Title : The Double Logic of Remediation in

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Title

: The Double Logic of Remediation in Slumdog Millionaire

Name

: Shuri Mariasih Gietty Tambunan

Student Number

: S1758098

Address

: Jl. Otista 70 No.27B

Komplek Taman Indah 13330

Jakarta Timur, Indonesia

Phone Number

: +62218195620

Email Address

:

S.M.G.Tambunan@student.rug.nl

or

gietty.tambunan@gmail.com

Name of Program : Literary and Cultural Studies Research Master

Name of Supervisor

First Supervisor

: dr. A.M.A. van den Oever

Second Supervisor : dr. Miklos Kiss

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CHAPTER 1 Introduction

1.1. Background

A film, as a part of the cultural practices, is a site of representation that could be seen as a battleground of meanings. On the screen, the denotative and connotative meanings are constructed using the medium’s specificity that is its cinematographic elements. To analyze these meanings especially at the connotative level is a significant step because in this meta message one might discover the film’s preferred meaning. When the film is representing a culture which is unfamiliar for the intended audience, this whole process of meaning making becomes complicated because what is being constructed in the film could be acknowledge as the ‘real1’ representation of this other culture. This research’s main corpus of analysis is Slumdog Millionaire, a film about slums in Mumbai, India and it is actually adapted from a novel by an Indian writer. It was then made into a screen play and then into a film by a British script writer and film maker. This film is definitely a site of representation with many cultural aspects and this would be the grounds of the analysis.

There have been a number of cinematic productions about India which have been produced not only by the mainstream Hollywood, but also by the Indian film industry or other film industries from all over the world. Indian cinema itself has become a global enterprise in the 21st century. It has established its cinematic style and also managed to reach a wider range of audience in more than 90 countries. Many films from India have also participated in international film festivals and received international acknowledgements. Since 1957, India has sent a total of 43 films to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language, more than any other countries outside of Europe. Out of those 43 films, three films have been nominated namely Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay! (1988), and Lagaan (2001) even though no Indian films have won the award.

Other cinematic productions, which do not come from India, have also played the role in representing this country to the global community. Film makers such as Mira Nair, known for her works in Moonsoon Wedding, Kamasutra: A Tale of Love, The Namesake and the Oscar nominated film Salaam Bombay!, and also Deepa Mehta, known for her elements trilogy films: Fire (1996), Earth (1998) and Water (2005), find their success overseas as ‘diasporic’ film makers. Even though they do not live in India, most of their films are about India and these films have also been acknowledged internationally. However, one would then question whether their films could actually be categorized as ‘Indian’ since they do not come from the Indian film industry.

These films are a part of the “intercultural cinema,” a term introduced by Laura Marks in her work The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. I would like to use this term and modify it accordingly to the subject of my research. Basically, Marks uses the term “intercultural cinema” to highlight that a film 'is not the property of any single culture, but mediates in at least two directions. It accounts for the encounter between different cultural organizations of knowledge, which is one of the sources of intercultural cinema's synthesis of new forms of expression and new kinds of knowledge” (Marks, 6-7). She argues that the term is less

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“loaded” than other terms such as “hybrid,” “marginal,” or “Third cinema” that are used to describe films which are not a part of the contemporary Western cinematic practices. Even though in her work, the term “intercultural cinema” is too general in defining films such as the ones mentioned at the beginning of this introduction chapter, in this research it would be a useful term to refer to cinematic productions that depict a certain culture, produced in a different cultural context and intended for another culturally bounded audience.

As culturally situated texts, these films could potentially instigate problems of representation due to the three interconnecting aspects: the production, text and consumption. Who or what is being represented and how it is represented could be problematic. Moreover, the maker and to whom the film is intended to are also a part of this problematic cycle of representation. For example, films about India, which directly come from the Indian film industry or those from diasporic film makers, should be critically examined in terms of this cycle of representation. The same goes to films about India made by a non Indian institution or film maker.

Intriguingly, films about India made by non Indians, which become internationally popular and even win international awards, are actually representing the “other world,” borrowing Gayatri Spivak terminology, which fundamentally means the non Western world. These films are intended to be watched by a wide range of audience from all over the world which from here after will be called as “the global audience.” For most of these audiences, the reception of these kinds of film means imagining what the “other world” looks like because this world depicted in the films is something unfamiliar. “A film’s favorable reception at International festivals frequently draws charges of Orientalism on the grounds that it has stimulated practices of exoticist representation…” (Chaudhuri, 14). The use of exotic locations or poor rural conditions is a part of the cinematic production that depicts images that are distant from the experience of the targeted global audience.

These films give the audience a chance to imagine the “other world.” S. Brent Plate in his introduction to Imag(in)ing Otherness: Filmic Visions of Living Together gives two notions in the process of representing the other, which are “imaging otherness” and “imagining otherness.” In “imaging otherness,” the process involves the specific choices from the one who produce these images and these choices are motivated from the political, social, and ideological conditions of the production. Meanwhile, in “imagining otherness” there is the issue of the culturally bounded audience that draws from their interpersonal cues in interpreting these images of the “other.”

Slumdog Millionaire, the main corpus of analysis in this research, is one of the most recent films which could be used as a case study. This film was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film of 2008. Besides the Oscars, it also won seven BAFTA Awards (including Best Film), five Critics' Choice Awards, and four Golden Globes. The film was first screened on the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival.And after a significant delay in its worldwide distribution, Slumdog Millionaire was released in the United Kingdom and United States on January 2009. The film has then topped the worldwide box office and has currently grossed over $360 million.

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community, mostly from the Hindi cinema2. The film is often compared to films in Hindi cinema, which are indicted to run away from the ‘real’ social issues in India by neglecting the grim side of the country; the slums. One article even mentions that Hindi films are “too blind to what India really is to deal with it … these people (from slum areas) are absent from mainstream Bollywood cinema … they should be ashamed that it took a white man to show India how to do it.” (Nirpal Dhaliwal in Guardian.co.uk). That is why Slumdog Millionaire, especially if it is compared to films in Hindi cinema, is said to be a ground-breaking cinematic production in representing the ‘real’ slums of India.

