Film Programme School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies Victoria University of Wellington CONSTRUCTING a BIOPIC-SCREEN
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Film Programme School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies Victoria University of Wellington CONSTRUCTING A BIOPIC-SCREENPLAY: FICTIONAL INVENTION IN THE BIOPIC WITH SCANT EVIDENCE A Creative Practice PhD thesis Indranil Chakravarty (ID: 300372866) Supervisors: Dr. Ann Hardy Dr. Tim Groves Dr. Giacomo Lichtner March 2020 1 Abstract As a creative practice research project, this thesis sets out to write a screenplay about Suresh Biswas (1861-1905), a little-known Bengali adventurer who was a wild-life trainer and circus-performer in Europe and later became a Captain in the Brazilian army. The early biographies of Biswas, based on limited and unreliable evidence, pose a challenge to the screenwriter in terms of narrative reconstruction of his life as a biopic. While more information has become available recently, this project examines the creative and critical issues associated with researching this figure, overcoming the problem of scant evidence and positioning him within a presentist context. Drawing on Rosenstone’s conceptual model for understanding how historical knowledge manifests in fictional narratives, it investigates the nature and function of fictional inventions in biopics and the ways in which screenplays make creative use of evidence. In writing Biswas’ biopic, I use the microhistorical research method, knowledge about biopic script-drafting processes, and Bhabha’s notion of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ to present Biswas as a non-Western, non-elite 19th century cosmopolitan, thereby constructing a counter- narrative to the dominant discourse of cosmopolitanism as a matter of exclusive Western, elite privilege. I argue that it is through a judicious mix of fictional invention and a diligent study of evidence that a screenwriter can get closer to the historical subject. The thesis thus initiates in practice, moves to biopic history and criticism, reverts to practice with knowledge about research and writing that not only enables me to overcome my screenwriting problem but also leaves behind a set of insights for other screenwriters working with scant biographical evidence. 2 Contents Abstract 1 Acknowledgment 3 Introduction 5 Chapter One: Nature and Function of Fictional Invention in the Biopic 23 Chapter Two: Vernacular Cosmopolitanism and the Postcolonial Predicament 55 Chapter Three: Invention and Research in Biopics with Scant Evidence 78 Chapter Four: The Biographical Subject: Evidence and Invention in Hometowns 105 The Screenplay: Hometowns 145 Conclusion 274 References Bibliography 288 Filmography 324 Appendices The Letters of Suresh Biswas (English translation) 330 Illustrations 347 The Letters of Suresh Biswas (Bengali version) 359 Acknowledgment To Victoria University of Wellington, for granting me a scholarship that allowed me to stay and study in New Zealand for three years. To Dr Kirsten Thompson, my first supervisor, for her interest in my research proposal. Unfortunately, she had to leave the university soon after I started my research. To Dr Ann Hardy of the University of Waikato, for stepping into the supervision and her diligence, and saving my PhD after a long period without supervision. To Dr Tim Groves for matters related to Film Studies and conversations in the corridor about cricket. To Dr Giacomo Lichtner, for being vigilant wherever historical issues were concerned. To Dr Deborah Laurs for providing valuable insights about the technicality of thesis writing. To Erica Schouten for supporting my case during a difficult period of my time. To dear friend Vanessa Alexander, erstwhile HoD of Film at University of Auckland for setting an example by undertaking a mid-life PhD and telling me about ‘Creative Practice Research’. To the work of Amitav Ghosh, particularly In an Antique Land (for its technique) which has influenced and inspired me deeply. To a particularly erudite woman, the late Prof Meenakshi Mukherjee of JNU, one of the brilliant people I have known and miss deeply, years after her death. Her scholarly work in Bengali, Upanyshe Atit: Itihash o Kalpoitihash (The Past in the Novel: History and Imagined History) provided the primary stimulus to my research. To my sister, Manideepa Chakravarty, for providing me with a home over a long period when I was homeless during my visits to India. To Rajorshi Chakraborti (novelist, no relation of mine but bearing one of the 17 spelling- variations of our shared lastname), for the much-needed addas in a country devoid of that cultural practice so essential to our existence. To certain ‘vernacular cosmopolitans’, particularly writer-friends Eugene Datta in Aachen and Dr Kunal Basu in Oxford, who have been urging me to get over with the PhD as soon as possible so that I can focus on more exciting writing projects. 