Life of Pi' Book and Movie: Comparison Essay

Literature is a vast area that incorporates different genres and cultures within itself. Novels, short stories, and biographies portray characters and events through words. When a film is made from a book it is called an adaptation. From the beginning, filmmakers have made films based on novels, short stories, biographies, and plays; of the sources of these adaptations, novels have always been the most popular choice. Adaptations are everywhere today on the television and movie screen, on the musical and dramatic stage, and in novels and comic books. Movies adapted from novels are not just a matter of pulling dialogues from the novel. When adapting a novel, the filmmaker has to leave out a number of things for the very simple reason of time constraints and because the medium is different. While reading a novel, what is involved in the decoding of language to visual imagery by imagination within a private space, whereas films are visual and aural and could be watched in a collective environment. The major difference between films and books is that visual images stimulate our perceptions directly, while written words do this indirectly. A novel is fully controlled by the author, but in a movie, it’s a collaboration of many hands. Adaptation has to tell and re-tell a story, hence recreation is done while adapting to different genres and mediums. Like a translator, the filmmaker who adapts is bent on a double task: some sort of “fidelity” to the original work and the creation of a new work of art in a different medium. An adaptation is always an interpretation, involving somebody’s personal views of the book and choices of elements to retain, reproduce, change, or leave out.

Adaptations were seen by most critics as inferior to the adapted texts, as “minor”, “subsidiary”, “derivative” or “secondary” products, lacking the symbolic richness of the books and missing their “spirit. It is a fact that each act of visualization narrows the open-ended characters, objects, or landscapes created by the book and reconstructs the reader’s imagination into concrete and definite images. The verbally transmitted characters are created by the imagination of the reader; there is no interference from the author. It is the freedom of the author to give a detailed description or not. The individual author deals with the whole book, but when considering the visual medium there are a number of hands behind it. A good adapted film has to come to terms with what is considered the “spirit” of the book and to take into account all layers of the book’s complexity. George Bluestone, the first to study film adaptations believes “the filmmaker is an independent artist, not a translator for an established author, but a new author in his own right”

A screenplay for a standard feature film is about one hundred pages and a novel runs to more than two hundred pages. In books, the writer uses narrative, description, and dialogue, interior monologues, expression of thoughts, and figurative language (images, metaphors.) In films, the filmmakers use pictures, images, ways of shooting, camera angles, camera movement, camera distance, scale, lighting, colors, contrasts, and in a scene setting, props, costumes, and makeup.

One-third of all films ever made have been adapted from novels, and, including other literary forms, such as drama or short stories, that estimate might well be 65 percent or more. For example, there are more than two hundred versions of Sherlock Homes and fifty film versions of Romeo and Juliet. Novels and dramas have also been adapted into movies. Shakespearean themes were adapted and new stories were made up in different languages according to their culture. Jane Austen’s Emma was adapted to film in 1996 in a Miramax production starring Gwyneth Paltrow. This version retained the original period, setting, and plot of Emma as per the novel. In 1994 Amy Heckerling wrote and produced Clueless, set in contemporary style. Most of the plot and theme was of Austen’s Emma but the names of the characters were changed. A Bollywood movie directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, Haider which is set in Kashmir was adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

This paper is an attempt to compare and contrast both the evident and noticeable differences between novels and films in the process of adaptation, with the aid of the successful Hollywood movie Life of Pi conceived by Ang Lee, and the novel Life of Pi penned by Yann Martel.

Life of Pi won the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and it was also awarded Canada’s Hugh MacLennan prize for fiction. Critical reception focused on Martel’s ability to make a fantastical story. Some critics found the theological preoccupations in the novel heavy-handed, unnecessary, inconsistent, or simple, while others thought that he successfully dealt with a potentially controversial subject in writing an explicitly religious book in a predominantly secular country. Fox 2000 Pictures bought the screen rights to Martel’s novel, and the film was made in 2012. The readers must have assumed that this novel cannot be transferred into the silver screen. It is the twenty-first century’s technicality that made it appear on the screen. When converting it to images Lee has deleted some parts of the novel and included visual effects and some new characters to make the movie interesting.