To go into the discussion of representation of the Indian slums in Slumdog Millionaire, an important aspect to be taken into account is that this film is in fact a screen adaptation of a novel, Q&A, by Vikas Swarup, who is an Indian writer, which was then made into a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, a British screenwriter known for his work on Full Monty (1997). This implies that there are three layers of texts: the novel, the screenplay, and the film itself. To get to the process of representing the slums of India in the film, it is important to look at how it is done in the novel and the screenplay to be later on translated in the audio visual medium. Therefore, the analysis should focus on how the ‘real’ slums of India are represented through “re-mediating” one medium into another.

The first layer of text, the novel Q & A, is Vikas Swarup’s first novel which was published in 2005. He is an Indian diplomat and he comes from a middle class family. In other words, even though he wrote about the slums in Mumbai, he himself was not a “slumdog.” Q & A won South Africa's Book Prize in 2006. It was also shortlisted for the Best First Book by the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and won the Prix Grand Public at the 2007 Paris Book Fair. To date, the book has sold translation rights in 40 languages, which is the result of the film’s popularity.

Set in India, Q & A tells the story of Ram Mohammad Thomas, a poor young waiter who becomes the biggest quiz-show winner. However, instead of receiving the billion-rupee grand prize he won, he was to be sent to jail on accusations, but without any evidence, that he cheated on the quiz. The novel then continues on how he explained how he won the quiz to Smita, a female lawyer who at the end turned out to be the little girl Ram saved in the past. In forms of flashbacks, Ram told Smita how each event in his life was actually the reason why he could answer all of the questions in the quiz show.

Meanwhile, the screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy, who decided to make a screenplay out of Q & A. Nevertheless, he did not write the screenplay by basing it on the novel faithfully. He did a couple of field research by visiting India 4 times in over 18 months. He claimed that he wanted “to get a completely fresh look at India” (Corliss, 1). He spent a long time in the Juhu slum in Mumbai and interviewed the inhabitants from which he got ideas that he then incorporated in the screenplay.

The last layer of text, which is going to be the main corpus of analysis in this research, is the film Slumdog Millionaire. It was set and filmed in India and it is a story about a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appeared on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and actually won the game. This aroused the suspicion of the game show host and of law enforcement officials. Jamal, the main character, then explained that he knew the answers of most questions because of the things that had happened in his life. He explained all of these in a series of flashbacks of his past. Some

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Hindi cinema is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India also known with the name

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major parts of his life are: the death of his mother during anti-Muslim violence, how he and his brother Salim befriended Latika and how they were separated, how Jamal and Salim became tour guides in Taj Mahal, how Jamal returned to Mumbai in search of Latika, how Salim claimed Latika as a prize after he saved her therefore breaking the brotherhood between him and Jamal, who decided to leave, and of course how at the end Jamal was reunited with Latika.

As mentioned previously, the film is not an exact copy of the novel. There are some major changes, but there are also some significant similarities. The basic and most important similarity is the theme. The film and the novel both depict the ‘reality3’ of Indian slums, specifically in Mumbai. Both mediums also use the same plot line, by using flashbacks in which Ram (novel) or Jamal (screenplay and film) explained how he got to know the answers of the questions in the quiz. However, the stories of the main character in both mediums are different. I highlighted these two similarities in accordance to the analysis of how the content, the slums of India, and the style, the plot, is taken from one medium, the novel, to another medium, the film.

Nevertheless, Q & A and Slumdog Millionaire share more differences rather than similarities. In terms of characters, Simon Beaufoy changes several names such as the main character from Ram Mohammad Thomas to Jamal Malik. Beaufoy also eliminates characters such as one of the most important characters in the novel, Smita, the female lawyer who saved Jamal from being convicted. In the film, Salim is Jamal’s brother while in the novel, Salim is a fellow orphan whom Ram befriended when they were still in a juvenile home in Delhi. Salim in the film ultimately plays a sinister and tragic role, but Salim in the novel leads a charmed life and eventually becomes a film star.

Another significant difference is the motive that builds up the conflicts in both the film and the novel. In the film, Jamal’s motives are clear, which are the family bond between Jamal and Salim and Jamal’s love for Latika. His whole journey in life is all about these two motives. Meanwhile, the novel is more general in not specifying Ram’s motive as a romantic or brotherly one. Latika and Salim still play a role in Ram’s life, in the novel, but they were only one motive among other motives.

Slumdog Millionaire is, as mentioned at the previous parts, is a culturally situated text because it is a film set in a foreign country (foreign for its “global audience”), featuring no known stars from that foreign country, and with a third of its dialogue in Hindi. Since this film is distributed all over the world, I would argue that it is intended to be consumed by the so called “global audience.” Moreover, not only the intended audience but the makers are also not a part of what is being represented in this film. Vikas Swarup, the novel’s writer is Indian. However, Danny Boyle, the director, and Simon Beaufoy, the screen writer, are non Indians.

Why is this important in this research? As I have explained previously, these intercultural aspects of the texts, specifically the film, are definitely a factor in the process of representing the “physical reality,” which is the slums in Mumbai. Salman Rushdie in his response to the film actually slated David Boyle’s admission that he made the film in part because he was unfamiliar with India. Rushdie challenged Boyle to imagine “an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion. But for a first world director to say that about a third world is considered praiseworthy, and

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indication of this artistic daring. The double standards of post-colonial attitudes have not yet wholly faded away” (Rushdie, 1). Rushdie’s critic should be taken into account as an eye opener on how potentially problematic it is to have all of these intercultural aspects in these three layers of texts. In this research, the analysis will focus on these potential problems through a specific form of representation which is the remediation process from the novel to the screenplay and film.

Through “remediation,” a notion introduced by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin in their work Remediation: Understanding New Media, the film Slumdog Millionaire re-presents the representation of Indian slums from the previous mediums: the novel and the screenplay. There are two strategies in “remediation,” which are “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.” In “immediacy”, the process of remediation attempts to make the medium disappears in order to construct an “illusion of reality.” This means, in watching the film Slumdog Millionaire, the viewers can feel as if they are looking at or even “experiencing” the ‘real’ slums of India. However, Bolter and Grusin also argue that there is another aspect of remediation, which is “hypermediacy” that co-exists and depends mutually with “immediacy.” In “hypermediacy,” the medium is emphasized so that the viewers acknowledge and experience that medium. In films, it is said that to create “transparency,” as if viewers are experiencing the ‘real,’ there are many mediums used such as special effects or other cinematographic elements which implies how “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” sometimes depend on one another.