4 To my colleagues in my new workplace at the LV Prasad Film and TV Academy. I am thankful to Santanu Chatterjee and Prachee Mukherjee for their warm hospitality in Chennai in my early days and for providing me time and space to complete the PhD while teaching full-time. To Dr Lekan Balogun for conversations about the politics of culture and realising the basis of our solidarity with non-Western peoples, an entity that comes into being only when we travel to the West. To Dor Fadlon, for the strange feeling that the more we talk about our research, the closer our work tends to get to each other. To my Iranian colleague, Ehsan Hazaveh, for reviving the deep cultural, historical and linguistic roots that we, as Indians, share with Persian civilisation. What we call culture and history are perhaps best embodied in individuals. To Anuradha Deb, for loving our son enough to let him go. To my father, for supporting the idea of doing a doctorate with helpful gestures. To Dr. Grecy Peréz Amores for her ‘graceful’ presence in my life over the years and our epic trip across India last year after two decades of imagining it. To my son Shagnik, for being the mainstay of my emotional life in New Zealand at a time when I was floundering in a dearth of fulfilling companionship. Our exhilarating dinner conversations on literature, philosophy and science made coming home such a joy. When I embarked on a mid-life PhD, I had little anticipation of all that it would entail, its rewards and pitfalls. Nevertheless, this period has involved quite a few major life-events: living in NZ for three years, Shagnik’s transition to university, our return ‘home’ to Bombay, selling my house of 15 years, searching for another home and setting it up in Calcutta, my heimat, and then leaving it all behind to work in another city, Chennai, utterly unfamiliar and strange, and setting up a second home there. Now, either I seem to have a nebulous sense of ‘home’ or the world seems to be full of ‘hometowns’. Everywhere is now a part of everywhere else, Rushdie would say. Our lives, our stories, flow into one another's, no longer our own, individual, discrete. 5 INTRODUCTION The thesis centres around the writing of a specific biopic-screenplay and sets out to address the challenges it poses and the questions it raises. These questions relate to the screenwriter’s conundrum when reliable evidence on the biographical subject is very limited demanding an inquiry into methods of research and writing that may enable the reconstruction of a life that would otherwise rely almost entirely on fictional invention with little regard for biographical/historical facts. In the attempt to find answers and accomplish my intention of writing the screenplay, I embark on a close study of biopics, particularly the ones where the screenwriters had successfully overcome the problem of scant evidence on the subject. While the critical component acknowledges that fictional invention is inevitable in all kinds of biopics in the context of well-established (though evolving) conventions of the genre, the nature and function of these inventions and their complex relationship with evidence are my key concerns. The inquiry thus has a dual focus. On one hand, I try to find methods of research that can enable me to expand the body of evidence on (and around) the subject. On the other hand, I try to understand how fictional inventions can facilitate a screenwriter to effectively tell a life-story by assimilating evidence and making the subject relevant to contemporary audiences though apparently evidence and invention may seem to work at cross-purposes. I use a ‘presentist’ approach in the screenplay (where the past is made to comment on the present) with a simultaneous engagement with the socio-cultural contexts of the characters in the past and the present. Throughout this thesis, I have emphasised a double allegiance to the pursuit of evidence and fictional invention in search of the historical subject while also pointing out that evidence becomes embedded within invention in such complex ways that decoding it often demands close, informed examination. The ‘Subject’ of the Biopic 1 Since this study is concerned with the fictionality of biopic, i.e. the screenwriter’s invention in relation to verifiable evidence, it is important to start with a definition of the key term. At the outset, the ‘biopic’ (the biographical fiction film) must be distinguished from its 1 I am trying to evoke here a double-meaning to the term ‘subject’: firstly, the biopic is an area of study, and secondly, in the structuralist sense, it implies a process of construction through signifying practices that are both unconscious and culture-specific. 6 related but more pervasive genres: biographical documentary and docudrama. Though they are both fact-based, the latter two are non-fictional formats, of which the docudrama often makes use of dramatisations and enactment to make the film more visually appealing to its viewers. As Bill Nichols observes, the epistemological borderline between fiction and documentary has become increasingly blurred over the past few decades (xiv).