A film adaptation of literature is successful if it has stayed faithful to the novel. Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation by Robert Stam points of that fidelity is key, but he questions if this is even possible in adaptations. Fidelity is when a film stays true to the most important components and fundamentals of the novel. Even if a director is “faithful” to what is being adapted, there is always going to be a difference. Stam says, “an adaptation is automatically different because and original due to the change of medium” (Stam 543). The mise-en-scene, lighting, and editing changes everything. He goes on to discuss different approaches of adaptations. A film can just capture the essence of the film, or it can be translated and transformed into a whole new twist. The plots and characters can be used from a literary text and transformed into a whole new world in a film.
Maqbool (2003) is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. After watching this film, I would say that it didn’t say 100% faithful or truthful to the novel, which I think is completely impossible to do anyways. It was a transformation, where the film took the plot, characters, and themes, into a whole new setting/time. The themes of death, tragedy, paranoia, and guilt, were very apparent in the film, which is what themes were essential to the novel. The director, Bhardwaj, stayed true to Maqbool and Nimmi seeing blood that wasn’t actually there- showing the guilt of being murderers. If I had watched this prior to knowing it was an adaptation of Macbeth, I would have never known.
I think most film adaptations of literature are failures. I always hear people ask, “Which did you like better- the movie or the book?” Almost always, the response is the book. I believe that this is true because people who read the novels have created their own images. Reading allows someone to explore their own imagination and create their own world during the novel. When watching the film adaptation, you are watching someone elses interpretation of what that world looks like. It’s disorienting and honestly disappointing. Some adaptations are successful and some are not, and I think Maqbool can be up for debate.
I think what makes Maqbool successful is that it is not entirely obvious that the film is an adaptation. As Christine mentioned in her post about the film, she wouldn’t have known unless she’d been told. Like you, I too have usually heard people say that the book is “way better than the movie”. It’s difficult for a screenwriter/director to condense a long novel into 90 minute (give or take) film and honor all of the details that make readers love the book. For this reason, loose adaptions like Maqbool– with different settings and characters, may fare better in being praised by audiences rather than being touted as inferior to the original novel. Maqbool comes into its own because of Bhardwaj’s unique perspective, rather than a potential failed attempt at emulating Macbeth scene by scene.