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Soumya Kashyap

Roll Number: 106

Dr. Rittvika Singh

Literature and Cinema

16th April, 2020

Adaptation Cinema

Film adaptation is the conversion of a novel or story to a feature film, in whole or in part.

It is sometimes regarded as part of a derivative function. According to Robert Stam, film

adaptation is a dialogic process. A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the

basis of a feature film. Non-fiction works, autobiographies, comic books, scripture plays,

historical sources, etc are common works adapted into films. Adaptation from such diverse

sources is a widely used practice of film making. It is a creative and interpretive transposition of

a recognizable work or works, transcoding into a different set of conventions in which a change

of medium is not insisted. In order to retell the story, the director has to bank up on his own skills

as there are no directions in a text about how the work has to be adapted. In a film, the director

has to assimilate all the elements like, the visuals of painting and photography, movements of

dance and theater, the decor of architecture, etc into a single medium. The text he adapts will be

silent on all these aspects, and so it falls on the shoulders of the filmmaker to find harmony by

filling details into all these departments, without disturbing the narrative. The film-maker can

pick and choose what he or she wants to include in his or her adaptation. According to Stam, the
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shift from a single track, uniquely verbal medium, a novel which only has words to a multi-track

medium such as film, which can also play with theatrical performance, music, sound effects and

moving photographic images explains the unlikelihood of literal fidelity. According to him,

literary text is open structured, its interpretation depends on the individual’s interpretation of the

text. The adaptation is the film-maker’s interpretation of the text. It also becomes difficult for the

audience to accept the actors portraying their favourite characters on screen because every

individual has imagined that character differently. It becomes a very tedious task for a film-

maker to adapt a novel because he or she has to take care of the minutest of details that are not

even mentioned in the novel, therefore, an adaptation can never be true to its source.

For the assignment, I have opted for the novel Pride and Prejudice and side by side will

compare it to its movie adaptation, Bride and Prejudice, directed by Gurinder Chada and the film

was released in the year 2004.

Pride and Prejudice is the most famous novel and is written by Jane Austen. It was

published in the year 1813. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet

who is the protagonist of the novel. It is a romantic novel set in the Regency Era of England. It is

a love story of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. The novel begins with both the

protagonists’ dislike towards each other because of their own prejudices but eventually, they

both fall in love. Mrs Bennet has five daughters and is eager to get them married to men who

could provide for them. Eventually, she does end up getting her three daughters married.

The movie, Bride and Prejudice is based on the plot of Jane Austen’s novel with a twist.

The movie is directed by Gurinder Chadha who is widely known for her film, Bend it like

Beckham. She is an English film director of Indian origin who mainly talks about cultural
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differences through her films. All her films deal with the problem of racism and prejudice. She,

through her films, tries to make people get to know other cultures. She uses her work to question

assumptions about race and gender from inside and outside.

Through her film, Bride and Prejudice, she wanted to bridge the gap and make

Bollywood accessible to the Western audience; she did so by embracing her own diverse culture.

She decided to blend the famous British novel, Pride and Prejudice with the film making style of

Bollywood. This was her dream project; she wanted to celebrate Bollywood. The film is largely

faithful to its source material except for a few changes made by the director. Stam, in his article

also talks about the various types of intertextualities. Bride and Prejudice belongs to the

categories of Hypertextuality and Architextuality. Hypertextualirty, because all film adaptations

are hypertextual as they are similar to their source materials, are a bit modified and

Architextuality because the film’s title is a little different from its source. According to Gurinder

Chadha, her film is a ‘British Musical’. According to Laura Carrol, the post modernism version

of Austen’s work can be quite effective in capturing the spirit of the novel. Through her film, she

highlights the American imperialism and the way the west looks at India and what people regard

as backward and progressive. The film presents a comic treatment of socially constructed ideals

of class by implying certain conventions of Bollywood films to achieve a contemporary social

critique not very different from Austen.