This research is going to analyze the intertwining process of “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” in constructing the illusion of the ‘real’ slums of India in the film Slumdog Millionaire, which is the final step of re-mediating the first two texts: the novel and the screenplay. I will analyze the process of “immediacy” in Slumdog Millionaire that tries to erase the medium making it possible for the audience to look at the film as a “window,” through which they can look at or even experience the slums of India. Meanwhile, I would also like to see whether there is a process of “hypermediacy” that can be a disruption of “immediacy” or even as a tool to emphasize the process of “immediacy,” making the experience of the film as ‘real’ as possible, for example using special effects, first person point of view or other forms of mediums. 1.2. Research Question

How does Slumdog Millionaire use the double logic of remediation if conveying the “physical reality” of the slums and what is the ideological framework that underlies that specific practice of representation?

1.3. Methods

In this research, I would look at the film Slumdog Millionaire and the two secondary texts, the novel and the screenplay, from several theoretical principles which are formulated in these key terms:

The main theoretical principle is the notion of “remediation” which involves two strategies, which are “immediacy” in which the process attempts to make the medium disappear and “hypermediacy” that stresses mediality. The analysis would focus on how these two strategies are used in the film in constructing the “illusion of reality” so that the viewers can experience the ‘real’ slums of India.

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what has been argued by Bazin, “cinematic realism” is the process in creating the “illusion of reality.”

Since the film is a culturally situated text, which means that it is about a specific culture and it is intended to be watched by the “global audience4” who is “unfamiliar” with the world depicted in the film, there is an element of “imagining otherness” in which the film attempts to make the “unfamiliar” slums of India into something identifiable or “familiar” for the “global audience.”

The first part of the analysis will be on the three layers of texts: the novel, the screenplay and the film. This is an essential part of the research to see how the novel is adapted to the screenplay and how it is finally translated into an audio visual text, the film. The adaptation involves motivated choices, what to use and not to use, that derived from the ideological condition of the production. The analysis will also focus on what kind of cinematic strategies that are commonly used in adding the cinematographic illusion of reality. The emphasis of the analysis will be on how far the film depicts the ‘real’ slums in India through its narrative structure and cinematic style rather than on whether or not the film perfectly or correctly represents the reality.

If the first part of the analysis focuses on how the film remediates the novel and the screenplay, and the second part delves into the specificity of the film and what cinematic elements used that reflect the intertwining process of “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.” More importantly, the analysis will answer the question why the film uses these strategies and to serve what purpose.

1.4. Theoretical Framework 1.4.1. Remediation

The rapid development of technology has produced a wide variety of media. The many forms of new media are burgeoning so quickly subsequently challenging the status of the older media. The relationship between the old and new media is a dynamic process in which both sides influence or at least depend on one another while establishing their status in the media world nowadays. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin5 through their work, Remediation: Understanding New Media, propose the notion of “remediation” as a way to respond to this dynamic interaction between the old and new media. Their key argument is that “remediation” operates according to “the double logic of remediation:” “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.”

“Remediation”, according to Bolter and Grusin, is the borrowing of other mediums and that this medium is itself incorporated or represented in the other medium. The borrowing here can refer to the borrowing of content like in the “remediation” of the popular Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling. After the first book

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David Bordwell in his work Narration in the Fiction Film and Film Art: an Introduction explaiens about the “natural audience,” audience who is equipped with the proper “schemata” including the norms and conventions of a certain cinema for example the classical Hollywood cinema so that the process of perception has been habitualized or automatized. I am using the term “global audience” in contrast to the “natural audience” because “global audience” do not have the same schemata since they have not been habitualized with the norms and conventions of certain cinema or even of what is being represented in the film because it is not something from their everyday lives.

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was published in 1997 and gained its success strictly afterward, this literary phenomenon has been remediated in many forms of media such as audio books, films and even video games. All in all, these other mediums borrow the content of the book and refashion it according to the format of the new medium. However, in “remediation,” the borrowing of the content is a complex process because there is a dynamic interaction between the older and the new media. It is not just about pouring down the content from one medium to another. It is, more importantly, about “repurposing,” “reusing,” and “refashioning” the content.

Besides remediating the content from a medium, “remediation” is also about the style or the way a particular medium shows the content in its form of representation. As an example, films like Run Lola Run borrow the style and even the quality of a video game even though the content itself is not based on any particular video game. In the film, Lola runs to complete a task, which is to save her boyfriend, and she needs to repeat this over and over again to make sure she can finish the task. This is just like what a gamer has to do in completing tasks in a game. In this example, we can see how the makers appropriate the style of one medium to be remediated in another medium. Another example is a music video that incorporates many styles from many mediums such as films, digital media and video games.

Bolter and Grusin also suggest that there are several degrees of “remediation.” Firstly, the medium would want to erase itself in order to create the illusion that the users of the media are actually confronting what is being represented. Users can feel as if they are at the art gallery looking at the paintings even though they are actually enjoying these paintings through a website. However, the writers also argue that even though transparency is the goal, the process will never be completely transparent because there will always be an effort, from the users’ side, such as clicking the mouse to go the next painting on the website.

In another case, the new media can be more aggressive in its remediation. “It can try to refashion the older medium or media entirely, while still marking the presence of the older media and therefore maintaining a sense of multiplicity or hypermediacy” (Bolter and Grusin, 46). Either way, the most important point of remediation is how the older medium can never be completely ‘effaced’ or wiped out. The new medium will always be dependant on the older one either in “acknowledged or unacknowledged ways” (Bolter and Grusin, 47). These degrees of “remediation” could then be categorized into two strategies of remediation which are “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.”

1.4.2. The Double Logic of Remediation: Immediacy and Hypermediacy

As mentioned previously, the key argument presented by Bolter and Grusin is how “remediation” works in accordance to the “double logic of remediation:” “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.” These two strategies of “remediation” are seemingly contradictory, but they actually coexist and they are also mutually depended on one another. In explaining how “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” work, Bolter and Grusin argue that there is a constant desire for “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” to cross at each other’s path in the process of remediation.

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illusion of “transparency” since the 14th century. The use of projective geometry can represent the space beyond the canvas creating that very illusion.

