'No Dearth of Stories For Tamil Cinema From Tamil Literary Works'

There were mixed views among writers and filmmakers as they spoke about story concepts for media in English and Tamil literature, at an International conference conducted by the Department of Media Arts, Loyola College, recently. While director P Bharathiraja and editor B Lenin asserted that it was difficult to constrict a novel into a film of two-and-a-half hours, writer Manushya Puthiran and Ulaganyaki Palani, Head of the Tamil Department, Stella Maris College, said that more Tamil films needed to draw inspiration from Tamil novels. However, all of them agreed that the display of Tamil tradition, culture and heritage was being lost in Tamil cinema nowadays. “When one could sample a taste of Marathi and Bengali culture through films in their respective languages, modern Tamil cinema fails to portray our culture,” said Lenin. Speaking on the elaborate details that a novel presents, Lenin said that there was a lot of repetition in novels and what was written needed to be reviewed. “Filmmaking is narrating the story by avoiding these repetitions,” he said. Director Bharathiraja said that a film that is based on literature may not be received by the audience in the sense that the director intended it to be. He cited the example of the novel Parthiban Kanavu, which was made into a movie in 1960. Although the literature in film was well received by critics, it did not find the same appreciation from the audience. “Many learned directors are apprehensive of using literature for films as they do not want to lose economically,” said the distinguished director. However, writer Manushya Puthiran slammed today’s serials and films, saying they were a waste of human resource. Referring to serials as ‘drugs that people get addicted to’, he said that these soaps were the reason why aspirants, who wanted to make quality cinema, perished. He said that Tamil literature had a lot of variety in comparison with the other Indian languages. “Is there no story in Tamil literature that depicts the Tamilian’s way of life?” he asked.