From Text to Screen: Film Adaptation of An Enemy of the People

“Even though the medium of film was not what Ibsen was writing for” (Ronning 87),

“there has been a large number of films produced out of his text”(Ferguson 18).

According to Jan Erik Holst “Ibsen has been in the media focus for the last forty years”

(9). The opportunity film offers to a director is the use of space and time. Though the theatre also uses space and time, the director of a theatre is limited but a director of film due to technology can use both interior and exterior locations (space) in telling a story and creating that believability. The director is able to move one action from the past to the present easily and that believability can be sustained. Another advantage film has over theatre is the moving images which makes it more realistic than stage.

The produced television and film versions of Ibsen’s text, present the stories from different perspectives and in a different medium. Satyajit Ray’s film Ganashatru is – an India film adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. Before I go into the analysis of the film, I would like to state that I will base my argument on adaptation theories, looking at the changes made when the film was being transcreated into a Bengali context and establish that the localization of Ibsen’s text made the film more relevant to the people of Bengal. The concept of “transcreation” I will define as the adapting of a text to another culture, whiles maintaining its purpose, approach, and context. Ray contextualized Ibsen’s text to give it a “Bengal Spin” (Crossette 1989). So what negotiations and alterations did Ray make in order to contextualize and localize the play?

According to Hutcheon with O’Flynn – “Like Parodies, adaptations have an overt and defining relationship to prior texts usually revealing called “sources”, unlike parodies, however, adaptations usually openly announce their relationship”(2013: 3), with this analysis from Hutcheon with O’Flynn it can be established that there is a relationship between the adapted material and the prior text and this can be seen in Ray’s film Ganashatru. He does not move away from the literal subject matter in the source text, in the sense that the conflict of the polluted water still remains the central problem. In Ray’s film however, the polluted water becomes sacred Temple water; an important aspect of

religious life in India. Here Ray is using the adaptation to “engage in a larger social or cultural critique” (Hutcheon with O’Flynn 94). Here the larger social problem is the contaminated water which socially affects the lives of the people living within that community. The cultural critique that Ray is engaging in here can be said to be the religious life of the people of Bengal.

As Cooper reveals in his “introduction”; “In film after film, he investigates […] both in his own state of Bengal and in the larger Indian Nation” (2000: 2). Copper’s revelation shows that Ray as a film maker was concerned about the governance, religion and social problems of his people and through the medium of film tried to address it. He used the medium of film to criticize and question the institutions that governed the social and cultural background of his people which influenced his transcreation.

In Satyajit Ray – The Inner Eye, Ray comments on how the situation in Calcutta

influenced him to make the conflict of religion and science the subject matter of the film.

“Did you read the papers yesterday about contaminated water? It’s exactly the same situation. It’s happening in Calcutta. And about three weeks ago there was an item in a magazine here which said that the water at Tirupati, a very famous south Indian temple, is contaminated and that lots of pilgrims have fallen ill. So I was backed up by such information. This gives the film a more solid basis in truth”(Robinson 342).

The film then touches on a fundamental contradiction and conflict even between religion and science, between tradition and modernity. In the words of Cooper, “Doctors in India are often faced with the dilemma of being obedient to their scientific training or to the demands of their religion; Hinduism”(220). This could be seen in the dialogue that transpired between Dr. Gupta and his brother in the public meeting scene in Ganashatru (Act three).

Chairman: “Do you consider yourself a Hindu?”

Dr. Gupta: “Of course, I do but there are certain Hindu religious customs that I do not follow because of my scientific training. But I definitely call myself a Hindu.”

Chairman: “Do you go to the temple? Have you ever been to the temple?”

Dr. Gupta: “No, I haven’t. For the same reason – I do not feel the necessity to go there. But I am not saying that you should never drink holy water. You should wait until it is decontaminated.” (Ray: Ganashatru 1989)

Also in this scene, the use of language and costume reveal an aspect of the society and culture of the adapter which makes the interpretation meaningful. As Cooper writes,

“In Ray’s 1990s trilogy, the spoken word becomes the most prominent signifier of the social, political and cultural struggle […] in Ganashatru language becomes most critical in the scene showing the public debate between the two brothers, for it explicitly spell out his reliance on logic and reason, and Nisith’s manipulative rhetoric, fed and fueled as it is by calculated appeals to the fundamentalist forces supporting him”(219 - 220).

I will like to draw your attention to how they were costumed in this very scene.

What if, they were costumed as such to give us contrasting ideological perspectives? I say this because, costume enhances a character and it also tells you the cultural setting of the film or play and here Nisith who is politically against his brother’s decision of

publishing that the temple water which they use is contaminated; is represented wearing a suit and a tie, something which is western but Dr. Gupta is wearing a traditional cloth which depicts him as a true statesman who have the interest of the people at heart but Nisith on the other hand was living on borrowed culture and was interested in his political gains.