Another way of achieving “transparency” is to automate the linear perspective technique, more specifically by the invention of photography. Bolter and Grusin argue that the invention of photography reflects the perfection of the linear perspective technique. “The photograph was transparent and followed the rules of linear perspective; it achieved transparency through automatic reproduction, and it apparently removed the artist as an agent who stood between the viewer and the reality of the image” (Bolter and Grusin, 26). Therefore, photography was considered as a breakthrough in the issue of “immediacy” because it creates a direct experience of “reality.”

The second strategy is “hypermediacy,” which highlights the process of “remediation” by emphasizing the medium. In “hypermediacy,” the artists6 attempt to make the viewer acknowledge the medium and also to delight in that acknowledgement. This is the opposite logic of “immediacy”. The most prominent example of “hypermediacy” is the World Wide Web. The whole World Wide Web is “an exercise in replacement … When the users clicks on an underlined phrase or an iconic anchor on a web page, a link is activated that calls up another page” (Bolter and Grusin, 44). In this example, Bolter and Grusin argue that “hypermediacy” actually multiplies the signs of mediation like in the World Wide Web. When the user clicks the mouse, another window will open and so on. This creates a heterogeneous space in which one window opens up to other representations or other media and so forth.

Even though “hypermediacy” operates within the realm of multiple mediality, which seems to distance the user or viewer from what is being represented, it can also provide an “authentic” experience. Bolter and Grusin give an example of rock music concerts and recordings. Live performances and also recordings have come to be hypermediated. Nowadays, the stage presentations of rock bands are celebrations of media and the act of mediation. Digital samplings in recordings or extravagant computer graphics for background settings in concerts are just a few examples of “hypermediacy” in rock music nowadays.

In this case, “hypermediacy” seems to make us aware of the medium in a subtle or obvious way, but it also reminds us of our desire of immediacy. As mentioned previously, there is always a double desire for “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.” Websites that offer paintings or pictures for its users could be a perfect example on how this medium incorporates “immediacy” within “hypermediacy.” “In these cases, the electronic medium is not set in opposition to painting, photography, or printing; instead, the computer is offered as a new means of gaining access to these older materials, as if the content of the older media could simply be poured into a new one” (Bolter and Grusin, 45). Its “immediacy” is on how the medium wants to erase itself so that the viewer can feel as if they are standing in front of the paintings or pictures. Ideally, seeing the paintings on the website and in an actual gallery should be no different. However, this is never the case. The computer always intervenes by making its presence noticeable. The necessity of clicking the mouse to go to another painting or picture seems to reduce the directness of the experience.

So far, I have discussed “the double logic of remediation” as two different strategies and how they could be mutually dependant. “Immediacy’s” main purpose is to minimize the distance between the user and what is being represented, the so called “physical reality.” “Hypermediacy” multiplies the medium as if distancing the user

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from the one being represented. However, as discussed previously, even though the medium is highly mediated, it always reminds us of our desire of “immediacy.” A preliminary conclusion is that the “double logic of remediation” works interdependently and could be a complex process especially when the main purpose, as in “immediacy,” is to create an “authentic’ experience.

1.4.3. Constructing an Authentic Experience through Remediation

One of the most “authentic” experiences that can be presented in the evolution of media is through virtual reality in which users of the media confront the world being represented by the medium directly. This is done through “immediacy” and ever so often through the help of “hypermediacy,” such as the digital media use in films to make the settings as “real” as possible. Bolter and Grusin in their work argue that we should also take into account how authenticity is actually socially constructed. “What seems immediate to one group is highly mediated to another” (Bolter and Grusin, 71). As an example, in the mid 1990s, there was a science fiction film about the autopsy of aliens by American doctors. On one side, critics tried to expose the mediation or how the whole thing was staged instead of a ‘real’ experience. However, believers tried to establish that the film was a transparent recording of a ‘real’ event.

In films, this social construction could be in a form of codes and conventions7. (Neo)formalist film scholars, namely Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, work on the historicizing of these codes and especially on how these codes have become “automatized” or “habitualized” in such a way that the experience of watching these films can also be influenced by that “automatization.” Bordwell has argued in some of his works that spectatorship or the act of watching a film is an active experience, which is cued by the text, in this case the film. Audience has what Bordwell called as “schemata,” which is “organized clusters of knowledge that guide our hypothesis making” (Bordwell 1985, 31). Furthermore, some audience will have a wider range of schemata compared to others.

The “natural audience,” have known what to expect even before watching a film. The expectation comes from the “automatization” of codes or convention of certain cinematic tradition. One example is the Hindi cinema8. Its “natural audience” will have the proper schemata and expect the film to have predictable narrative elements or even certain cinematographic techniques like characters in a clear cut binary opposition (hero-heroine, hero-villain) or the song and dance sequences.

If “natural audience” has the proper “schemata” and knows what to expect from a film, we should now see how those who do not share the same schemata experience the “authenticity” of the film. I would like to use the term “global audience” for this type of audience in comparison to the “natural audience.” “Global audience” does not have the same schemata with the “natural audience” because there is no “automatization” or “habitualization.” In other words, “global audience” is not familiar with what is being represented or how it is being represented, such as the codes and conventions. “Immediacy” could then be problematic because the audience might be too distant. It is the role of the text to reduce this distance or in other words to make the medium disappear in order to make the experience as “authentic” as possible even though the medium is intended for the “global audience” instead of “natural audience”.

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A terminology introduced by Christian Metz in his work, Language and Cinema. “Every film is constructed on the basis of codes that a filmmaker adopts, transforms, or works against” (Metz, 77).

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Hindi cinema is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India also known with the name

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All things considered, to make the experience as “authentic” as possible, the aspect of social construction should also be taken into account besides considering how the medium constructs “the illusion reality” either through “immediacy” or with the help of “hypermediacy.” Different forms of mediums would have different kinds of ways in constructing the “illusion of reality” The next part will focus on one specific medium, which is film, and how “remediation” works within the realm of “cinematic realism.”

1.4.4. Remediation and Cinematic Realism

Roman Jakobson in his work “On Artistic Realism” in 1921 defines “realism” as “an artistic trend which aims to reproduce reality as faithfully as possible and which aspires to achieve the maximum of verisimilitude9” (as quoted by Paul Willemen in his article “On Realism in the Cinema,” page 37). Realism could then be conceptualized as a mode of description and depiction. It also indicates a relation between two things: what is being depicted and the result of depiction.