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Bride and Prejudice is the Indian style adaptation. This Bollywood style movie shows the

ease with which Austen’s novel can be translated into a different culture. The tagline of the film

sets up a love story between people belonging to different cultures. The tagline establishes the

film as the site of contact between two conflicting cultures as well as two disparate film

industries and conceptions of media. The movie is for multinational audience, Bollywood as well

as for Hollywood. Chadha provides each viewer with something he or she is familiar with and

something that is not. The movie also integrates Austen’s comedy of manners. According to

Leitch, direct contact from writer to reader-a given in most literary reception studies is

complicated, first by the creation of a screenplay and then by the production of that screenplay

by the actors, thereby imposing two layers of adaptation between the viewer and the original.

This is definitely true of Bride and Prejudice.

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Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is based in the Regency Era in England, whereas,

Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice is moved to a more contemporary setting, travelling

through India, London and the United States. The horse carriages are replaced by cars and taxis,
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letters are replaced by emails on computers and telephones. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, one of the

most famous actresses of Bollywood was roped in to play the lead role of Lalita Bakshi (Indian

Elizabeth) in the film and Martin Henderson as William Darcy. In the movie, the Bennets are

replaced with the Bakshis and have four daughter, Jaya Bakshi (Jane Bennet), Lalita Bakshi,

Maya Bakshi (Mary Bennet) and Lakhi Bakshi (Lydia Bennet). The character of Mr Bakshi is

played by Anupam Kher and Mrs Bakshi is played by Nadira Babbar. The role of Mr Bingley,

Ms Bingley and William Collins is played by Naveen Andrews as Balraj, Indira Verma as Kiran,

and Nitin Ganatra as Mr Kohli, respectively. The role of George Wickham is played by Daniele

Gillies as Jhonny Wickham. The film has to cut short certain characters and events as it would be

impossible for the director to remain completely faithful to the novel and maintain the fidelity.

The film-maker can omit events or characters or add them according to his wish. He cannot stay

true to the source because of the restriction of the time. Mostly, the audiences who have already

read the source material are often disappointed after watching its adaptation. They find

adaptations to be unfaithful to the novel. But, according to Stam, an adaptation is automatically

different and original due to the change of the medium. Some critics believe that a film

adaptation acts as a critique of the novel; the film-maker can even improve the story of the novel

by adding what he feels can make it better. Her movie Bride and Prejudice is a hybrid which

lays before us the problem of adapting a film in a different culture.

The film opens up with Lalita working in the fields with her father, which is very

different from the opening scene of the novel. The novel opens up with Mrs Bennet informing

Mr Bnnet about the Bingleys who have shifted to Netherfield Park. From the very first scene, we

can see the difference between the two different eras. In the movie, Lalita is shown to be

working which means that she can provide for herself. We get to see the modern Indian woman,
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who is strong and independent. Both the film and the novel, question women’s position in the

family and society as well as, deconstructs the performance of feminity required to achieve and

maintain that position. On the other hand, we see Balraj along with Kiran and Darcy getting off

the plane. Immediately, we can foreshadow the cultural conflict. The race and class based

conflicts in the film, complicate the subtle well entrenched class distinctions in the novel. The

lavish balls have been replaced with Indian weddings which provide an opportunity to dress up

which continues the tradition of a man asking a woman to dance. Linda Hutcheon explains that

every adaptation, particularly when looked at as a process of creation, is separate from the source

text and other adaptations, and cannot be judged against prior works. Darcy and Lalita meet each

other for the first time in the wedding function where Lalita immediately forms a negative

opinion about him who finds Indians beneath him as he refused to dance with Lalita because he

was uncomfortable in the Indian dress that he was wearing. This scene highlights the difference

in the cultures as he is ignorant about the Indian culture. The film heavily blends comedy with

song and dance. Social dance encounters in Bollywood stand in for more overt expressions of

sexuality, dance in Bride and Prejudice convey the sexual tensions between the characters and

the community. This first dance in the movie is a call and response ritual performed during pre

wedding ritual celebration. Lalita and Will Darcy are thrown together in this rite of dance which,

like the ballroom dance of the nineteenth century, underlines the ritualistic essence of courtship.

