Are only 200-odd pages enough to describe the life and work of one of India’s most well-known auteur-directors? That’s the first quibble with this ?authorised? biography of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, but then it is also a fact that like his minimalist films, Adoor is a reluctant speaker. Many years ago, at screenings of two of his best films, Elippathayam (The Rat Trap) and Mukhamukham (Face to Face), at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, fellow director Mrinal Sen did all the talking, with Adoor preferring to let his films talk. So, in that, it’s an achievement on critic Gautaman Bhaskaran’s part to draw out Adoor for a discussion on his life and work. In a brief foreword, Adoor writes: ?Even a detailed and painstakingly written book on an author or artist can fall short of being complete in every respect as there is always scope for further probe and understanding.? The director is happy that the book ?will throw some light on my life and work. And I am happy it does as much.?
Adoor arrived, feet first, during the Quit India Movement, and developed very early in life a ?strong attraction of Gandhian ideology and a fascination for khadi.? He is still seen wearing his trademark khadi kurta. When Gandhi was killed in 1948, Adoor, around seven, was inconsolable. This scene appears in one of Adoor’s best known films, Kathapurushan. What Bhaskaran succeeds in doing is give us little bits and pieces from Adoor’s life and tying it to his celluloid portraits.
Adoor began writing at the age of 10, mostly plays. He loved the theatre and joined the screenplay and direction course at the film institute in Pune hoping to learn more about the art. But, luckily for us, and as Bhaskaran recounts, Adoor discovered cinema, adoring films like Roman Holiday and Come September. ?I never imagined that I would be working in this medium some day,? Adoor tells the biographer. And yet, once he began making films, he took time over it, first starting a film society movement before graduating to ?meaningful? cinema.
For instance, Adoor writes a separate script for sound, we are told. For Kodiyettam, he travelled across Central Travancore ?for nearly three months to capture ‘every bit of sound from the source’.? There are some very interesting chapters, Spinning Wonders and Woes, which gives us a peek into Adoor at Gandhigram, The Sound of Silence, The Other Actors (denizens of the animal and bird kingdom), Documenting the Dramatic?the story of how he crossed all hurdles to make a documentary on the oldest living theatre in the world, a Sanskrit theatre called Koodiyattam is fascinating. And then there are his films. You always counted Elippathayam (The Rat Trap -1981) as one of his best, the story about an ageing, selfish man lording over his two unmarried sisters. In this film too, ?an autobiographical element creeps in.? Adoor is quoted as saying: ?When I shot the film, feudalism was already over. I saw it coming to an end in the 1940s when I was a child. I watched the process of dissolution and reorganisation. But I showed the progression differently in my work.? It could have been a bigger and better book, though there is enough to want and rediscover Adoor’s films?sadly, only two of his films are available on disc?and yes, the choice of photographs needed a bit of imagination. Adoor, the perfectionist, would have expected that.