In film studies, cinematic realism has been approached from many angles and one of the most significant one, especially for this research, is the photographically based notions of cinema realism. This approach is perhaps the most basic theoretical understanding of film studies. The root of this approach is on the argument that photographic images are actually indexical signs unlike paintings because photographs are existentially connected to their referents. Charles S. Pierce proposes the triadic model of indexical, iconic and symbolic signs. Photography is indexical because in certain respects, photographs are like the objects they represent since they correspond point by point to the object by physical connection. Roland Barthes in his work, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, also argues that photography, unlike any other type of image, can never be divorced from its referent, which is the real thing which has been placed in front of the lens. For Barthes, “every photography is a certificate of presence” (Barthes, 87).

Cinema is a photographic medium. “Cinema is the screening/projection of reality because of the way that photography, whether still or in motion, mechanically (that is automatically reproduces the world before the lens” (Prince, 29). Films are made up of a series of individual images. These images are shown rapidly in succession so the viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The indexical characteristic of photography then becomes the basis for the argument that films, like photography, is depicting “reality” mechanically.

If we go back to the discussion of “remediation”, through the photographically based notions of cinematic realism, films are basically the “remediation” of photography. In this process of remediation, films go beyond photography and according to Siefried Kracauer in his work Theory of Film: the Redemption of Physical Reality there are two important aspects that make films to be more “realistic” compared to photography.

The first one is the picture “movement” in films. At the beginning, the camera was fixed on the ground and film makers concentrated on “moving material phenomena.” As cinematic techniques developed, film increasingly drew on camera mobility and editing devices. In both cases, one important element that differentiates the ‘realistic’ aspect of a film and a photograph is the notion of “movement”.

The second aspect is “staging” in which the staged world in the film is depicted as a faithful reproduction of the physical reality. “The important thing is that

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built settings convey the impression of actuality, so that spectator feels he is watching events which might have occurred in real life and have been photographed on the spot” (Kracauer, 34).

In the early cinema, the process of remediating photographs in films has actually influenced the two ways of depicting reality. There are two important figures in the early cinema and they are the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès. Film scholars have put these two film makers into two categories of cinematic tradition: Lumière’s cinematic realism and Méliès’ cinematic illusionism

Lumière brothers were strict realists in their attempt to develop photography into a means of story telling. Their main purpose was to record the world around us and present it in their films which were usually shot on crowded streets or railway stations with ‘real life’ actors. Meanwhile, Méliès was more flexible in his artistic imagination. He kept on renewing and intensifying the medium of his films. In one of his work entitled Voyage á travers l’mpossible (1904), there is a sequence in which a train goes on a fantastical journey, rising into the sky and crashing into the sun. “Méliès’ trick and fantastical film could be understood not in opposition to realism, but as “exploring, exposing, and making marvelous the working of filmic artifice, and creating an interplay or dialectic between fantasy and realism” (Marcus, 178).

In remediating photography, films do not only borrow and repurpose the content of the photography but “reuse” it and the double logic of “remediation” plays a significant role in this process. If we look at the early cinema, the first time films remediated photography, the two film makers, Lumière and Méliès, represent the two strategies, which are “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.” This reflects how “remediation” in a form of a film medium shares the same complex and dynamic process as other kinds of media, like the new digital media discussed intensively by Bolter and Grusin in their work Remediation: Understanding New Media.

The Lumière brothers’ films are all about presenting an “authentic experience” by minimizing or even erasing mediality. Their first short film, L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat (1895), shows the entry of a train pulled into a train station. It has been said that when the film was first shown, the audience was so overwhelmed by the moving image of a life-sized train coming directly at them that people screamed and ran to the back of the room. Meanwhile, Méliès did the opposite by enhancing the mediality in his films. Through his “magical illusions,10” the films represent the “physical reality” in such a way in order to fascinate the audience through the multiple mediums and this is the basis of “hypermediacy.”

As cinematic techniques developed, the intertwining process of “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” becomes more complicated. The question on how films erase its mediality through “immediacy” in trying to present the physical world as faithfully as possible could only lead us back to how it uses a number of mediums to achieve that purpose or the use of “hypermediacy.” One obvious example is the invention of digital media, which has transformed the whole process of “remediation” in cinema. “Real” sets are no longer needed because the computer graphic technique can create one without having to build a physical setting. Actors could be put in front of a large green screen and after the editing, audience can see the actors in an ancient Rome setting or in as spaceship or in the middle of a dessert. The experience of reality is enhanced through “hypermediacy” while its original purpose is “immediacy” that tries to erase the medium in order to make the audience feel as if he or she is confronting the ‘real’ world

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of the film. During the process of “remediation,” these two strategies could intertwine and create a double desire of “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.”

1.5. Aim of the Research

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CHAPTER 2 Mirroring Reality through “Immediacy”

2.1. “Remediation” in the Three Layers of Texts

There are three layers of texts which need to be taken into account in this research, which are the novel, Q&A by Vikas Swarup, the screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, and the film, Slumdog Millionaire, which is directed by David Boyle. To look at how each text is remediated into a different kind of medium, for example from a novel to a screenplay or from a screenplay to a film, is a crucial step. The process of remediation is not only about pouring down the content of one medium to another, but more importantly about how the new medium “reuses” or “repurposes” the older medium in a new form of medium. Moreover, this research will also explore what kinds of choices the makers of the new medium, the screenplay and the film, made in the remediation process. These choices reflect the degree of remediation. It could reflect a complete desire of “immediacy” that erases all mediums to enhance the “authentic” experience or it could also reflect multiple medialities. Remediation works within these two strategies, which are “immediacy” and “hypermediacy.”

In “reusing” the content of the novel and also the form or style, Slumdog Millionaire, as the end product of the remediation process, use some specific strategies to enhance the authentic experience of the ‘real’ slums of India. Through “immediacy,” the goal is to convince the audience that the world depicted in the screen is a part of the physical reality. In other words, audience is not only watching the film but also experiencing the slums in Mumbai. The film makers enhance the “immediacy” of the film through many levels of textuality, starting from the production elements to the cinematographic aspects.