The song's back-and-forth dialogue often resembles Elizabeth and Darcy's back-and-forth

conversation in Austen's novel as they move through a country-dance. After the wedding song in

the film, another song appears

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where Chandra, Lalita and their friend who is going to get married start dancing on the streets

and the entire town celebrates the “sacred union” of the two people and the hetero-sexual

courtship. The eunuchs too join in the celebration, simultaneously destabilizing the celebration

through their presence and their song suggests the male-female union that offers an alteration to

the hetero-sexual marriage- the existence of both sexes in one body. The comic, along with song

and dance, uses a conventional court site to mock the patriarchal marriage to create wider social

satire. In the film, Darcy’s comment on the style of dance suggests a lack of knowledge about the

social rituals. The comment was more out of nervousness than malice which also describes his

character. Darcy, in the movie is an hotelier who wants to purchase a hotel in India to expand his

chain of hotels. The characters in the movie are shown to be using computers and laptops for

writing emails and surfing websites. Darcy is shown to be writing an email to his sister on his

laptop whereas, in the book, Darcy is shown to be writing a letter to his sister. Mrs Bakshi too is

shown to be making a profile of her daughters on one of the matrimonial websites, a modern way
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of looking for partners for marriage. Lalita, Jaya and Lakhi too are shown constantly checking

their emails. Lalita meets Wickham in Goa where Balraj asks Jaya to accompany him so that

they can spend more time together. Lalita too accompanies them and there, she comes across

Wickham. In the novel, they both meet in Meryton. The story told by Wickham of his tragedy to

Lalita in the movie is different and more contemporary than the story Wickham tells Elizabeth in

the novel. In both, the film and the novel, Lalita develops a hate for Darcy. After they return

from Goa, Mr. Kohli comes to visit them who is looking for a traditional and simple Indian wife

for himself. He has been paralleled with Mr Collins in the film and is portrayed as an American

emigrant. He represents the Indians who go to different parts of the world to earn money.

Throughout the film, he praises the Americans and the American imperialism like Mr. Collins

praises Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the novel. After this incident, the most comedic song of the

movie begins in which all the Bakshi sisters take part, the song depicts the life of an imported

bride. The challenge to conventional gender norms and the transformation of Mr. Collins, the

bumbling country parson, into Mr. Kohli, the Americanized emigrant, shows how the film

challenges Indian identity in the middle-class life in India as well as in the sense of Western

imperialism. In the film, Maya Bakshi, just like Mary Bennet loves to display her talent. She is

characterized by her accomplishments which are majorly technical prowess rather than artistic.

Her cobra dance, one of the most comedic scenes of the movie, shows the film-maker

incorporate Austen’s comedy into Bollywood form. She adapts the traditional ‘mujra’ to convey

the satirical perspective on accomplishments. Lalita, in the film plays guitar while Elizabeth in

the novel plays the piano. In the scenes depicting Darcy and Lalita’s courtship in Los Angeles,

they sing a duet which gets supplemented by a gospel choir singing and swaying and soon

everyone on the beach joins the singing. Chadha identifies this as the epitome of Bollywoodizing
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of LA that occurs throughout the film’s American scenes. Punning on the original title of

Austen's novel, Paul Mayeda Burges explains, "While the novel is all about class distinctions,

this [casting Darcy and Elizabeth as American and Indian] will allow us to really look at

America and India and the kind of first cultural impressions we make of each other". The film

implies the cultural difference between the foremost source of social tension in Lalita and

Darcy’s relationship whereas, in the novel, class difference was the major tension. The

confrontation between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine de Bourgh happens late in the novel. In the

film, Chada replaces Lady Catherine with Mrs. Catherine Darcy, Will Darcy’s mother. Catherine

Darcy’s attitude parallels with the attitude of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the novel. She

dislikes Lalita because of the cultural and the class difference between them. Both the mothers in

the film attempt to arrange their children’s marriage. Mrs. Darcy wants Will to get married to

