Novels & films based on them

Usually when some popular novels are filmed, the film version may be quite different as the two are separate mediums with their own grammar, besides the reading public usually being more cultured than the film going public.

There are two films which have actually  raised the cultural quotient of the novels on which they are based. The first is G. V. Iyer's "Hamsageethe" based on the novel of the same name by Kannada writer Ta Ra Su. In the prologue portion of the novel, an investigator tries to meet elderly people who remember the stories of the protagonist, a legendary singer. Many of these elders have an unsavoury past, which has been made explicit in the book. But Iyer's camera dwells only briefly on the impedimenta of their trades, while their voice over narrates the memories of the singer. Iyer himself acknowledges the influence of Dreyer & Bergman.

The second film is Satyajit Ray's "Jalsa ghar" (The Music Room) based on Tara Shankar Banerjee's novel of the same name. In the book, the professional woman singer giving the private concert in the zamindar's mansion is his mistress also. Ray detaches this private angle & shows her only as a professional singer.

So to quote & paraphrase Jane Austen writing in the final chapter of "Mansfield Park", "Let other pens dwell on guilt & misery.  I (Iyer & Ray) quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, to restore every body to tolerable comfort & to have done with all the rest."