According to Hutcheon with O’Flynn “almost always, there is an accompanying shift in the political valence from the adapted text to the transculturated adaptation” (Hutcheon with O’Flynn, 145). I believe this political valence they speak of can be seen in the religious aspect of the film Ganashatru. It has been said that Ibsen’s main focus was on the issue of Institutional corruption but in the transcreated adaptation Ray’s focus was more on religion being used by Politicians for their own selfish gains. To quote Cooper to support this argument he stated “Ray’s humanism was endorsed […] he started off by questioning the powerful fundamental beliefs of Hinduism sanctioned by conniving

‘bhadralok’ bureaucrats and fanatical religious zealots in Ganashatru”(213). The use of Hinduism, a religion and ingrained part of India daily life is what becomes the political

conflict here. When you look at the above dialogue between Dr. Gupta and Nisith his brother on religion, you realize that Nisith being the chairman of the municipality- which can be said to be a political or a government position is using religion for his political gains. Ray’s transcreation here implies that religion is an important aspect of India people’s life. In Ibsen’s text, Dr. Stockmann has a long speech of criticism of the corruption and political ideologies of the institutions but this is completely removed from the film; perhaps Ray considered it – irrelevant to his audience at that time.

“An Adaptation like the work it adapts, is always framed in a context – a time and a place, a society and a culture; it does not exist in a vacuum” ( Hutcheon with O’Flynn, 142).

With this point I am trying to argue that, though Ray’s version of An Enemy of the People is a film targeted at an audience which exist within a particular society with its own cultural beliefs, the import of the message was achieved through the changes he did when he had to adapt it to his cultural setting. With this perspective as a background, one change that is quiet clear is the characterization of the actors.

According to Kamaluddin Nilu’s article on – An Enemy of the People - a narrative discourse on time and space, “regarding the characters, it should be noted that the Peter Stockmann character - Nisith, is Dr. Gupta’s younger brother. The reason is the role of seniority in Indian society, implying that it would be difficult for Dr. Gupta to oppose his brother if he had been elder to him”(2007), but Cooper seems to disagree with him, he writes “the biggest lapse of Ganashatru, it seems to me, emerges through Ray’s

characterization of his main dramatis personae; the idealist Dr. Gupta and his black- sheep conservative younger brother, Nisith, who is the ambitious chairman of the

Chandipur Municipality; what could have developed as an interesting clash of ideologies between them never materializes because Nisith is very poorly developed as a

character”(215). I tend to disagree with Cooper on this analysis because Nisith’s role and nature is quiet distinct from Dr. Gupta in the film, their set of ideologies can be seen in the kind of arguments they make and how each is portrayed. Cooper’s point is that Nisith is a one – dimensional character, too simple in his view.

Characterization I believe can be determined by what the person does in the film or play, what he says, and what other people say of him or her. As culture demands in an Indian setting, Ray makes a clear distinction of who the eldest is. Also the action of a character tells us more about himself and here Nisith is seen smoking; an action Nilu explains as disrespect in Indian Culture. He writes, “In the Indian sub – continent smoking in front of elders or socially superiors is considered as an act of disrespect and should thus not happen. […], this is clearly an expression of superiority in terms of power and a sign of disrespect” (2007).

But Cooper thinks otherwise, he believes Ray could have developed this character better.

To quote him, “All Nisith wants, we are told, is money and power, […] Instead of offering a critique, Ray offers a stereotype via Nisith’s fondness for flashy bureaucratic occidental attire and constant smoking of imported cigarillos”(215). Why I still disagree with Cooper is that Nisith’s fondness for flashy bureaucratic occidental attire and

constant smoking of imported cigarillos all contribute in enhancing of his character, here this choices create a difference between himself and his brother Gupta.

“Another important change, clearly motivated by communist dominance in West Bengal, is that the local newspaper is run by Marxists”(Nilu 2007). Here I will argue that this

was clearly depicted in the film, where Nisith the chairman of the municipal raised concerns about the left and right ideologies connected to how the newspaper office was being run. (Ray: Ganashatru 1989) I will like to point out here that “Ganashatru” was not the first attempt of Ray being political about issues affecting India. As Cooper points out “In shantranj – ke – khilari and Sadgati, the two films, […] of India history”(178).

Here according to Cooper, Ray’s main concern is how “power works in the oppressive society that was created by Hinduism […] , his political explorations center around the struggles between pre-dominant and minority cultures”(178).

In adaptation the “context of reception, however is just as important as the context of creation when it comes to adapting” (Hutcheon with O’Flynn 149), that is why in the ending of the film unlike the source text; Ray gives it an optimistic ending. Ray in an interview admits ‘my ending is quite unlike Ibsen’s. That famous line – “The most powerful man is the one who stands alone” – is not in. it is simply that I don’t feel it is appropriate. I have been rather more hopeful, or at least my ending admits hope”

(Malcolm 1989). I do agree with Ray on his alteration to the ending, because time and space affects the context of an adaptation. The time the play was written and the time Ray adapted it is totally different and thus affect the meaning of the adaptation looking at how it is received in a particular era and time.

Here Ray’s transcreation is done in a period where society no longer believed in idealism but liberalism. Society believed in change and new ideologies were springing up every now and then. Ibsen’s play was written in 1882 and Ray’s film was produced in 1989, which gives a difference of 107 years – in which a lot could change. Nilu in his writing believes the ending is very significant when transcreation is concern and I agree with him, to quote him “The major transcreation in the film is in the last scene. Recalling that

Miller in this scene shifted the focus from the individual to the collective and ending up in an optimistic way, Ray provides a definite happy ending. At the moment of deepest despair, Dr. Gupta’s situation suddenly changes when a series of positive occurrences reverses the previous setbacks”(Nilu 2007).