Does good literature make good films?

Prasenjit and Aishwarya in a scene from Chokher Bali, a film based on Tagore's novel.

The festival opened with "Pinjar", a Hindi feature film about the horrors of the Partition based on the eminent Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam's novel by the same name, while the "Indian Panorama" section of the cinematic extravaganza closed with Bengali director Rituparno Ghosh's cellular recreation of Rabindranath Tagore's "Chokher Bali."

In between was "Maqbool," a modern-day adaptation of the spirit of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

All the three films drew overwhelming response at the Festival, prompting the event's director Neelam Kapur to say "this is perhaps the first time that a festival has so many films based on literature." Great works of literature have fascinated film-makers across the ages. The directors have particularly used the popular appeal of the literary classics.

According to the Managing Director of National Film Development Corporation Dipankar Mukhopadhaya, the great works of literature have a good story line, the drama, the element of conflict which make them so engrossing.

When directors like Bimal Roy had made films based on novels or short stories, the standard of Bengali cinema was very good and one of the main reasons for that was the good storylines, besides good screenplays, he says.

However, recreating any work of literature on the screen is a difficult task. Not any novel or short story can be transformed into a successful film.

Those who have seen maestro Satyajit Ray's films, particularly "Pather Panchali" and "Ashani Sanket," and Ritwik Ghatak's "Meghe Dhaka Tara" or "Titash Ekti Nadir Naam" know well how both have made changes with better effect. These are only a few instances of literature being successfully made into films.

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhaya's "Devdas" was recently made into a mega blockbuster and Bimal Mitra's "Saheb Biwi Golam" is also going to be made into a film soon.