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Life of Pi tells the fantastic story of Pi Patel, a sixteen-year-old South Indian boy who survives at sea with a tiger for 227 days. Pi, born Piscine Molitor Patel, grows up in the South Indian city of Pondicherry, where his father runs a zoo. An intelligent boy, by the age of fifteen Pi—Hindu from an early age—has also adopted Christianity and Islam, and considers himself a pious devotee of all three religions. Due to the political upheaval that has long been distressing Pi’s father, the Patels decide to close the Pondicherry Zoo and move to Canada when Pi is sixteen. Pi, his mother, father, and brother Ravi all board the Tsimtsum along with the zoo’s animal inhabitants (who are on their way to be sold around the world). An unexplained event causes the Tsimtsum to sink, and Pi is the only human to make it onto a lifeboat and survive. Along with Pi, the lifeboat contains a hyena, a zebra, Orange Juice the Orangutan, and Richard Parker the tiger. The hyena kills and devours both the zebra and Orange Juice an Orangutan, before Richard Parker kills the hyena. Pi is left alone on a lifeboat with an adult male tiger. Pi and Parker eventually land upon the Mexican sea.

The narrator of the novel is the narrator-author himself in the beginning and in between the chapters. The novel begins with the author's protagonist’s search for a story but on the screen, the adult Pi is seen as narrating instances from his childhood. The narrator-author never interferes with Pi in the movie but interrupts the readers to their surroundings. A description of his home and family is introduced to us by the author. Both in the novel and film adult Pi narrates his story to the narrator-author. A detailed description of his thesis on Religion and Zoology covers the first part of the book. Martel has given a detailed description of the animals in the zoo but too much narration in a movie would make the viewers impatient. The narrator-author appears in between the flashbacks to their surroundings. While writing the screenplay for the movie Life of Pi, the scriptwriter has executed certain rearrangements from the novel Life of Pi. For instance, in the novel, Pi’s family is introduced in the beginning whereas in the movie they are introduced towards the end. The film takes the liberty of adding a character and giving Pi a love interest that does not appear in the book and also deleting characters like Mr. Sathish Kumar and Mr. Kumar from the book. Atheism was introduced to Pi by Mr. Sathish Kumar in the book but on screen Pi’s father teaches him about science. Islamic prayers were introduced to Pi by Mr. Kumar. Pi plays Tabala for the dance class and from there he meets Anandi his love which can be viewed on screen. Ravi trying to enter the cage of Richard Parker has been taken over by Pi in the movie. When they are traveling on the ship to Canada, Pi happens to hear a sound at night and sets out in search of that, but he forgets and enjoys the rain from the deck, on the screen, Pi is able to recognize there is a storm and he calls his brother to join him to watch the rain. A turtle is employed in the novel which comes along with an indulged reader on going through the pages whereas in the movie the screenplay expels the turtle, probably because the scriptwriter would have felt its presence would make no considerable impact, in the movie as it did in the novel. David Magee has written a remarkable screenplay for this movie.

Religion has a great importance in Pi’s story and it has been the most controversial in reviews of the book. Pi transcends the classical division of religion and worship as a Hindu, Islamic, and Christian. Pi says “I would like to be baptized and I would like a prayer rug” but he still respects the atheist because he sees him as a kind of believer. Pi’s devotion to God is a prominent part of the novel; but in the movie, it becomes, however, much less prominent during his time aboard the lifeboat, when his physical needs come to dominate his spiritual ones. Pi never seems to doubt his belief in God while enduring his hardships, but he certainly focuses on it less. This in turn underscores the theme of the primacy of survival. In the last part of the movie, Pi narrates two versions of his stories to Japanese visitors. Which version one believes in decides whether he believes in faith or reason. This question of faith or reason is posed not just to Pi’s listeners on the screen, but to the audience also. Whichever version of Pi’s story is acceptable to us, as the viewers, decide our own inclination to fact or faith. Martel does not intend the reader to read Life of Pi through a lens of disbelief or uncertainty; rather, he emphasizes the nature of the book as a story to show that one can choose to believe in it or not.