In the production level, the film, Slumdog Millionaire, uses several strategies which have been used since the birth of cinema by the Lumière brothers or even the Italian Neo-realism in 1943 to 1945 to convince the audience that the world depicted on the screen is mirroring ‘real’ slums of India. The first strategy is using ‘real’ life actors for the film. The young actors who play the leads as children were children from the slums. Rubina Ali who played as Latika and Mohammed Azharuddin Ismail who played as Salim went back to live in their slums after the completion of the film. Secondly, the film also uses ‘real’ settings. The film was shot in Mumbai, India, and one of the central shooting locations was at the Dharavi slum, which is known as one of Asia's largest slums. About a million people live in this slum area which is somewhere around 50 percent of Mumbai's population.

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Furthermore, the Italian neo-realism that emerged after the liberation of Italy in 1943 to 1945, with its most renowned directors such as Rossellini, de Sica and Visconti, was also a part of the evolving tradition of cinematic realism. The central characteristics of neo-realism “…included a preference for location filming and the use of nonprofessional actors; an attentiveness to everyday reality…” (Marcus, 188). In Rome Open City (1954), Rossellini depicted events which took place in Rome during the first months of 1944, when the city was under the occupation of German. “It was shot partly on location, and used local extras and untrained actors…” (Marcus, 188).

Even though these two film traditions are different in its form and style, both are significant eras in the discussion of cinema and the depiction of physical reality through films. The discussion of cinematic realism has been about examining to which degree a film depicts a ‘real’ experience and to what degree it uses filmic techniques to shape these depictions. We should always take into account that the issues of realism are also subject to historical circumstances. Even the apparently self-evident Lumière films could be seen more as a spectacle by contemporary audiences nowadays. “So, our ideas of what is realistic closely relate to the conventions of representation to which we are accustomed. While these conventions change over time, we now see how realisms as distinct moments on a sliding scale” (Armstrong, 6). By acknowledging this limitation in the discussion of cinematic realism, I will only use the main characteristics of the two traditions, which are the use of ‘real’ actors and ‘real’ settings, as a background to look at how the core text, Slumdog Millionaire, enhance the “immediacy” of the film in remediating the novel’s content and form.

As explained previously, in its production stage, Slumdog Millionaire uses many elements that can be seen as strategies to present an “authentic” experience to its audience. Another part of the production stage is the process of remediating the novel into the screenplay. Simon Beaufoy, the scriptwriter, made three research trips to India to interview street children. Beaufoy was impressed with how everyone, including children, collecting discarded plastic bags to be resold deals with the kind of life they have to face in the these slums. From these research trips, he made a script that merges the novel's multiple story lines into a single narrative framed around a young man named Jamal Malik, a name created by Beaufoy which is different from the name of the main character in the novel. The story revolves around Jamal’s ability in the game show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, to answer questions by recalling various incidents in his past life.

Beaufoy did not use the material from the novel as it is but “reuse” and “repurpose” it while relying on another form of material: the things he encountered in his research in the slums. It could then be concluded that in the matter of production, the film, as the end result of the remediation process, connects directly to the ‘real’ slums of India not only from the content of the novel but from the second layer of the text: the screenplay. Moreover, to make the experience even more “authentic,” the film, in its production stage, uses the ‘real’ life actors and ‘real’ setting strategy. This discussion of the production stage of the film is an introduction on how, since a very early stage of the process of remediation, the texts are striving to capture the physical reality of slums in Mumbai and re-present it on the text, either the novel, screenplay or film, so that it can be considered as close as possible to the ‘real’ thing.

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“remediation.” Therefore, in comparing and contrasting the three layers of texts, the research will mainly focus on how the medium of a film “remediates” the content of the novel and screenplay into the style and form of a film. I have narrowed down the analysis of the “remediation” from one medium to another into two things: the content and the style/form. The difference and similarities of the film from the previous mediums, mainly the novel, reflect the choices made by the makers.

2.1.1. Remediating the Content and Narrative Elements

In this part of the analysis, the focus will be on how the content and narrative elements from the older medium are translated into the screen play and then to the film. The first part will be on the remediation of the content. I have chosen four subjects to narrow down the discussion of the content. These four subjects are chosen because they represent the choices made in the remediation process that reflect how the new medium create a sense of “authentic” experience by drawing the content as close as possible to the physical reality of slums in Mumbai. The chosen subjects are Hindi cinema, the game show, child trafficking and religion.

Bollywood or Hindi Cinema11 is one of the most important parts of the people’s life in Mumbai. The term Bollywood itself derived form the word Bombay (the former name of Mumbai) and Hollywood, so the word basically means a film industry based in the city of Mumbai that is often compared to Hollywood. With a loyal follower in India and all over the world, both from the Indian diasporic community and also non-Indian viewers, Hindi cinema has strived to exist as a film industry since “The first Indian film show was held on July 7, 1896” (Gokulsing, 13) which was not long after the Lumière brothers first introduced the art of cinematography in France in 1895. In its development, the Indian film industry has turned into India’s biggest popular culture intoxicating its audience with its massala12 ingredients.

Many scholars have contributed their ideas to the discussion of Hindi cinema. Yash Chopra, one of the most renowned film producers in Hindi cinema, uses the term ‘glamorous realism’ to describe how Hindi films envision reality which is glossed over to make them appear more attractive. Film scholar, Ravi Vasudevan, describes Hindi cinema as “Cinema of Attractions” to emphasize how the repetitive and predictable narratives have become a source of pleasure rather than boredom for the audience. This is one of the reasons why Hindi cinema is so widely popular not only in India but also in other parts of the world. One might question the reason people come to the movies and indulge themselves in the same experience, due to the repetitive format, over and over again. Vijay Mishra, a Hindi cinema scholar, states that Hindi cinema has even transformed into a new religion in India. Audience comes to the movies to worship the actors and actresses as if they are gods and goddesses. In, Mishra’s analyis, Hindi cinema has become India’s “Temple of Desire.” Through its popularity and established narrative structure, Hindi cinema not only reacts toward the social and cultural condition of the society but also reflects it.

Hindi Cinema has millions of fans not only from India but also from all over the world. The non-Indian fans are mostly in the Mideast, Africa and Southeast Asia.

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I would like to use the term Hindi Cinema throughout this research instead of ‘Bollywood’ because many scholars have stated their objections in using the word Bollywood. Rachel Dwyer, a Hindi film scholar, argues that the word reflects a simple mimicry to Hollywood.

