I had been avoiding this movie for a reason. Despite all the praises I have heard about it. Particularly after having read and thoroughly enjoyed George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion some four years back. The reason is I knew how the cinematic version of this play has tampered with its smart, unconventional ending.
The play, centered on the plot of a professor of Phonetics transforming a common flower girl into a elegant high society lady by transforming her speech, boasts of some of the most memorable lines of all time! Strongly recommended to all those who love a duel of words with a dash of sharp humor.
Now, what generally happens when great pieces of literary work are adapted for the big screen? Novels, for one, are understandably extremely hard to adapt. So many times, there is just no visual metaphor for all that pages of words can describe. No wonder we so often hear people saying “It’s a great movie but the book was so much better”. And often it’s the limitation of the medium more than anything else.
A play however, is a lot easier. It’s already written for a visual presentation, though in a different setting. And when it’s got the kind of dialogues like Pygmalion, well, that’s half the battle won. And so it proved to be with My Fair Lady, the much acclaimed movie that I finally caught up with yesterday. It preserved the charm of the play, used the lines verbatim for most parts and added a whole new dimension with its musical presentation. And of course, some superb actors at their best, bringing Shaw’s well crafted characters vividly to life, just as you would have imagined them while reading the play. Utterly delightful so far.
What the big screen couldn’t adopt is the play’s ending (and I am not disclosing here what the two endings are). It somehow had to “fit into the mould”. Being a delightful movie it had to end in a way that conforms to the narrow definition of a “happy ending”. Never mind if that requires the very well etched protagonists to undergo sudden, inexplicable transformations and act very unlike themselves in the last five minutes of the film. Eliza’s heartwarming proclamation of her new found identity and independence, and Higgin’s consistently self sufficient personality -for whom his passion for phonetics is the entire world – are let go of in a jiffy.
Any narrative becomes what it is, largely by virtue of a certain coherence in the characters and their actions. And a certain spirit that it upholds. You take that away, and it loses its soul!
Unfortunately in this case, the disappointment was not due to any limitation of the cinematic medium or inability to adapt a great piece of literature, but a very intentional, conscious decision.
This is a much talked about issue and as always I would love to hear contrasting views from people who have read the book and/or watched the film. And for those who have not, if you want some delightful hours of an entertaining musical with some awesome performances, watch the film. If you want something more gratifying and coherent besides being entertaining, read the play. Both would take about the same time!