Anne, daughter of a rich businessman. She tries to set her son up in the presence of Lalita. The

transformation of Darcy and Elizabeth’s nineteenth century courtship into contemporary cross-

cultural relationship also alters the power dynamics. In the novel, Mrs. Bennet wanted Elizabeth

to marry Mr. Collins due to the economic threat that their family had to face. In the film, Lalita

did not have to think about all this before rejecting Mr. Kohli as there are no such economic

issues faced by the family. She is shown to work and is able to take care of her family and Darcy

too, is not in a powerful position from where he can rescue Lalita. In the novel, Lydia is shown

to run away with Wickham and they both get married. They are rescued by Mr. Darcy alone. In

the film, Darcy and Lalita together search for Lakhi and rescue her. Darcy and Wickham indulge

in a fight which takes place in a theatre during a Bollywood film festival and mirrors the on

screen fight, the film in the background is Manoj Kumar’s, Purab and Pashchim which translates

as East and West. In the film, Lakhi and Wickham do not get married unlike the novel. In the
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end, on the day of Jaya’s wedding to Balraj, Lalita is shown to be searching frantically for Darcy

and Kiran points him out. Darcy is shown to be playing the traditional drums. Jaya, Balraj, Lalita

and Darcy are shown riding off on two elephants while wearing traditional Indian outfits. Bride

and Prejudice concludes in over-the-top splendor with Austen’s two happy wedded pairs. In

addition to what the movie presents as a traditional send off, the ending includes Darcy’s western

culture by including the staple of American weddings, the ‘Just Married’ sign and placing it on

the back of the elephants. This ending further allows the two cultures to unite into one and

demonstrates the union of the east and the west.

Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice is an analogy adaptation as it follows the story of

Jane Austen’s novel in a completely different way. The movie follows Austen’s plot but is from

a different culture and celebrates the distinctive locales. It is a transcultural adaption which

means adapting a source work from one culture to another. It often means changes in racial and

gender politics. Bride and Prejudice is a hybrid of a British, American and Indian cultures.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Austen, Jane. Pride And Prejudice. Coordination Group Publications Ltd, 2010.

2. “Bride & Prejudice” Directed by Gurinder Chadha. Performance by Aishwarya Rai,

Martin Henderson. UK Film Council.

3. Hutcheon, L., 2006. A Theory Of Adaptation. 1st ed. New York: Routledge Taylor &

Francis Group.

4. Leitch, T. "Adaptation Studies At A Crossroads". Adaptation, vol 1, no. 1, 2008, pp. 63-

77.

5. Monaco, James. How To Read A Film. Oxford University Press, 2000, p. The Language

of Film: Signs and Syntax.

6. Naremore, James. Film Adaptation. Rutger's University Press, 2000, pp. 54-76.

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7. Pramaggoire, M. and Wallis, T., 2020. Film: A Crtical Introduction. 2nd ed. London:

Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

8. Wilson, Cheryl A. “‘Bride and Prejudice’: A Bollywood Comedy of

Manners.” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4, 2006, pp. 323–331. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/43797308. Accessed 16 Apr. 2020.

MISE EN SCENE
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For the second question, I have opted for another adaptation of the novel Pride and

Prejudice by Jane Austen. I am going to talk about the mise en scene of the movie, Pride and

Prejudice which is directed by Joe Wright and was released in the year 2005. 

Mise en scene is a French word that simply translates to placing on stage in the English

language. It includes everything that we see onscreen in a film. It includes the setting of the film,

the location, props, clothes, makeup, hairstyle, lighting, sound, space, camera angles and the

actors playing the characters. Films carefully orchestrate these visual details to develop

characters, support themes and create moods. It means staging the scenes through the artful

arrangement of actors, scenery, lighting, and props- everything that the audience sees, it is

designed by a production designer. Each element of the mise en scene influences the viewer’s

experience of the story, characters, space and time. The four major components of the mise en

scene are- setting, the human figure, lighting, and composition. 

