
Saleem is wanting to go to Places to make his country have joy. He first goes to London. He see the buildings. In London, he meets with British people and discuses about his country. He got some ideas.He also goes to Cambridge, Liverpool, and Manchester The he goes to American (Chicago, Portland, and Houston), then Canada (Toronto, Vancouver, Saint John. He also travels in other cities in USA, England, and Canada.
☆ Critical Reception ☆
The website's critical consensus states that "Though Midnight's Children is beautiful to look at and poignant in spots, its script is too indulgent and Deepa Mehta's direction, though ambitious, fails to bring the story together cohesively." Reviews include: "There are some beautiful moments and some decent performances, but it's also something of a slog and ultimately fails to engage on an emotional level", "There's humour and heart here, but it's an overlong tale as meandering as the Ganges." and "Watchable without ever feeling essential."
Midnight’s Children – review
You wait a year for a film version of a Booker prize-winning magical realist novel largely concerned with people from the Indian subcontinent and widely considered to be unfilmable. Then suddenly two come along: Life of Pi and Midnight's Children. The lesser of the two, though a movie of ambition and distinction, Midnight's Children was published in 1981 and is adapted for the screen by its author Salman Rushdie, who also delivers the eloquent narration, a reworking of the book's framing device.
As a film and novel, Midnight's Children is a great baggy work covering over 60 years in the turbulent history of India and Pakistan from the end of the second world war up to Indira Gandhi's repressive "Emergency" of the late 1970s, as they affect five generations of a well-off Muslim clan and their associates in Kashmir, Agra, Mumbai, Karachi. It brings together Dickens, Kipling and Shakespeare, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, comedy, tragedy and farce, and has as its moral and dramatic fulcrum the year 1947 when the misjudged partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan was insisted upon by the Muslims and acquiesced in by the departing British.
Rushdie's brilliant insight was to bring together the private and public lives of those involved by inventing a mystical bond between the children born around the midnight hour of 17 August 1947. The narrator and central character famously remarks: "I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country." He and his peers are given special powers (prophecy, magic, metamorphosis) in exchange for terrible responsibilities, and they become the embodiment of the best hope of the two nations during a period of bad faith, violence and the betrayal of democracy. At the centre is a variation of Mark Twain's tale The Prince and the Pauper: a rich boy and the son of a street musician are swapped at birth in the early seconds of 18 August by a misguided midwife, who (following the political dictates of her communist lover) believes she is exercising benign social engineering. So the central characters have divided identities, a situation made even more complex by the concealed paternity (from a European source) of one of them. The lesser of these charismatic children suffers most through the dropping of sub-plots and the trimming of character and loss of nuance demanded by reducing the film to some 150 minutes.
In the first post-Partition episode of Midnight's Children, we're briefly shown a poster of the 1957 film Mother India, the most popular and revered of all Bollywood movies. It features the monstre sacré, Nargis, the country's biggest postwar star, as a suffering peasant mother, a symbolic Mother Courage figure of independent India. This is a clear hint that the makers consider Midnight's Children a sophisticated urban riposte to Mother India's sentimental rural story. Deepa Mehta, born and educated in India, is an established film-maker living in Canada. Salman Rushdie, born in Mumbai and educated in Britain, is the subcontinent's most visible cosmopolitan exile. They are united by this film in both sorrow and anger for what their homeland is, and drawn together in hopeful anticipation of what it still might be.