Life of Pi can also be classified as a work of magical realism, a literary genre in which fantastical elements—such as animals with human personalities or an island with cannibalistic trees—appear in an otherwise realistic setting. There are many elements of magical realism compounded to this battle of survival. Magical realism represents ordinary events and details together with fantastic and dream-like elements as well as materials derived from myth and tales. In the movie Life of Pi, we can see the elements of magical realism. At night Pi watches the deep blue ocean which is lit up by the shining fishes. The 3-D effect enhances the visual effect of the scene. He moves his hands in the water and feels the waves, even though he is alone with a tiger, he feels something wonderful and smiles. The big whale coming from the deep jumps high and Pi is thrown into the water. He loses the food and fresh water in the lifeboat. “Hunger can change what you have thought initially”, Pi starts fishing to feed his fellow traveler. Another scene where magical realism can be seen is in a shot where Pi starts speaking to Parker. At night Parker looks into the sea and Pi sees that the animals that were tied together are made free and he sees the reflection of his mother and the wrecked ship in the deep. It is the scene that reveals the minds of Pi and Richard and shows that they share these feelings. Martel uses magical realism when describing the 'carnivorous island'. The mysterious presence of meerkats, algae, dead fish, and teeth are puzzling features of this island. Until the discovery of all the teeth, these things are left unexplained. Later Pi realizes why the island is so magical. Being at sea, Pi starts to lose sense of reality, and when he comes upon the island, neither the reader nor Pi believes that the island is really there. This is a great element to use when writing fiction because it is gripping for the reader. It is used with the paradise island that Pi makes with his own imagination, however as one progresses more into the story Pi realizes that it is a carnivorous island, and after Pi has been in the sea for so long he starts to detach himself from reality and then he really believes that the island was overlooked and that’s the impact of magical realism. The movie combines various religious traditions to enfold its story revealing the wonder of life. Pi and Parker with fishes beneath them and birds above them, floating islands populated by meerkats; all together Lee creates an incredible sequence. Ang Lee’s vision is beyond everyone’s imagination. Some of the scenes in the film, for instance, the opening credits, the Krishna-Yashoda solar system sequence, and towards the end, the ocean sequence enrich the visual experience.

Life of Pi which was released in 2012 has grossed over $450 million worldwide. The entire movie was shot using 3D cameras. Shot digitally with Arri Alexa cameras, the film has a very clean look. Life of Pi a realistic natural story that makes us believe in faith or in God has used 3D to gain real effects. Lizard, a fluttering hummingbird, outstretched hands, air bubbles in water, driving rain pellets, an air-borne whale, and the attacking tiger, all burst forth breaking the screen’s 3-dimensional barriers. The shot where the camera is placed below the water and looks right up past the boat, which is on the sea surface, into the faraway sky above, and another scene where the tiger and Pi look deep into the ocean, these visuals have transformed themselves into dialogues. It is the creativity of Lee that shows the survival of Pi and the Bengal tiger Richard Parker. As Martin Scorsese proved with Hugo in the hands of an accomplished director, 3D can add magic, and a breathtaking sense of realism to movies that enhance both their sensory and emotional impact. Lee used this 3dimentional technology to explain what cannot be told cinematically.

The human mind is an amazing instrument. In the face of the horrors of life, it creates a magical story that allows it to continue living with truths it otherwise might not be able to accept. The struggle for existence, the struggle for survival, and the inner strength to find and tame and become the master of one’s existence are all realities one has difficulty admitting. The film and novel do not establish the dominance of faith over reason or vice versa, rather leave that part for the audience to decide. The two sides of life, one positive, feeding and renewing the spirit, and the other negative, poisoning and destroying it, and the choices one has to make regarding them, are also hard to face. In the film and in the novel, this is represented by the island Pi and the tiger find and rest on, but ultimately have to leave. One often prefers one’s magical thinking to accepting and facing the reality of one’s own life, as did Pi. With the use of magical realism, Martel is able to create a change of mentality and a change in the sense of surroundings.

Shakespeare wrote 'The play's the thing,' but in the case of Life of Pi, images speak louder than words. The re-creation of Life of Pi with a few elements added and removed from the novel has done justice to Martel’s Life of Pi. The inspirational tale surely possesses the power to move an audience, but the breathtaking visuals stir the soul. While connecting the novel to the film's narrative and underlying philosophy, its imagery instantly captivated the viewers. The film received 11 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won four Oscars, the most noteworthy of which was Lee's well-deserved prize for Best Director Almost all the nods came in technical categories, but that's where Life of Pi shines the brightest.

References

1. Ang, Lee “Life of Pi” movie, 20th Century Fox Motion Pictures.
2. Martel, Yann, “Life of Pi” New Delhi, Penguin Publishers,2002.
3. Abrams, M.H “A handbook of Literary Terms” Cengage Learning,2011
4. Seger, Linda “ The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact And Fiction Into Film” (Owl Books) Holt Paperbacks (15 February 1992)