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I will be talking about the scene where Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy proposes Elizabeth Bennet

for the first time. Joe Wright wanted his film to look realistic not like an exact copy of the book

so the modern audience of the 21st century could relate. He wanted the film to be shot entirely in

the UK as he wanted the actors to get comfortable with a single place so that they can also get

used to the characters that they were playing. Most of the scenes in the film have been replaced

with an outdoor setting which in the book took place indoors. The outdoor setting made the

scenes look more aesthetic and beautiful. It was a challenge for him to direct a film which was

set in the 18th century (the film was originally written in the year 1797 but was published after

many years). He shot the film from Elizabeth’s perspective and made it a feminist film unlike the

earlier BBC TV series that aired in the year 1995, was from a patriarchal perspective. It is a

narrative fiction film, shot using the three-act structure. 

The setting is the most important component of a scene as it establishes a place to

introduce the ideas and the themes. The scene in which Darcy proposes to Elizabeth for the first
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time is shot in a summer house while it was raining. The rain acts as an indicator of romance and

the audience can make out that the setting is romantic even before Darcy confesses his feelings

to Elizabeth. The wider view of the summer house shows that they both are alone which adds to

the intensity of the scene. In the background, the noise of the rain and the thundering of the

clouds can be heard. This noise further adds to the dramatic elements of the scene. Elizabeth

instead of being overjoyed by Darcy’s proposal is furious because Darcy ruined her sister, Jane’s

life and also destroyed Wickham’s life. The background noise adds to the drama of the scene.

The more the thundering is heard, the more the drama gets intensified in the scene. The lighting

in any scene plays a major role. Lighting is designed to create certain moods and effects and

helps further in the understanding of the characters, their actions and develops themes. In this

scene, the lighting is soft. The light is diffused and minimizes the facial details of both the actors.

It makes the characters look more appealing and enhances their features. It is generally used in

films during romantic scenes. Therefore, this scene is romantic as Darcy confesses his feelings

and can be seen as vulnerable. For the casting of the roles, Joe Wright was very selective and

wanted to cast actors similar to the age and qualities of the characters in the novel. He wanted the

actors to feel how the characters in the novel were feeling. He roped in Kiera Knightly as

Elizabeth Bennet and Mathew Macfadyen as Darcy. He casted Kiera Knightly as Elizabeth

because she too had an originality of thought and questioned everything, whereas, Mathew

Macfadyen gives the character of Darcy extra qualities, he made him vulnerable through his big

manliness. Their expressions and dialogues completely justify the scene. The intensity of the

scene can be felt just by looking at their facial expressions. Costume and makeup are other

elements which are very important in this scene as it establishes the time in which the film is set.

Joe Wright adapted the fashion of the Regency Era in which the book was written by Jane
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Austen. He found this style more comfortable and appealing as the waist on the dresses was

lower and looked more flattering. The dresses were long and did not show any skin. Men wore

well-tailored suits with long tails. The color of the dress worn by Elizabeth is brown and is

simple which puts forward her simplicity and gives us an idea that she does not belong to the

nobility. The makeup of Elizabeth is natural which again gives us an idea about her simplicity

and her hair is also pulled back in a simple bun. Close up shots of the actors in this scene, further

intensifies the drama. Their facial expressions are visible. Joe Wright has used a lot of close-up

shots in this film as Austen has written about the characters in detail in her novel. No props were

used in this scene.  

Mise en scene is a very important element in a film as the film depends on it for its

success or failure. The right stage setting appeals more to the audience makes them like it more.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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1. Austen, Jane. Pride And Prejudice. Coordination Group Publications Ltd, 2010.

2. Pramaggoire, M. and Wallis, T., 2020. Film: A Crtical Introduction. 2nd ed. London:

Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

3. “Pride and Prejudice” Directed by Joe Wright. Performance by Kiera Knightley, Mathew

Macfadyen. Working Title Films, Universal Studios.