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Moroever, “… the South Asian diaspora – some 24 millions strong, relatively affluent and passionate about keeping their culture alive – is a ready made audience” (Power and Mazumdar, 1). Hindi films are exported to more than 100 countries across the world. In India, more than 25 millions go to the ‘Temples of Desire’ to worship the gods and goddesses of the cinema. The diasporic communities all over the world consider these films as their gateway to remember their hometown. As an example, Sukehtu Mehta, a journalist for National Geographic, described how his teenage years in New York was filled with this nostalgia. “I grew up with Bollywood films as a child in Bombay and as a teenager in New York. I remember other immigrants in our building in Jackson Heights tuning in to Channel 47 to watch the Hindi movie show “Vision of Asia.” The Indians sang along to the song” (Mehta, 2). From this quotation, we can see how Hindi films have become a significant element in the life of Indians, not only for those who live in India but also for Indian immigrants all over the world.

To capture this significant element, that is Hindi Cinema, in the three texts, seem to be unavoidable. In other words, if one wants to depict life in Mumbai, Bollywood or Hindi Cinema is one element that has to be induced. The three texts strategically use Hindi Cinema as a direct connection to ‘real’ life in Mumbai. However, the proportion and how the texts incorporate this aspect are quite different.

There are several parts of the novel that capture the magnitude of Hindi Cinema in the lives of the main character. Salim, the main character’s best friend, is a big fan of Armaan Ali, a fictional popular actor in Hindi Cinema. Vikas Swarup dedicated a whole chapter to depict Salim’s fascination to this actor. In this chapter, Ram, the main character, was explaining how he was able to answer the 1.000 rupee question: “Can you name the blockbusting film in which Armaan Ali starred with Priya Kapoor for the first time. Was it A) Fire, B) Hero, C) Hunger, or D) Betrayal?” (Swarup, 47). One story from this chapter was about Ram and Jamal, who were watching that first film of Armaan Ali and Priya Kapoor in the movies. Moreover, another chapter tells a story about how Ram works for an actress Neelima Kumari.

In the novel, Swarup uses fictional actors and actresses instead of using real ones. Armaan Ali, Priya Kapoor and Neelima Kumari are all fictional names. However, parts of the names are quite familiar in Hindi Cinema. Indian readers will definitely identify the connection between these fictional names with several renowned actors and actresses in Hindi Cinema such as Saif-Ali-Khan, Somi Ali, Priyanka Chopra or Kareena Kapoor. The fact that the novel uses fictional actors and actresses could be contrasted with how the film uses ‘real’ ones to capture the importance of Hindi Cinema in the lives of the main character.

Instead of using fictional actors or actresses, the film uses the biggest name in Hindi Cinema as its way to closely relate the content of the film with the magnitude of this cinema. The novelty scene of the film, which is a scene when Jamal, the name of the main character in the film, was using the public lavatory and suddenly a helicopter flew into the slums area. It turned out to be that Amitabh Bachchan13 was visiting the slums. Salim locked Jamal in the lavatory, so Jamal had to get out from the public

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lavatory by jumping to the pile of human waste as a way to get out of the public lavatory just because he wanted to ask for Amitabh Bhachan’s autograph. This scene is definitely a memorable one especially the image of Jamal completely covered in human waste running to the field to meet his idol.

In the process of remediation, the film captures this specific theme in a more ‘realistic’ way compared to the novel. The novel uses fictional actors and actresses even though it still puts these fictional names in the real context, which is the Hindi Cinema. However, the film uses it by pulling it back as closely as possible to the physical reality of India, or more specifically, of Mumbai. The film uses not only a real actor, but also the most famous name in Indian film industry as its Bollywood element. This way, the film is enhancing the “authentic” experience by integrating Hindi Cinema to its content by emphasizing the importance of this cinema in the lives of the main characters and also by using the image of Amitabh Bachchan to depict it.

The second element in the remediation of the content is the use of the game show in both mediums. In the novel, the name of the game show is “Who will Win a Billion?” When asked why a billion, the producer answered “Would it have been half as interesting if the top prize had been ten thousand instead of a million” (Swarup, 16). The host of the game show in the novel was Prem Kumar, another fictional actor. In India, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” or “Kaun Banega Crorepati” in Hindi is a national obsession and is considered as a mandatory viewing for families all over the country. One magnetism of this game show in India is the host. There have only been two actors from Hindi Cinema that have been chosen to host this show. The first one was Amitabh Bachchan and the second one was Shahrukh Khan. These two names are the biggest names in Hindi Cinema. Shahrukh Khan has even been ‘crowned’ as the King of Bollywood due to his massive popularity in Hindi Cinema.

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Rukh Khan was asked to fill in this role but he turned it down. Even though the film does not use the original host for the game show, by using a real actor from Hindi Cinema who has a parallel popularity with the original host, I would argue that this could be seen as a strategy in creating a sense of “authenticity” in the film.

Another thematic part of the content is about child trafficking, which is captured in both the novel and the film. Ram and Salim, the characters in the novel, were put into a juvenile home and then a man, Maman, took them to a ‘Residential Music School’ near Mumbai. It turned out that the children at that place were taught how to be singing beggars. There were taught songs by Surdas, an Indian blind poet. To make things worse, Maman and his men crippled the children by making them blind so the children could earn more money as blind singing beggars.

The film actually shares significant similarities with the novel in this part of the story. Jamal, the name of the main character in the film, and Salim were also taken by a character named Maman to a place where they were taught to sing and work as beggars. However, the film has a more explicit violent scene. It is the most graphically violent scene of Slumdog Millionaire when a young beggar was drugged and blinded with acid while unconscious. In contrast, the novel does not have such an explicitly violent scene because Ram and Salim managed to escape after they heard Maman talking about crippling one of the children there. In the film, Jamal and Salim ran after seeing it directly with their very own eyes.

How the film chose to depict this part of the content is such a graphically violent scene could also be read as the film’s strategy in mirroring the physical reality as it is. Instead of sugar-coating the cruelty of people like Maman in the vicious world of child trafficking, the film chose to present it as ‘real’ as possible. Audiences are expected to experience the “authentic” severity of this social issue.

The last part of the remediation of the content which will be analyzed is how religion is depicted in both mediums. In the novel, Ram’s, the main character, full name is Ram Mohammad Thomas. This name was actually a compromise between Father Thomas, who was like a father for Ram until he was seven years old after he was left in front of a church when he was a baby. In one part of the novel, two men, Mr. Sharma and Mr Hidayatullah, came to Father Thomas and asked him to give the boy a Hindu and Muslim name because nobody knows what this young boy’s religion is. This scene reflects a constant conflict between the religions in India and how a simple manner of naming an orphan cannot be just a matter of using a Christian name just because he was left in front of a church. Another incident related to the issue of religion in the novel is the Hindu-Muslim riot when Salim was on a bus which was invaded by a Hindu mob.

In the film, religion also has a significant role even though not as much as it is used in the novel. There was also a Hindu-Muslim riot in the film which was the scene where Jamal and Salim’s mother was killed. In the film, both Jamal and Salim were Muslims but this is not an important factor in the main conflict. Religion becomes merely an additional issue in the process of “remediation.” All texts depict it as a part of the people’s lives in Mumbai and they also capture the ongoing conflicts among the existing religions, mostly Hindu and Islam. However, as I have argued previously, religion remains an additional element of the plot line, not a part of the main conflict.

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the other hand, the film is embracing as many ‘real’ aspects as possible so that it could be as close as possible to the physical reality. It is the film’s strategy to emphasize a sense of “immediacy,” which erases the medium of the film itself, so that the viewers can feel as if they are viewing and experiencing the slums directly.

2.1.2. Narrative Elements

After analyzing how the content of the novel is remediated into the screenplay and then into the film, another element that also reflects the strategy used by the new medium in its sense of “immediacy” is the narrative elements. Literary and cinematic media shares both similar and also different narrative aspects. I will focus on two aspects of narratives, which are the character and the motives that build up the conflicts in the three layers of texts.

The first narrative aspect is the character in both the novel and film. In the novel, the main character, Ram, is a ‘hero’ that had strived throughout his childhood to fight for life and at the end ‘rescued’ the heroine, the love of his life, from prostitution. Besides the hero-heroine relationship, there is also the relationship between the hero and his ‘brother.’ Salim, a younger boy whom Ram encountered during his childhood in the juvenile center, had been more than just a friend for Ram because they had been through lots of struggles especially when they shared a small room at the chawl14 “Over time, Salim and I become very good friends. We have many things in common. We are both orphans, with no hope of being ‘restored’” (Swarup, 95). Salim was Ram’s closest person and since both were orphans, Salim had become more like a ‘brother’ for Ram. Why do I emphasize on these two relationships between the hero and the heroine and also between the hero and his ‘brother’? I would like to move into the film and look at how the film remediates this particular narrative aspect of the novel into the cinematic form.

Interestingly, Simon Beaufoy, the scriptwriter, did not only use the same pattern of hero-heroine and hero-brother characterization, but he also enhanced these two relationships in the film. The reason for this choice is closely related to the main conflict of the film. The underlying motive of the main character, Jamal, which will be discussed in details in the next part, is a romantic motive. The whole film is about Jamal’s effort in finding the love of life, Latika, a girl he met when he was seven years old in the slums, and who was separated from him and Salim after all three of them escaped from Maman, the man who crippled street children to become blind beggars. Besides the hero-heroine relationship, Beaufoy also used the character of Salim and “repurpose” this character to bring about a theme of brotherhood in the film. The film’s version of Salim is not just a friend like in the novel. He is Jamal’s older brother who had a more important role in the whole storyline in the film compared to Salim in the novel.

One of the main differences in terms of the characters in the novel and the film is on the main character and also Salim. The most identifiable difference is the name of the main character. In the novel, the main character’s name is Ram Mohammad Thomas and there is one chapter in the novel that explained the significance of this name which has been explained in 2.2.1.. Meanwhile, in the film, the main character’s name is Jamal Malik which does not have any religious implications.

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A chawl (chāḷ) is a type of building found in India. They are often 4 to 5 stories with about 10 to 20

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Moreover, Ram and Jamal have some similar characterizations, but they also have some different ones especially because both mediums, the novel and the film, have a different emphasis. The novel is more like a complete story of Ram’s life from he was a baby until the main event in this novel, the game show. The incidents rounding up the story are parts of Ram’s life that does not really have any connection to one another. The one thing that puts these stories together is that each story tells us, the reader, how Ram was able to answer all of the questions in the game show. On the other hand, Jamal’ story, in the film, is more concise. Beaufoy has chosen important parts of the plot to be remediated in the screenplay while combining with the ideas he got from his field trips to Mumbai. To wrap up the story in the film, Beaufoy has chosen specific motives that connect the series of events happening throughout the film. I will elaborate more about this in the next part of the analysis.

Another character which is depicted differently in the novel and in the film is Salim. As explained previously, Salim is the main character’s best friend in the novel, while in the film, he is the main character’s older brother. Furthermore, Salim’s character in the novel is not as complex as the character in the film and he also did not have a big role in Ram’s life. Since the novel’s plot was more or less formed by fragments of Ram’s life events that eventually lead to the time when he was in the game show, Salim was only in a few fragments. More importantly, Salim in the novel was actually the opposite of Salim in the film because in the novel, he was younger than Ram and their relationship is more on how Ram was being like a big brother for him.

The film’s version of Salim is in contrast to the novel’s version and the characterization is also more complex. His character was developing into a character that would have the tendency to be the villain of the story. In the film, Salim is the opposite of Jamal. Being the naughty boy in the story while Jamal was the good one, Salim grew up to be more interested in the dark side of the life in the slums which eventually led him to live as a gangster. When they wanted to save Latika, it was Salim who shot Latika’s first customer as a prostitute even though Jamal was the one who had the idea of rescuing her. When the two brothers were separated, the reason was because after Salim rescued Latika, he claimed his award by wanting to sleep with her. Jamal was furious at him and this incident broke their brotherhood. Simon Beaufoy pulled out the two characters from the novel and “repurposed” them accordingly for the screenplay and the film.

The most interesting part of the life of Salim in both mediums could be found in the ending which I would read as the mediums’ way of wrapping up the relationship between Ram or Jamal, the main character, and Salim. In the novel, Salim became a successful actor with some help from Ram after he received the prize from the game show.

“Salim has landed the role of a seventeen-year-old college hero in a comedy film directed by Chimpu Dhawan, and these days is busy shooting in Mehboob Studios. He thinks the producer is a man named Mohammad Bhatt, but it is actually me” (Swarup. 360).